Fewer African-Americans are observing Kwanzaa - why?

Philadelphia Daily News ^ | Dec. 21, 2010 | Jenice Armstrong

[texmexis best]

Because Jews have not yet written happy songs for Kwanzaa.

[Free Vulcan]

Maybe because Festivus is more of a real holiday than Kwanzaa?

[bvw]

Spot on!

She looks so entranced with the holiday!

Wonder if she knows it was based on central African religious rituals that included the ritual rape and cannibalism of captives from enemy tribes and settlers included white females and little children like those in her classroom.

[Vendome]

Because it is not a universal holiday for all mankind to participate in and blacks can spot a scam just like anyone else.

Besides, it’s stupid.

[TruthHound]

Kwanzaa=a collective finger poked in the eye of Whitey.

Straight up racism.

[wetgundog]

Kawanzza is Bullsh*t in Kenyan

[Dallas59]

HAPPY KWANZAA!



On December 24, 1971, the New York Times ran one of the first of many articles on a new holiday designed to foster unity among African Americans. The holiday, called Kwanzaa, was applauded by a certain sixteen-year-old minister who explained that the feast would perform the valuable service of "de-whitizing" Christmas. The minister was a nobody at the time but he would later go on to become perhaps the premier race-baiter of the twentieth century. His name was Al Sharpton and he would later spawn the Tawana Brawley hoax and then incite anti-Jewish tensions in a 1995 incident that ended with the arson deaths of seven people.

Great minds think alike. The inventor of the holiday was one of the few black "leaders" in America even worse than Sharpton. But there was no mention in the Times article of this man or of the fact that at that very moment he was sitting in a California prison. And there was no mention of the curious fact that this purported benefactor of the black people had founded an organization that in its short history tortured and murdered blacks in ways of which the Ku Klux Klan could only fantasize.

It was in newspaper articles like that, repeated in papers all over the country, that the tradition of Kwanzaa began. It is a tradition not out of Africa but out of Orwell. Both history and language have been bent to serve a political goal. When that New York Times article appeared, Ron Karenga's crimes were still recent events. If the reporter had bothered to do any research into the background of the Kwanzaa founder, he might have learned about Karenga's trial earlier that year on charges of torturing two women who were members of US (United Slaves), a black nationalist cult he had founded.

A May 14, 1971, article in the Los Angeles Times described the testimony of one of them: "Deborah Jones, who once was given the Swahili title of an African queen, said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Miss Davis' mouth and placed against Miss Davis' face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vise. Karenga, head of US, also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said."

Back then, it was relatively easy to get information on the trial. Now it's almost impossible. It took me two days' work to find articles about it. The Los Angeles Times seems to have been the only major newspaper that reported it and the stories were buried deep in the paper, which now is available only on microfilm. And the microfilm index doesn't start until 1972, so it is almost impossible to find the three small articles that cover Karenga's trial and conviction on charges of torture. That is fortunate for Karenga. The trial showed him to be not just brutal, but deranged. He and three members of his cult had tortured the women in an attempt to find some nonexistent "crystals" of poison. Karenga thought his enemies were out to get him.

And in another lucky break for Karenga, the trial transcript no longer exists. I filed a request for it with the Superior Court of Los Angeles. After a search, the court clerk could find no record of the trial. So the exact words of the black woman who had a hot soldering iron pressed against her face by the man who founded Kwanzaa are now lost to history. The only document the court clerk did find was particularly revealing, however. It was a transcript of Karenga's sentencing hearing on Sept. 17, 1971.

A key issue was whether Karenga was sane. Judge Arthur L. Alarcon read from a psychiatrist's report: "Since his admission here he has been isolated and has been exhibiting bizarre behavior, such as staring at the wall, talking to imaginary persons, claiming that he was attacked by dive-bombers and that his attorney was in the next cell. … During part of the interview he would look around as if reacting to hallucination and when the examiner walked away for a moment he began a conversation with a blanket located on his bed, stating that there was someone there and implying indirectly that the 'someone' was a woman imprisoned with him for some offense. This man now presents a picture which can be considered both paranoid and schizophrenic with hallucinations and elusions, inappropriate affect, disorganization, and impaired contact with the environment."

The founder of Kwanzaa paranoid? It seems so. But as the old saying goes, just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean that someone isn't out to get you.

ACCORDING TO COURT DOCUMENTS, Karenga's real name is Ron N. Everett. In the '60s, he awarded himself the title "maulana," Swahili for "master teacher." He was born on a poultry farm in Maryland, the fourteenth child of a Baptist minister. He came to California in the late 1950s to attend Los Angeles Community College. He moved on to UCLA, where he got a Master's degree in political science and African Studies. By the mid-1960s, he had established himself as a leading "cultural nationalist." That is a term that had some meaning in the '60s, mainly as a way of distinguishing Karenga's followers from the Black Panthers, who were conventional Marxists.

[ArrogantBustard]

Kwanzaa has never caught on with the majority of black Americans.

Because they're not stupid enough to fall for that bogus communist crap?

[FrdmLvr]

This makes me laugh! SO TRUE!

[reg45]

Because more and more of them are realizing that it is a totally bogus, made-up festival.

[ArrogantBustard]

Kujichagulia

Yeah, I had that once. Doc gave me mega-doses of tetracycline and cleared it right up.

[Cementjungle]

In order to celebrate Kwanza one needs to study Ebonics, and that’s too much trouble.

[bboop]

Why? Because we are farther and farther away from the 60s. Praise be to God.

[LadyDoc]

yes. No one in Africa ever heard of it.

[paulycy]

Fewer African-Americans are observing Kwanzaa - why?

Because they're embarrassed of it.

[righttackle44]

I haven’t seen a Chia pet in awhile, either. What’s up
with that?

I haven't been keeping up. The latest Chia pets are presi-
dents: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and--I kid
you not--Obama.

It would creep me out to see a green Barack Obama.

[wac3rd]

Jenice is a nice Amish name.

[Surrounded_too]

Obama is not Green or Black. He’s Commie-Red.

Where is the Ghetto Justice for the torturer?

[Dacus943]

"Because it’s bogus?"

Yeah! Because it's bogus, and you have to work at it!

[TNCMAXQ]

Aren’t most black Americans Christian? So they celebrate Christmas. So why make up another fake holiday for them? So ridiculous.