The politically incorrect truth about Kwanzaa

Marcia Segelstein - OneNewsNow Columnist - 12/16/2008 6:30:00 AM

Maybe your child's "holiday" concert at school includes Kwanzaa songs these days.  Our elementary school did.  One grade each year was assigned that holiday, with a young student offering a brief explanation of what Kwanzaa is about, dressing in appropriate Kwanzaa accessories, and singing Kwanzaa songs.

 

Maybe your child's preschool teacher is reading aloud one of the many children's books on Kwanzaa which you also probably see displayed at your local library.  Maybe as a craft, your little one is making a construction paper "kinara," the Kwanzaa candle holder.
 
Perhaps your children have been taught about Kwanzaa's seven principles: unity, self-determination, collective responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith.
 
Maybe you think that's all innocuous enough, right?  Well, if your children are being taught what most of us have been led to believe -- i.e. that Kwanzaa is an ancient African tradition, celebrated at harvest time, and observed by blacks around the world -- they're being taught lies. 

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Despite the fact that it's now de rigueur for U.S. presidents to offer up an official Kwanzaa message annually, and for greeting card stores to display their Kwanzaa lines each year, and for the U.S. Postal Service to issue Kwanzaa stamps, and for children to assume Kwanzaa's up there with Christmas and Chanukah in terms of important holidays during this season, there's probably a lot you don't know about Kwanzaa.
 
Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by black radical and ex-convict Ron Karenga, now known as Dr. Maulana Karenga.  Karenga has an interesting history.  He helped to found a radically anti-white organization called the United Slaves, because he believed that the Black Panthers were insufficiently violent.
 
Over the years, Kwanzaa has "evolved" from its original incarnation.  Back in 1999, the official Kwanzaa website declared that the celebration was intended to foster "conditions that would enhance the revolutionary social change for the masses of Black Americans."  Karenga created a black, red and green flag, along with a pledge to go along with it:  "We pledge allegiance to the red, black and green, our flag, the symbol of our eternal struggle, and to the land we must obtain; one nation of black people, with one G-d of us all, totally united in the struggle, for black love, black freedom and black self-determination."  The website's been cleaned up considerably since then.  All that radical talk can't be good for selling Kwanzaa cards and "kinaras."
 
Those seven principles your children are learning about are the same seven principles of the Symbionese Liberation Army.  Do you remember the famous photo of Patricia Hearst with the SLA banner in the background?  Each head of that seven-headed cobra (the SLA symbol) represented one of the principles which today define the meaning of Kwanzaa.
 
In case you were wondering what the fourth principle of cooperative economics means, by the way, one of the many children's books on Kwanzaa offers an explanation:  "Buying from each other is a good way to make a community strong."  So be sure to check the skin color of that store owner before you spend your money.
 
And what about faith, the seventh priniciple?  Does Kwanzaa have anything to do with religion or God?  Uh, no.  That helpful children's book clarifies it.  "People can have faith in themselves, in their parents, in their teachers, and in their race."  Anita Hill is pictured with the caption:  "Law professor Anita Hill displays the imani [faith] principle by having faith in herself.  Jesse Jackson is pictured with the caption:  "Kwanzaa is a good time to study African-American leaders, such as Jesse Jackson."  Not surprisingly, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas didn't make the cut.
 
Did I mention that it's a holiday based on race?  According to one of the many Kwanzaa websites, "The celebration of Kwanzaa is a means for Black people to reaffirm their commitment to themselves, their families, their community, and the black struggle for equality."  As it says in another of the many children's books on Kwanzaa, "It celebrates a whole race of people."  After one holiday concert, my then second-grader asked if we could celebrate Kwanzaa.  I decided to save lengthier discussions for later, and gave the short answer:  "No, because we're not black."  Can you imagine schools, the media, and the culture in general embracing a holiday based on being white?
 
Despite what the official Kwanzaa website states, there is absolutely no evidence that the holiday is "celebrated by millions throughout the world African community." Nor is it "ancient," as the website declares.  I doubt that most Africans have ever even heard of it, because it has no African roots.  There is no harvest celebration in Africa in December.
 
Kwanzaa is a fraud.  It is a holiday based on skin color.  It is the invention of a former black nationalist and ex-convict.
 
And we are like the townsfolk in the story of The Emperor's New Clothes, afraid to say that he's just plain naked.