U. NE Omaha celebrates Kwanza ("It's important to get away from fat white man bringing gifts")

During the holiday season, many people are so busy rushing around worrying about buying gifts, getting the best deal and running over anyone in their path that they tend to forget what they are celebrating.

On Thursday, UNO hosted its ninth annual Kwanzaa luncheon in the Milo Bail Student Center Ballroom.

Keynote speaker Saidi J. Liwaru stressed the importance of Kwanzaa as an African American holiday as well as a Pan-African holiday. Kwanzaa is a time for knowing one's roots while bettering one's culture.

Liwaru is the host of the Real Solutions television program. He said that the timing of Kwanzaa -Dec. 26 through Jan. 1- is the perfect time to connect and look what is going on around in one's environment.

It is important, "to get away from the belief of a fat white man bringing gifts to poor kids in the ghetto," Liwaru said. "Parents are lying to their kids. We're thinking of gifts. We're thinking of snow and ho-ho-ho, but (we need to get away from that). When you're celebrating Kwanzaa, you start to think of buying this child a gift that would better represent black culture."

A relatively young holiday, Kwanzaa was created in 1966 while in of the midst of African liberation and is celebrated by millions throughout the world. Its purpose is to reaffirm the community vision and values of African culture while bettering the lives of Africans. It begins with Africans in America, expanding into the global African community.

Kwanzaa comes from the philosophy of Kawaida, a cultural nationalist philosophy that argues that Africans must bring forth the best of their culture to be models of human excellence, enriching and expanding the lives of their people.

One of the misconceptions of Kwanzaa is that people must chose between Kwanzaa, Christmas and Chanukah during the season. It is very possible to celebrate Kwanzaa and Christmas at the same time. Much like one would celebrate St. Patrick's Day -an Irish cultural holiday- during Lent, one can celebrate Kwanzaa and Christmas.

Other people can celebrate it as embracing another culture. While it is focused on African and African American enrichment, Kwanzaa can benefit all people by showcasing its culture to those who do not know much about it. Just as there are large celebrations for Cinco de Mayo with many non-Mexicans, Kwanzaa is open to be appreciated by other cultures as well. There are rituals to Kwanzaa that are not meant for an audience, but rather its designated celebrants.

The holiday has a message for all peoples, but it is deeply rooted in African culture, speaking to the world.

A line from www.TheOfficialKwanzaaWebsite.com said, "Any particular message that is good for a particular people, it is human in its content and ethical in its grounding, speaks not just to that people, it speaks to the world."

The term Kwanzaa comes from the phrase, "matunda ya kwanza" which means "first fruits."

On the seventh day of Kwanzaa, -Jan. 1- a time of reflection is had. It is period of self-reflection and a recommitment to the highest cultural values in a special way. Following in the tradition, it is then time to ask and answer, soberly and humbly the three Kawaida questions: Who am I; am I really who I say I am; and am I all I ought to be?

Kwanzaa is filled with a great deal of symbolism and deep cultural connection that can only be had by seeking more information.

Liwaru is the father of Sharif Z. Liwaru, the Cultural Awareness Adviser for the Student Organizations and Leadership Programs Office. Sharif gave the opening remarks for the lunch. Jeff Epting was the host of the event. Epting is the Social Action Chair of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc.

After the keynote address, a somewhat culturally diverse audience of nearly 50 people enjoyed a meal of fried chicken, greens, cornbread, pumpkin pie and macaroni and cheese.

Following the meal, a candle lighting ceremony took place representative of Kwanzaa's seven principles: unity; self-determination; collective work and responsibility; cooperative economics; purpose; creativity; and faith.

Sharif Liwaru closed the event that brought unity amongst the African American community and allowed those of non-Africans decent a chance to learn a different culture.

A blast from the past.

Kwanzaa: holiday from the FBI

Culture/Society Miscellaneous Keywords: FORMAL PRESIDENTIAL PROCLAMATION
Source: Townhall.com
Published: January 1, 2001 Author: Ann Coulter
Posted on 01/01/2001 16:34:36 PST by Rocco
Earlier this week, President Clinton issued a formal White House proclamation celebrating the first day of Kwanzaa. His announcement began with some claptrap about preserving "what we value of our past," and Kwanzaa being a "wonderful example" with its "focus on the values that have sustained African-Americans through the centuries."

Except for the small historical detail that Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 amidst the madness of the multicultural '60s by a black radical stooge of the FBI, Ron Karenga, a.k.a. Dr. Maulana Karenga. Karenga was a founder of United Slaves, a violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers and a dupe of the FBI.

In what was probably ultimately a foolish gamble, during the violent '60s, the FBI encouraged the most offensive black nationalist organizations in order both to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the organization, the better. Karenga's United Slaves was perfect. Despite public perception blending the black activists of the '60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites and did not seek armed revolution. That was the trope of Karenga's United Slaves. In the annals of the American '60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police.

Whether Karenga was a willing dupe, or just a dupe, remains unclear. Interestingly though, in an 1995 interview with Ethnic NewsWatch, Karenga matter-of-factly explained that the forces out to get O.J. Simpson for the "framed" murder of two whites included: "the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, Interpol, the Chicago Police Department" and so on. (He further noted that "the evidence was not strong enough to prohibit or eliminate unreasonable doubt" -- an interesting standard of proof.) Karenga should know about FBI infiltration.

