Vanity: Does ANYBODY actually celebrate Kwanzaa?

[Junior_G]

Personally I'm really in favor of Kwanzaa. It keeps trash like the Clintons out of *MY* Christmas holiday season.

Good point.

[RLK]

Last year at this time, Bush did. Seriously. Ann Coulter wrote an angry column about it that was posted here.

[Junior_G]

I also doubt that there are millions who celebrate it. This is the article that came up in my Kwanzaa search. It estimates 28 million adherents. http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/baby/babyritual/10125.html

[Political Junkie Too]

This cultural, non-religious celebration revolves around the Nguzo Saba ("seven principles" in Swahili)...

What's interesting about this is that Swahili is an East African language, while the African slaves taken to America were from the west coast of Africa. If choosing Swahili was supposed to be a link for African-Americans to Africa the homeland, he chose the wrong coastal language as the basis for his celebration.

-PJ

[FormerlyAnotherLurker]

Ann 'somebody' had a great column on it:

http://www.anncoulter.org/columns/2002/122402.htm

[kcvl]

Should Christians Celebrate Kwanzaa?

This is an interesting look at the original writings of Dr. Maulana Karenga, the creator of Kwanzaa, by Carlotta Morrow. Ms. Morrow set out to discover what she could about Dr. Karenga and his agenda when her sister renounced Christianity as a white-man's religion after joining Dr. Karenga's Black activist group called the US Organization. Her research led to the discovery of a much more militant attitude than she expected, and the discovery of many contradictions between Dr. Karenga's original hard-line writings and his current, more inclusive writings. In his own words, Dr. Karenga shows an anti-Christian attitude by renouncing the Resurrection, heaven, and hell as "Christian myths", and commenting that "[w]hen messenger Muhammad taught that we are Gods and can make history and remake the world in our own image and interests, he set a good example." Christians will find this site enlightening.

[Mo1]

Liberals are absolutely in love with the concept of Kwanzaa as the Black Americans' alternative to Christmas; but do any Black Americans actually celebrate it?

Yes there are Black Americans' that celebrate Kwanzaa

[WasDougsLamb]

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas (just kidding) lol

[Stewart_B]

Ah Festivus....and what kind of festivus would it be without the traditional festivus pole!

[FormerACLUmember]

Forget the notion that Kwanzaa is a holiday for all people. Karenga states that he created it at the height of the black liberation movement as part of a "re-Africanization" process – "a going back to black."

Karenga, still just "Ron Everett" at the time, was heavily involved in the black power movement. He started an organization called US. The letters have nothing to do with "United States" but mean simply "US," as opposed to "THEM."

He dropped the Everett name, adopted the Swahili one, which means "master teacher," shaved his head, and began wearing traditional African clothing. US members, similarly attired, often clashed with other black militant groups such as the Black Panthers. The fighting was about which group would control the new Afro-American Studies Center at UCLA.

There were incidents involving beatings and shootings, including one in 1969 in which two US members shot and killed two Black Panthers. Karenga had other run-ins with the law, including charges that he abused women.

In 1971, he was convicted of assaulting female members of US, and he served time in prison. An LA Times snippet describes the torture of the women as involving a hot soldering iron placed in the mouth of one, while the other's toe was mashed in a vice.

Karenga says that he is the victim; he was quoted in the News: "All the negative charges are in fact disinformation and frame-ups by the FBI and local and national police."

[RichInOC]

I like to say that Kwanzaa took its name from the Swahili phrase for "hey, let's see if we can get black folks to spend as much money on holiday crap as the white folks do".

[GeronL]

28Million??? hahahahha

No way on this planet

[dennisw]

Lunatic Ron Karenga's posse had violent, murderous disputes with the Black Panthers back in the 60s.



http://lists.village.virginia.edu/lists_archive/sixties-l/4235.html
First of all Karenga was not a Panther, he was a member of US which was a nationalist group in LA. US members were convicted of killing two Panthers at UCLA Bunchy Carter and John Huggins. Karenga now teaches at UCSD and is head of the African American Studies (name? ) program. He is also famous for inventing Kawansa which is now popular all over the US as an African American celebration in either Dec. or Jan. Last month while attending the Socialist Scholars Conf in NYC I attended a work shop that only Karenga showed up and the rest of the panel missed so I got to hear him speak for about an hour. AT the end of the panel during the question period I asked him to give me his version of the shoot out at UCLA. I videoed the entire 10-15 min response which I hope to write up at some point. He discussed his version of the history between the Panther and US which I found to be very interesting. He said he was present during the shoot out which was the first that I had heard of that.

[kcvl]

Despite modern perceptions that blend all the black activists of the '60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites. They did not seek armed revolution. Those were the precepts of Karenga's United Slaves. United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, blowing away Black Panthers and adopting invented "African" names. (That was a big help to the black community: How many boys named "Jamal" currently sit on death row?)

Ann Coulter

[dennisw]

I always knew this bozo as Ron Karenga .... none of this Manulama? Manulamer? stuff.

[Stewart_B]

That's about the same number that they claim were eaten by sharks during the slave trading days.

[kcvl]

Thanks!

[GeronL]

in other words, kwanzaa is a made-up celebration of radical black racists-activists created by a total nutjob

[Junior_G]

This has already turned out to be very enlightening. I didn't know the details about Karenga's sketchy history. Here's a frontpage article from last year that I just scraped up: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5251

The guy sounds like a total loon.

[dennisw]

Despite modern perceptions that blend all the black activists of the '60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites........

That's a very wide ranging statement but true in a general sense. They (Panthers) sure wanted to shack up with the white women of the left. Half of all the New Left turmoil and craziness was just about "getting some"