Kwanzaa
KWEARLY KWANISH KWANZAA
by H. Millard (c) 2001


If a holiday is by, for, and about one racial group, would it be fair to call that holiday racist?

Kwanzaa, is an African-American holiday that starts the day after Christmas with the lighting of a black candle, and continues for seven days. Even though it's a holiday that is just for Africans and African-Americans, the press and politicians are all atwitter as they praise what they would surely condemn as racist if it were for white people.

Maulana Karenga Kwanzaa, was invented about 35 years ago by Maulana Karenga, a professor at California State University, Long Beach. Most major newspapers write that Kwanzaa is a celebration " fostering family values," or something similar, instead of pointing out the racial elements of the holiday. Of course, whites need not apply.

One would search in vain to find a general holiday for whites that has parallels to the essential racial identity elements of Kwanzaa. There are, of course, various nationality based holidays and various religious celebrations that have come down to us from European nations, but these all lack the essential racial identity that is found in Kwanzaa.

The lack of a white holiday by, for, and about whites that seeks to unify whites and make them proud of who they are is certainly needed in a day when whites face extinction through assimilation, yet most whites are so subjugated, oppressed, and brow-beaten about race and identity that they would probably be the first to call such a white holiday, racist. This just gives an indication of how much whites need a sea change in their thinking and a reinvigoration of their essential selves to overcome their current anemic state as a people. Maybe, if whites overcome their propaganda induced states of self-doubt, self-hating, and their group inferiority complex, they may come up with their own holidays that will help raise the consciousness of other whites to a point where they become a vibrant growing people again. As I've written elsewhere, whites today are in the midst of a psychological malaise similar to that experienced by the American Indians in the last century and similar to that experienced by blacks prior to the 1950's.

Here are the seven principles of Kwanzaa. I've capitalized certain words for emphasis. You decide if you think anti-white bigots would call Kwanzaa racist if this were a white holiday:

1. Umoja, unity; To strive for and maintain UNITY in family, community, nation and RACE.
2.Kujichaqulia, self determination: To define OURSELVES, name OURSELVES, create for OURSELVES and speak for OURSELVES.
3.Ujima, collective work and responsibility: To build and maintain OUR community together and to make OUR brothers' and sisters' problems OUR problems and solve them together.
4.Ujamaa, cooperative economics: To build and maintain OUR own stores, shops and other businesses and profit together from them.
5.Nia, To make as OUR collective vocation the building and developing of OUR community in order to restore OUR PEOPLE to their traditional greatness.
6. Kuumba, creativity: To do always as much as we can, in the way that WE can, in order to leave OUR community more beautiful and beneficial than when we inherited it.
7.Imani, faith: To believe with all our hearts in our parents, our teachers, our leaders, OUR PEOPLE and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

 

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The Outsider "THE OUTSIDER" H. Millard's novel of alienation in post-American America is available. Get it by telephone: 1-877-823-9235, at Amazon.com or from Barnes & Noble. If THE OUTSIDER doesn’t appear when the link page opens, just type in the author’s name or ISBN and it should take you to the book. The book is also available in brick and mortar stores, either on the shelves or by asking for it.
The ISBN for the OUTSIDER IS: 0-595-19424-9 (helps when ordering).