Also, in the category of the-gentleman-doth-protest-too-much, back in the '70s, Nigerian newspapers were claiming that many American black radicals were CIA operatives. Karenga leapt in to denounce the idea publicly, saying, "Africans must stop generalizing about the loyalties and motives of Afro-Americans, including the widespread suspicion of black Americans being CIA agents."

There is no question now that the FBI fueled the bloody rivalry between the Panthers and United Slaves, leading in one outburst to the shooting of Panther Al "Bunchy" Carter on the UCLA campus by Karenga's United Slaves. Karenga himself served time, a useful stepping-stone for his current position as a black studies professor at California State University at Long Beach.

Kwanzaa itself is a lunatic blend of schmaltzy '60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. Indeed, the seven "principles" of Kwanzaa praise collectivism in every possible arena of life -- economics, work, personality, even litter removal ("Kuumba: Everyone should strive to improve the community and make it more beautiful.") It takes a village to raise a police snitch.

Asked to distinguish Kawaida, the philosophy underlying Kwanzaa, from "classical Marxism" in the 1995 interview, Karenga basically said that under Kawaida, we also hate whites. While taking the "best of" -- I'm not making this up -- "early Chinese and Cuban socialism," Kawaida practitioners believe one's racial identity "determines life conditions, life-chances and self-understanding." There's a happy Horatio Alger story for you.

Coincidentally, the seven principles of Kwanzaa are the very same seven principles of the Symbionese Liberation Army, another charming invention of the Least-Great Generation. In 1974, Patricia Hearst, kidnap victim-cum-SLA revolutionary, posed next to the banner of her alleged captors, a seven-headed cobra. Each snake head stood for one of the SLA's revolutionary principles (and this sounds like Saturday Night Live's send-up of the second presidential debate in which George Bush rattled off an endless series of Nigerian names): Umojo, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba and Imani -- precisely the seven "principles" of Kwanzaa.

With his Kwanzaa greetings, President Clinton is saluting the intellectual sibling of the Symbionese Liberation Army, killer of housewives and police, and the founder of United Slaves, who were such lunatics that they shot Panthers for not being sufficiently violent -- all with the FBI as their covert ally. It's as if David Duke invented a holiday called "Anglica," and the president of the United States issued a presidential proclamation honoring the synthetic holiday. People might well stand up and take notice if that happened.

Liberals have become so mesmerized by the hegemonic multicultural nonsense that they have forgotten the real history -- the violence, the Marxism, the insanity. Most absurdly, for leftists anyway, is that they have forgotten the FBI's tacit encouragement of this murderous black nationalist cult founded by the father of Kwanzaa. 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?)

Now the "holiday" concocted by these violent stormtrooper stooges of the FBI is a "tradition," a celebration of the "value of our past." This is not a tradition. This is a '60s psychosis grafted onto black community, while the Christian leaders at the forefront of the civil rights movement are washed out of the picture.

"Coincidentally, the seven principles of Kwanzaa are the very same seven principles of the Symbionese Liberation Army, another charming invention of the Least-Great Generation."
_______________________________________________________

Bush was correct in pointing out that this new high holy day is a very recent invention. There are few holidays we can actually attribute to one man's vision. Kwanzaa is such a holiday – coined by Ron Karenga in 1966.

Who was Ron Karenga?

Glad you asked.

He is a convicted felon – sentenced five years after inventing Kwanzaa for torturing two black women by whipping them with electrical cords and beating them with a karate baton after stripping them naked. He placed in the mouth of one of the victims a hot soldering iron, also scarring her face with the device. He put one of her big toes in a vise, and detergent and running water in both of their mouths.

But that wasn't the beginning of the bizarre and violent behavior of Karenga, the patron saint of Kwanzaa – not by a long shot.

Just about the time he was dreaming up this new holiday, he was also inventing a new political movement on the campus of UCLA. That movement was called "black cultural nationalism." His group was called United Slaves. And it was defined mainly by violent confrontations with the Black Panthers at UCLA. Two of his followers shot dead two members of the Panthers in 1969.

But no sooner did Karenga get out of prison on the torture charges in 1975 than all was forgotten about his criminal and violent past. He was proclaimed Saint Karenga. Four years later, he was running the Black Studies Department at California State University in Long Beach.

How did he get that job in academia with his record?

Glad you asked again.

Paul Mulshine, who has done an admirable job of chronicling Karenga's history for FrontPagemag.com, has a theory.

Karenga had a jailhouse conversion.

No, he did not become a born-again Christian. He did not renounce violence. He did not even repudiate his past. But he did become a Marxist.

And, while becoming a Christian might have disqualified him for a role in the world of the modern U.S. university, a conversion to Marxism was perceived as a sign of rehabilitation. The one-time psychopath had seen the light.

In conclusion, I hope this little cultural and history lesson helps you see the light – about Kwanzaa. It's being taught to your kids in your government schools. It's become a commercial bonanza in black communities through the United States. And, now, even the president of the United States is praising it as a legitimate holiday.

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