Kwanzaa: Know What U Cosigning
1st and foremost Kwanzaa is not Black Christmas....
Despite all of the commericalization that now surrounds Kwanzaa much to my chagrin. Kwanzaa is a celebration of African principle that was not created by Maluana Karenga but rediscovered and presented to american disaporic africans.
Kwanzaa celebrates what its founder called the seven principles of Kwanzaa, or Nguzo Saba (originally Nguzu Saba—the seven principles of blackness), which Karenga said "is a communitarian African philosophy," consisting of what Karenga called "the best of African thought and practice in constant exchange with the world."
These seven principles comprise Kawaida, a Swahili term for tradition and reason. Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the following principles, as follows:
Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to 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 brothers' and sisters' 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 developing 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.
These principles are to be practiced year round and the 26th of December through the 1st of January are the period of time where u are supposed to realign with these principles. Obviously this is very strategic timing and the point of that is to provide us with an alternate to celebrating the dominant CULTURAL practice of Christmas.
now here is something you probably didnt know
In 1971, Karenga, Louis Smith, and Luz Maria Tamayo were convicted of felony assault and false imprisonment for assaulting and torturing over a two day period two women from the US Organization, Deborah Jones and Gail Davis. An article in the Los Angeles Times described the testimony of one of the women: "Deborah Jones, who once was given the 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".
If you google it there are several damaging and ugly articles about Karenga and his criminal activity and there are many who dont celebrate or acknowledge Kwanzaa as a result of Karenga's torture fo Deborah Jones and Gail Davis. I understand that however the thing is the principles of Kwanzaa arent of Karenga's creation they reach far back into the time of our ancestors. Karenga merely reintorduced it. Given this doing away with Kwanzaa doesnt make sense. I dont wanna give Karenga any shine for his actions but Kwanzaa isnt his.
Happy Kwanzaa Eve...
2 comments:
Eeek! SMH --- Thanks for this.
Actually, Kwanzaa *is* his, in that, he formulated the principles from his own background in African Studies, chose to express them exclusively in Swahili, designated the sequence of days, and named it. The principles may not have originated with Karenga, but Kwanzaa as it is practiced today and the traditions that accompany it are his design.
Post a Comment