Still, I think it’s fading, at least from the general public’s perception. Used to be, you’d see it on TV stations in Dec when they did their Holiday messages. There would be a generic Christmas symbol, one for Chanukah, and one for Kwanzaa. You don’t see the Kwanzaa one anymore. From wikipedia:
According to University of Minnesota Professor Keith Mayes, the author of Kwanzaa: Black Power and the Making of the African-American Holiday Tradition, the popularity within the US has “leveled off” as the black power movement there has declined, and now between half and two million people celebrate Kwanzaa in the US, or between one and five percent of African Americans.
That is not to say that I don’t appreciate the humor in white folks, every year, asking: What’s the deal with Kwanzaa? WTF do you care?
Lol at the idea Kwanzaa precludes booze because of “earnestness”. And yet we accept that people drink spiked eggnog on the birthday of the most earnest religious figure known to man.
Kwanzaa inhabits a Black cultural space and a lot of white Americans are going to be skeptical towards it because culture is conceived of as an addition to or variation from the “default,” which is whatever white Americans do. Varying from the default without a ‘good’ reason is easy to cast as irrational, and “they’re irrational” is a time-honored justification for control. Kwanzaa was created in living memory and within the US, so it doesn’t get a pass from age or foreignness, and the reasons that Black people give for varying from the ‘default’ in this area are not really respected as ‘good’ reasons (to put it lightly), so it gets made fun of and taken as further proof of… something.
I have some criticisms of how Karenga specifically conceives of Kwanzaa, for example he promotes it as a non-religious culturally pan-African holiday, when that distinction between religious holidays and cultural holidays comes more from European intellectual trends than African ones. But Kwanzaa is something people do because they want to do it (in answer to the OP), it’s promoted to the extent it’s promoted because there are people asking for it, and I don’t know where in America some complainers are living where it constitutes some kind of unwelcome intrusion on their lives. Yeah it sucks to live with other people, but for most of us we have to just deal with it.
Well, that was hilarious. I’ve got to start watching more viral videos. Entered “Kwanzaa” in Google, first thing that came up was this video, then an article about why the video was a) hilarious and b) offensive. In it the writer talks to an expert on Kwanzaa about the video. One of the things the expert said was the only thing that was remotely related to Kwanzaa in the ingredients were the corn nuts Sandra Lee sprinkled around the cake. She also said that she had a centerpiece of Indian corn for every child at the celebration and regarded this as essential.
Well, okay - Kwanzaa means “harvest”. But then I thought “Wait a minute. Indian corn? Kwanzaa’s only 46 years old. She couldn’t think of okra or peanuts or some such to be symbolic at a celebration of African unity?”
I used to celebrate it with a friend of Jamaican ancestry and her son, about 15 years ago when she lived by me. I would just go over her place, have a light meal, light the candle and discuss the principle of the day.
Since I’m Caucasian, I felt a little strange the first few years. But my friend told me that she believed that the principles were universal. I think she also kind of wanted to demonstrate a good world to her son, where we can have differences but not be divided. The principles are so community based that the best way for me to relate to the principles was to think of myself as part of a community of women. I think it was also just a good excuse to hang out with friends.
I believe she still celebrates it. Now with a younger son. But she is now in a place where the schools don’t celebrate it.
Or to put more bluntly, the inordinate and ever-persistent derision heaped upon Kwanzaa by certain white Americans is in keeping with their traditional practice of sneering at black people to inflate their own sense of superiority. It is not a coincidence that the board’s resident “scientific” racialist is among those here decrying Kwanzaa. That is what they do because that’s all they ever do.
Actually it seems to have been appreciated more by terrorist thugs like the Symbionese Liberation Army than conservatives. The seven heads of the SLA snake were symbolic of the seven principles of Kwanzaa. (Cite.)
You know - those heart-warming old family values of unity, collective responsibility, and kidnapping and brainwashing rich white women.
Here in Houston, Project Row Houses is presenting the Kwanzaa Community Market on December 29th. Project Row Houses consists of “shotgun houses” in the Third Ward, turned into an ongoing art/community service project back in the 90’s. (The Wikipedia article is OK but the revolving art projects have been created by artists of all descriptions–and attract fans from all parts of the city.)
The venue is the Eldorado Ballroom–a storied R&B venue that the Row Houses folks help rescue from decay.
What really gets me, is I have been told plenty often, that I shouldn’t be allowed to celebrate Christmas because I am not Christian and don’t believe Christ was the son of any god. BUT, if you try to vary from the Christian religion, people get in arms, too. “Why do you need to work on Christmas Day? Nothing should be open on Xmas day, it’s a holiday! There’s a war on Christmas!”
We can’t win. I go with the majority and celebrate Xmas because everything out there is for Xmas. There isn’t 1 million decorations for Saturnalia or Pagan Winter Holiday or whatever. I just want to put up some freakin lights and brighten the darkness a little like humans have been doing in December since the beginning of time.
Don’t celebrate Christmas, but don’t you dare celebrate Kwanzaa either. WTF? I’m going to start celebrating Kwanzaa just because.
I have never heard anyone say this to anyone.:dubious: Christmas is mostly a secular holiday, and you can celebrate it like Thanksgiving or Halloween or New Years.
Nah, black people have bigger fish to fry than Kwanzaa. I post and/or lurk at three predominately black message boards and ain’t nobody tripping over Kwanzaa enough to start a whiny thread about it every year. I assure you this habit is solely the province of white people with too much time and privilege on their hands.
You should be more careful with language. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear this was saying that most people who celebrate Kwanzaa are terrorist thugs.