Kwanzaa: Do We Really Need It?

For perhaps the last thirty years, the day after Christmas has traditionally meant beginning the celebration of an invented holiday called Kwanzaa. African Americans, young and old, celebrate this event with parties and family gatherings, designed to promote the "seven principles of Kwanzaa". The word Kwanzaa, derived from the Swahili words "matunda yakwanza" means "first fruits".

There was a time, not knowing any better; I celebrated this made up event. I suspect that the reason many celebrate Kwanzaa was similar to my own; a yearning for all things authentically black, stemming from an insecurity within my own being. Now I realize that most will not admit to this type of reason for choosing to celebrate Kwanzaa with little investigation into its origin or founder; however, that does not mean the reason for celebrating is less true. There are and have been many things I fail to admit about myself which are factually accurate and true nonetheless.

Kwanzaa is the "brain-child" of a man known by the name Ronald McKinley Everett, aka Dr. Maulana Karenga. Dr. Karenga was the leader of a violent group called "US", which stood for United Slaves. Yes, this is the same group whose members shot and killed two Black Panthers on the campus of UCLA in a struggle to control the newly created Black Studies Department at the university. Everett, known then by that name, was an informant for the FBI. He served time in prison for various crimes, including the torture of BLACK female members of his radical group. Of course, he alleges victim status, categorizing all charges and convictions as the work of local, national and even international law enforcements efforts to silence him, despite the evidence that included victim testimony.

With most violent black radicals from the sixties, liberal whites practiced the "forgive and employ tactic" in order to "compensate" them for having the courage to forcefully stand up against "the man" when non-violent Christian behavior was not working fast enough. Consequently, in 1979 Dr. Karenga became the chairperson of the Black Studies Department at California State University-Long Beach. What can I say; good work if you can get it.

The examination of Kwanzaa's inventor and his shady past is only one reason this celebration should give every African American who believes in liberty some degree of pause. Karenga's so-called "seven Principles of Kwanzaa" are the same as the seven snakeheads on the logo for the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). Yes, the same heavily armed group that kidnapped Patty Hearst, then robbed a few banks and shot some police. Karenga was not a good person, according to his past record.

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson (a black author and civil rights activist who works to educate American blacks about their own history) terms Kwanzaa the "black anti-Christmas," and says that is why the "celebration" takes place December 26 – January 1. He says, "Kwanzaa is about as "African" as its Parsonsburg, Maryland born (July 14, 1941) inventor". Incidentally, Everett/Karenga makes no effort to hide his fakery. In 1978, he told the Washington Post that: "People think its [African], but it's not. I came up with Kwanzaa because black people in this country wouldn't celebrate it if they knew it was American." Enough said.

Kwanzaa purports to celebrate blackness and Karenga defines this in his seven principles. They are:

• Umoja (unity)—To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
  
• Kujichagulia (self-determination)—To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
  
• Ujima (collective work and responsibility)—To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.
  
• Ujamaa (cooperative economics)—To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
  
• Nia (purpose)—To make our collective vocation the building and development of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
  
• Kuumba (creativity)—To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
  
• Imani (faith)—To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
  

On the surface, these principles appear to be just what back folks need, all good reasons to improve our communities and ourselves. No one could argue the value of these ideas applied to any group of people. However, there was no need to gather these ideas and apply them specifically to black people because the Bible has already done that with the most effective of these ideas. Some of these ideas smack of the "Marxist" designs of Karenga, who is a Marxist. For example, there is a chance that "cooperative economics" could be code for what we now know as the "share the wealth" plan. In addition, his so-called "faith" principle has no mention of God our any cosmic being. Marxism rejects religion as the opiate of the masses.

Our problem is that we seem to need something "black" to follow. For many, the search for truth binds itself to ethnicity. We chime, "If it meets my ethnic standard, then I will consider it truth. If it does not meet that standard, then it cannot be true". The perversion of true Islam by the Nation of Islam and fundamental Islamic terrorists are examples of a dependence on the ethnic truth standard gone wild.

It is heartbreaking that we often look for gimmicks as reasons to grow spiritually and intellectually. For me, Christ is reason enough.

The real tragedy of Kwanzaa is that the retail industry uses this made up day to profit off the desire of black people for authenticity and recognition. As we celebrate our freedom from white slave masters of the past, we welcome the new Master(card) and Visa into our lives. This is why Kwanzaa made the mainstream; it could generate a dollar. However, as we know, profitability has never guaranteed that something is good. After all, illegal drug sales are highly profitable, yet all would likely agree that they are destructive and murderous in nature.

Building the black community and developing a positive future for our young does not require the celebration of a "black" holiday. It requires a retreat to the values that existed before the guilt of white liberals along with the collaboration of the black grievance class resulted in the negative behavior patterns now woven into the fabric of black Americans. The need for black Christians is to lose the fear of affirming their relationship with Christ, and boldly state allegiance to the Word of God as sufficient for all matters of life. If those of us who say we are Christians would simply practice our faith daily, this celebration of Kwanzaa would be as unnecessary as a stop sign on a racetrack.

I choose not to celebrate this holiday for the aforementioned reasons. If you celebrate, then certainly that is your choice, but as for me, and my house, we will choose to live the principles of Christ that call for us to love and relates to all people, and not just to those who look like us.