Does anyone in the US really celebrate Kwanzaa?

[Craig4]

I know it's not celebrated in East Africa nor is any holiday other than Christmas and Boxing Day. I've spent a couple Christmases there and it doesn't come up at all. I don't think there's anything like it in Botswana either but I've never been there over the Christmas holidays. I'm not sure what holiday it's supposed to be recreating but it does not appear to be African.

 

[Delvo]

This is the first paragraph I've ever seen that's actually parseable by the fake speed reading technique.

She...tends to drift...Baptist...calls herself Muslim...Pillars of Islam...Baha'i...deism...sense of community...spiritualism...The Secret...astrology...

Well, you get the picture. Try it yourself, finish it out!

Thank you, sir! The description of her came through loud and clear.

Ha! And I forgot to mention the quest for a physiological justification for fasting, and the vegetarianism by a weird definition of "vegetarian" that isn't vegetarian, and the theory of multiple "prophets" from different places & times & religious movements being equally right & valid while the apparent disagreements among their religious movements come from other people misunderstanding the prophets' universal truth!

If I decide to up and move to South Africa, would I be an American African?

Well, some people have been known to call black people in Africa, who had never left Africa, whose ancestors had never left Africa, "African-American Africans"...

I'm not sure what holiday it's supposed to be recreating but it does not appear to be African.

The guy who invented it didn't claim it was any particular African holiday. He did claim it was a combination of some of the traits of multiple holiday festivals from different African traditions, primarily the ones associated with harvest. He timed it in early winter instead of with our harvest time so that it would compete with Christmas instead of Halloween. (There's no single harvest time in Africa.)

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Why isn't the thread title in ebonics?

Why don't you ax the person who started the thread?

 

[AlBell]

Jeez, seriously?

No one from Oakland posting here?

 

[Caper]

Jeez, seriously?

No not seriously......it's a joke. I love racial humor.... Did you ever watch a comedy central roast?

Though it would be funny if KFC had a big Kwanza promotional week.

 

[Gazpacho]

That was probably Kwanzaa's downfall right there. It's all positive, happy stuff, which paradoxically exists only for the purpose of trying to isolate black people from the others around them, and the only motivation for that is anger, hatred, and resentment.

Kwanzaa exists to teach African-Americans the same love of their ancestral land that exists among Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Jewish Americans and Mexican-Americans, while living in a culture rife with stereotypes and presumptions -- and oh yes, racist "jokes." It has nothing to do with that stuff you said.

 

[AlBell]

No not seriously......it's a joke. I love racial humor.... Did you ever watch a comedy central roast?

Though it would be funny if KFC Popeyes had a big Kwanza promotional week.

ftfy

 

[Jekyll's Guest]

Kwanzaa exists to teach African-Americans the same love of their ancestral land that exists among Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Jewish Americans and Mexican-Americans, while living in a culture rife with stereotypes and presumptions. It has nothing to do with that stuff you said.

Come on, man. 'Ancestral land'? I'm expecting inspirational music to play.

You know what St. Patricks day, Chinese New Year and Christmas have in common? They're inclusive.

Kwanza has all the manufactured neo-pagan BS of modern Druidism, but with the added bonus of being built around the concept of racial exceptionalism.

 

[Gazpacho]

Come on, man. 'Ancestral land'? I'm expecting inspirational music to play.

What's the hangup? Are African-Americans descended from Africans or are they not? Do those groups that I mentioned learn and celebrate their heritage or not?

You know what St. Patricks day, Chinese New Year and Christmas have in common? They're inclusive.

I don't think anyone who celebrates Kwanzaa will fault you for wishing them a happy one. You can even read Karenga's official web site. He doesn't screen visitors.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Kwanzaa exists to teach African-Americans the same love of their ancestral land that exists among Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Jewish Americans and Mexican-Americans, while living in a culture rife with stereotypes and presumptions -- and oh yes, racist "jokes." It has nothing to do with that stuff you said.

Oh puh-leez. My ancestors were from Ireland and Switzerland/Germany. I was never taught to "love" my ancestral land.

Kwanzaa is a PC made up holliday that most black people don't even bother celebrating.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

What's the hangup? Are African-Americans descended from Africans or are they not?

White people are too.

 

[Gazpacho]

White people are too.

You're so gosh darned clever. Must be a white thing.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Yes. I know several families that do.

Look folks! See what slipped in under the wire?

Redtail seems to know some people who celebrate the holiday. What salient factor in Redtail's life might make his experience different from yours? Why, yes. He's black.

I raised a daughter on Sesame Street. No, not just the TV show. My block in Alphabet City was every shade of black, brown, yellow, and even white that you can imagine. We had not less than a dozen families on that block alone who celebrated Kwanzaa.

And guess what else? They were inclusionary. I was invited over for several evenings with friends. It's meant for family, but as with Christmas, close friends are included. My daughter spent one or another Kwanzaa celebration with her black friends (and another with a Jewish friend and on other nights they'd come over to our place and do Christmasy things).

Threads like these always remind me of a cartoon I've mentioned before, but cannot locate. Two bankers types in 3 piece suits in the club car of a commuter train reading newspapers. One of them looks up to the waiter, who's dressed like the Cream of Wheat guy in starched whites, and says, "Tell me Charles. What do you make of this Black Power thing?"

Fried chicken! Ha ha ha! That's a good 'un Clem! Ebonics! Har har har! Why is it I feel like some of you aren't far removed from bib overalls and chewing tobacco, sometimes?

 

[AlBell]

Look folks! See what slipped in under the wire?

Redtail seems to know some people who celebrate the holiday. What salient factor in Redtail's life might make his experience different from yours? Why, yes. He's black.

