Vanity: Does ANYBODY actually celebrate Kwanzaa?

[Xenalyte]

I just LOVE Glenn Beck. Pat Gray, who does a morning AM talk show here, used to be Glenn's partner, and they have very similar senses of humor. Hey, Bacon, RamaHanaKwanzaMas ping!

[Lazamataz]

I couldn't remember the lyrics so I made some of them up.

[hardhead]

Remember in 'Miracle on 34th Street' where the lawyer dumped the mail on the judge's desk addressed to Santa Claus, and the judge declared Santa was real because the United States Postal Service recognized him as such?

Well, my dear friends, our present day United States Postal Service has issued a Kwanzaa stamp. Ergo, it must be a real holiday! (out damn sarcasm, out I say)

[tcuoohjohn]

Sure they do...we call it Thanksgiving. Kwanzaa is just a late comer to the harvest festival tradition with a bit of African twang to it.

If you go to Britain they don't have Thanksgiving but something very much like it.In Britain churches celebrate harvest festivals when the wheat has been cut and the apples have been picked. The churches are decorated in flowers and greenery. Fruit and vegetables are also put on display, with a loaf of bread in the middle. Sometimes a plough might be bought into the church for blessing so as the next years harvesting will be plentiful.

In Britain a corn dolly is created by plaiting the wheat stalks to create a straw figure. The corn dolly is kept until the Spring. This was done as people believed that the corn spirit lived in the wheat and as the wheat was harvested, the spirit fled to the wheat which remained. By creating the dolly the spirit is kept alive for the next year and for the new crop. Sometimes these dollies are hung up in the barn or sometimes in the farmhouse or even in the church. In Spring the dolly would be ploughed back into the soil. There are many types of corn dolly. Kwanzaa merely echoes the harvest festival.

It underscores the pagan roots to all our religious rituals.

[cyborg]

Why celebrate something made up for reasons that are completely against this country's principles? It's very communist in essence. You're welcome to do whatever you want, but there are better things to do.

[cyborg]

I bet you hollered back :-)

[AnAmericanMother]

But what is harvested in late December? That's no "first fruits" - in Britain that comes right after the reaping, usually in October (but earlier the farther north you go).

Aside from any supposed "pagan" associations, we have direct evidence that ol' Ronnie Karenga made this up out of whole cloth. Doubtless he used any pagan stuff that he heard about or read of, just like that fraud Gardner made up Wicca . . . but at least Gardner was just trying to get a date, not foment Marxist nonsense ...

[tcuoohjohn]

Well if you recall Most of Subsaharan Africa is a subtropical or tropical region and the harvests occur somewhat later than temperate regions.

As to the political agenda of Kwanzaa I leave that to your judgement. The harvest festival is a ubiquitous phenomenon among most cultures and I make no distinctions among them. I have seen them in Korea, Vietnam, Europe, South America and elsewhere. I see little harm in them and they are quasi-religious in nature. There is little correlation between harvest festivals and robbing banks or engaging in rape and pillage that I know of. Though I would gladly entertain any compelling data that you have on the matter.

While Karenga may have made his Kwanza festival out of whole cloth the tradition of harvest festivals is as prevalent in Africa as it is everywhere else. Whatever Karenga's political objective is or was has been subsumed by the general notion of a harvest festival that is particular to those of African heritage.

I don't begrudge any culture or people their Harvest rituals, however contrived or preposterous in my view,simply because they aren't my view and my culture.

I see no harm in it.. I have my own harvest festival called Thanksgiving. As a mackeral snapper of long lineage we add our twang to the event. That is as it should be.

[tcuoohjohn]

Well if you recall Most of Subsaharan Africa is a subtropical or tropical region and the harvests occur somewhat later than temperate regions.

As to the political agenda of Kwanzaa I leave that to your judgement. The harvest festival is a ubiquitous phenomenon among most cultures and I make no distinctions among them. I have seen them in Korea, Vietnam, Europe, South America and elsewhere. I see little harm in them and they are quasi-religious in nature. There is little correlation between harvest festivals and robbing banks or engaging in rape and pillage that I know of. Though I would gladly entertain any compelling data that you have on the matter.

