A Disturbing "Holiday" Called Kwanzaa

After a five-day hiatus, I am back to the blogosphere. What was I doing during those five days? Celebrating Christmas of course, a holiday steeped in 2,005 years of tradition where we wish peace on earth and good will toward men as we come together to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ with our friends and family. The day after Christmas marks the beginning of another celebration; this one being observed by about 1% of our country's population. That celebration is known as Kwanzaa. I don't know how or why this "holiday" entered our mainstream conscience except as a paean to political correctness. It was simply a matter of too many people being afraid of offending American blacks regarding their new "holiday" no matter how ridiculous it is. Kwanzaa always reminds me of the famous "Festivus" episode from Seinfeld where Kramer and Mr. Costanza come up with their own holiday.

Some of you might dismiss me as a stick in the mud. You might be thinking, "C'mon Chanman, just let them celebrate whatever holiday they want to and get over it." Allow me to introduce you to the problems I have with the "holiday" called Kwanzaa:

1. The holiday's creator - His name is Ron "Maulana" Karenga. He is currently a professor of Black Studies at Cal State Long Beach. I was reading a Sacramento Bee article about Kwanzaa the other day, and that is as detailed as the reporter got about Mr. Karenga. What the reporter forgot to include was that Mr. Karenga is an avowed Marxist, a black racist, and most importantly, a violent felon. He created Kwanzaa during the beginning of the Black Power movement in 1966 as an obvious move to further separate and alienate blacks from whites. In the late 1960s, Karenga decided that the Black Panthers were not violent or ideological enough, so he created an even more psychotic organization known as United Slaves. Eventually, U.S. and the B.P.P. fought for control of the newly created Black Studies department at UCLA, and some U.S. members ended up shooting and killing two B.P.P. members on the UCLA campus. How's that for peace on earth and good will toward men? It gets better; in 1971, Ron Karenga himself was convicted and sent to prison for the torture of two female members of United Slaves. Among other things, he put a hot soldering iron into the mouth of one woman, crushed the other woman's toe in a vice, and forced water and detergent down both of their throats with a hose. I wonder how many observers of Kwanzaa know this about the person who created the holiday?

2. Kwanzaa is based on seven principles; among these are "collective work" and "cooperative economics". Essentially, Kwanzaa is a celebration of Communism and Socialism. Ask a citizen of Ukraine what he thinks of "collective work" as Ukranian farmers in the early 1930s were forced by Stalin to give up their farms and work collectively or they would be shot or starved to death. Ask any Chinese old enough to remember the collective work farms under Mao that led to the starvation death of tens of millions of Chinese. And cooperative economics? I have the perfect example for you from the Kwanzaa article in the Sacramento Bee Metro Section on page B1 in their issue for 12/26/2005. One black woman who celebrates Kwanzaa was quoted as saying that she observes the principles of Kwanzaa all year. The example she gave was that when it was time for her to buy a used car not long ago, she made sure to only patronize black-owned car dealerships in her car search. Now of course she has every right to do that, but let's think of the implications of that for a sec. What if I told you that I was only going to patronize white-owned car dealerships in my search for a car? Would that fly? Of course not. I would be considered a bigot, just as this woman should be. How about looking for the best deal you can get, regardless of the skin color of the person(s) who owns the establishment?

3. The language of Kwanzaa - The word "Kwanzaa" is Swahili for "First Fruits". The African names for the seven principles of Kwanzaa are also Swahili. Africa, we have a problem. The vast majority of black Americans are of West African descent. Swahili is an East African language. To impress upon you the absurdity of this, author Paul Mulshine gives a great example by asking you to imagine the Irish celebrating St. Patrick's Day by speaking Polish. It makes no sense, and neither does using Swahili as the basis for Kwanzaa when very few black Americans can trace their roots to east Africa.

I have given my two bits on this subject, but for more in-depth analysis, I strongly advise you to read Paul Mulshine's 2002 article, Happy Kwanzaa, or read this post by black female lawyer and well-known blogger, La Shawn Barber.

Good Kwanzaa to You, Sir