I raised a daughter on Sesame Street. No, not just the TV show. My block in Alphabet City was every shade of black, brown, yellow, and even white that you can imagine. We had not less than a dozen families on that block alone who celebrated Kwanzaa.

And guess what else? They were inclusionary. I was invited over for several evenings with friends. It's meant for family, but as with Christmas, close friends are included. My daughter spent one or another Kwanzaa celebration with her black friends (and another with a Jewish friend and on other nights they'd come over to our place and do Christmasy things).

Glad it works for you & yours.

Threads like these always remind me of a cartoon I've mentioned before, but cannot locate. Two bankers types in 3 piece suits in the club car of a commuter train reading newspapers. One of them looks up to the waiter, who's dressed like the Cream of Wheat guy in starched whites, and says, "Tell me Charles. What do you make of this Black Power thing?"

Fried chicken! Ha ha ha! That's a good 'un Clem! Ebonics! Har har har! Why is it I feel like some of you aren't far removed from bib overalls and chewing tobacco, sometimes?

"Racist" must still carry a sting on college campuses and in companies with HR departments. Elsewhere, not so much.

As to chewin' tobaccy & bib overalls ... ROFL. Is that the best you got?

 

[Foolmewunz]

Glad it works for you & yours.

Works for a whole bunch of people, Al. There's a whole big world out there that's not really like the Donna Reed Show family. Get used to it.

"Racist" must still carry a sting on college campuses and in companies with HR departments. Elsewhere, not so much.

Well, not so much on the internet where you're nice and safe and sound in the glow of your monitor, but in the real world it sure does. Take a walk down to the center of any city and stand on a corner and educate the locals as to how you think Ebonics be funny and that everbody ought to go over to Popeye's and have some nice fried chicken for Kwanzaa.

Please. And be sure to video tape it. Otherwise you're just another fat-mouth conservative spewing nastiness on the internet. (As is your right and I will defend that right. Just as I will defend my right to call you out on it.)

As to chewin' tobaccy & bib overalls ... ROFL. Is that the best you got?

If the clodhoppers fit....

 

[mhaze]

What's the hangup? Are African-Americans descended from Africans or are they not? Do those groups that I mentioned learn and celebrate their heritage or not?


I don't think anyone who celebrates Kwanzaa will fault you for wishing them a happy one. You can even read Karenga's official web site. He doesn't screen visitors.

What you are talking about is some sort of politically correct meaningless phrases.

You want to talk about the development of the Zulu nation, go right ahead. That's a very specific issue.

I have an idea that I don't need you, or your preferred sources, "teaching" me or anyone else, about "learning how to celebrate our heritage".

It's the age of the internet, by the way. I sort of lean toward thinking that this made up, bs "holiday" is the surface of a bunch of political issues. Could that be true?

Well, let's take a look at the guy that started it. Maulana Karenga. Nice guy, right? Interested in spreading the faith, helping people celebrate their heritage?

He'd get butt kicked out of my house, along with his "philosophy", and his "holiday".

One of the victims gave testimony of how Karenga and other men tortured her and another woman. The woman claimed to have been stripped and beaten with an electrical cord. Karenga's former wife, Brenda Lorraine Karenga, testified that he sat on the other woman’s stomach while another man forced water into her mouth through a hose.

A May 14, 1971, article in the Los Angeles Times described the testimony of one of the women:

"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. They also were hit on the heads with toasters."​

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maulana_Karenga#Conviction_for_assault

 

[fuelair]

Every time I learn a new bit of trivia about Japan, I find myself wondering if nuking Japan is what made it this way, or if nuking Japan saved the world from what might have been. Every. Single. Time.

This is not a racialist commentary, it is a culturalist commentary. It seems to me that Japanese culture is normal and orthogonal to the mainstream of globalized culture.

Amazingly, there are some people on these fora who do not understand the difference between racial and cultural and seem to believe them fully interchangeable. I know that is hard to believe, but I have observed this amazing level of ignorance and incompetence even in threads over the last two weeks or so.

My best guess is some are under the impression that culture is a code word for race. Fortunately, most of us are not incompetant fools and recognize the clear distinction between the two..




ETA: Weirdly, believing that hints at an internal belief in the persons conflationg the two that any racial group must have only one culture and/or any culture is pure racially - or, perhaps, both. Interesting, but not, I believe, either logical or supported by evidence.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

You're so gosh darned clever. Must be a white thing.

So blacks aren't clever? How very racist.

 

[angrysoba]

Amazingly, there are some people on these fora who do not understand the difference between racial and cultural and seem to believe them fully interchangeable. I know that is hard to believe, but I have observed this amazing level of ignorance and incompetence even in threads over the last two weeks or so.

My best guess is some are under the impression that culture is a code word for race. Fortunately, most of us are not incompetant fools and recognize the clear distinction between the two..

Mocking Kwanza could well be "culturalist", I agree.

On the other hand, assuming that people celebrating Kwanza will gorge on KFC that week is to make a blatant reference, unignorable except by the most ignorant of ignoramuses, that what we are talking about is combining two black stereotypes. The "joke" would not work unless it was well understood that Kwanza is celebrated by black people and unless it was understood that, in some minds, black people eat fried chicken all the time.

In other words, yes, it is racist. And it surprises me just how many people will attempt to pass off blatant racism as something as high-minded as cultural commentary or something as innocuous as a thing nobody cares about.

 

[Jekyll's Guest]

Seriously though, who doesn't love fried chicken?

I'll tell you who. Nazis.

There you go. I've shown us all our common ground, given us an acceptable enemy to turn our anger toward, and there's a nice Godwin to wrap up the thread in a bow.

/thread.