While Karenga may have made his Kwanza festival out of whole cloth the tradition of harvest festivals is as prevalent in Africa as it is everywhere else. Whatever Karenga's political objective is or was has been subsumed by the general notion of a harvest festival that is particular to those of African heritage.

I don't begrudge any culture or people their Harvest rituals, however contrived or preposterous in my view,simply because they aren't my view and my culture.

I see no harm in it.. I have my own harvest festival called Thanksgiving. As a mackeral snapper of long lineage we add our twang to the event. That is as it should be.

[AnAmericanMother]

If it were just a harvest festival I would absolutely agree with you, and place it with the vicar and the ladies in white gloves lugging vegetable marrows and sheaves of damp wheat into the narthex.

But the "harvest festival" aspect is simply a stick upon which much frankly Marxist and collectivist doctrine is hung, and that was plainly Karenga's motivation in creating the holiday. THAT is not harmless, and not something that should be encouraged.

[tcuoohjohn]

Karenga's motivation and the end result are very different however. As to collectivism the same charge could be levelled at Christmas or Thanksqiving and will little or no real impact. Kindness and the spirit of giving and sharing could always be deemed " collectivist" and " Marxist" if one chooses. The distinction is the voluntariness of the acts. I see no coercion in Kwanzaa and if I did I would most assuredly oppose it. It is a voluntary festival/ ritual little different from any other harvest festival activities.

I just looked up the quasi-liturgical aspects of the Kwanzaa festival and see no compelling "marxist or collectivist" reasoning anymore than I see it in the "blessing of the animals" at Saint Matthews Parish In Jacksonville. I can tell you that my dog isn't annoyed at it..just a bit bewildered.

[AnAmericanMother]

How about "The Pledge" - straight from Marcus Garvey, BTW:

WE PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE RED, BLACK, AND GREEN, OUR FLAG, THE SYMBOL OF OUR ETERNAL STRUGGLE, AND TO THE LAND WE MUST OBTAIN; ONE NATION OF BLACK PEOPLE, WITH ONE GOD OF US ALL, TOTALLY UNITED IN THE STRUGGLE, FOR BLACK LOVE, BLACK FREEDOM, AND BLACK SELF-DETERMINATION

If that's a "harvest festival", I'm the Queen of Sheba.

[Focault's Pendulum]

I just signed up for FR after lurking for years.

Welcome aboard. You're doomed.

[tcuoohjohn]

Well...Ya Know..That may have been Karenga's desire but he failed. I have attended Kwanzaa festivals on three occasions and never heard such a Marcus Garvey Pledge. Now perhaps my hosts, an civil engineer and a school teacher cleverly deleted the diabolical marxist-collectivist rant from the rituals with the intent of later dancing arround a tricolor flag with AK-47's and machetes but I kinda doubt it. The current Kwanzaa liturgical forms don't contain that either. Now I suspect that there may be those who would wish to turn Kwanzaa into a political ritual both on the right and the left. They have both failed fortunately.

[cyborg]

Some people just don't get it do they?

[hellinahandcart]

I just signed up for FR after lurking for years.

Sheesh, I don't know how you lurkers do it. I found this forum in October of 2000. I held out for, oh, maybe three whole days before I started posting.

Welcome aboard.

[cyborg]

Five minutes, and I was already in a fight.

[hellinahandcart]

I signed up right before Election 2000 and this place was way intimidating back then. I'd never seen flame wars like that,before or since (apparently there were still a lot of hurt feelings from the Republican primary).

And the funny thing is, according to the old timers, I missed the really BIG flame wars in '98 or '99. Hoo boy, I can't imagine.

But it was the election after all, and I felt like the only conservative in New York City, and I had plenty to say. I couldn't help myself. Then came election day, and we were all in hell together for about 36 days...I don't think people had the presence of mind to notice I was a newbie, that's how grim things were here...

[cyborg]

I missed those too. I wasn't on FR either when FR wasn't that moderated, and the whole situation with Klintoon. The closest thing I've seen was the CA Recall with Ah-noldites and Tombots.

[hellinahandcart]

Yep. The only blacks I've ever seen celebrating Kwaanza have been on the human interest part of the TV news.

I was under the impression that most Kwanzaa celebrations were arranged by stocky white lesbians at Unitarian churches. ;D