In case you missed it, Mayor Karl Dean on December 20th extended holiday greetings to the Metro Council in an official message from the Mayor. Below is the text:
I wish you a blessed and happy holiday season. This has been a challenging year for many of you as you’ve worked on your re-election or election campaigns. I hope you take the opportunity to enjoy this time of year, the slower pace that comes with it, and to catch up with friends and loved ones.Isn't that nice? I could forgive Mayor Dean for the "Happy Kwanza" wishes. He is a Democrat and a liberal and I don't expect much better. However, the Republican National Committee went one further. This is from the Republican National Committee:
There is much work for us to do in the new year. I look forward to working with all of you to keep our city moving in the right direction. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanza, and Happy New Year!
Sincerely, Karl F. Dean
Mayor
From December 26 through January 1, many families will take time to celebrate African culture and history. Kwanzaa is a wonderful opportunity for all of us to honor the importance of family and community, and it reminds us of the great diversity in America. Happy Kwanzaa!There is no excuse! Republicans know better. Worse than that, it got 3054 "likes." It did not get a "like" from me. It almost make me not want to contribute to the RNC. I know as Republicans we need to reach out to African Americans, but pandering and acting like bone-head liberals is not the way to do it. Even intelligent Blacks make fun of Kwanzaa.
Not only is Karl Dean and the RNC wishing people Happy Kwanzaa, but so are late night TV talk show host and department stores and Hallmark has a line of Kwanzaa greeting cards. The Tennessean, today featured laudatory story "Kwanzaa wraps up on note of faith."
Kwanzaa is a made up holiday. It was created in 1966 by a radical American Black nationalists who was either a stooge of the FBI or an FBI informer. In the sixties, the founder headed a group called "United Slaves" which positioned themselves as more radical than the Black Panthers.
The principles of Kawanzaa are not anything worth celebrating. The first principle is Umoja (Unity). That is not unity among all people however but unity in the family, community, and race. The second principle is Kujichagulia (Self-Determination). It calls for the right to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves. Keep in mind this is for Black people to do. It is not a call for cooperation with others or to be accepting or cooperative with others; this is a call for radical Black power. It doesn't get better. It calls for "collective economics," perhaps the last thing the Black community needs. The Black community needs a good dose of capitalism not more socialism.
I know Christmas is made up also. It evolved over time and customs and traditions and elements were added one on the other. However the message of Christmas is a positive message and anything that evolves over time, to my way of thinking, has more legitimacy than something someone just set down one day and made up.
To learn more about the made up holiday of Kwanzaa see this Wikipedia link and see this story by Ann Coulter: KWANZAA: THE HOLIDAY BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE FBI.
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You know, I have to ask: Just how many black Americans actually celebrate Kwanzaa? It can't be a lot. I'm sure I'm probably wrong, but I'm guessing the numbers must be pretty low.
ReplyDeleteHow many celebrate Kwanzaa? According to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, between 1 million and 40 million. Here is an excerpt.
ReplyDeleteNo one can say for certain how many people celebrate Kwanzaa, which began in 1966 and has roots in the Black Nationalist movement. Keith Mayes, author of "Black Power and the Making of the African-American Holiday Tradition" (Routledge, 2009) said that conservative estimates are that between 1 million to 2 million African Americans celebrate Kwanzaa. Organizers of The African American Cultural Center in Los Angeles put the figure at 40 million worldwide but that includes similar festivals in Africa and elsewhere.
"I don't know if the numbers continue to increase every year. I would say that it may have leveled off," Mayes said. "It just no longer shows up in some of the places that it did 30 to 40 years ago. You still have people who actually celebrate it. You have third generations of Kwanzaa celebrants . . . but Kwanzaa no longer has its movement which brought it forth, which is the black power movement. That movement has waned."
That's a lot for the information. So in another 10 years the number of black Americans who will celebrate will drop, according to Mayes.
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