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What is Kwanzaa?

I thought that it should be important for me to do some research on Kwanzaa before I went all full throttle Kwanzaa mode.

Kwanzaa is a holiday created by Maulana Karenga. While secular in nature, it does celebrate the cultural heritage on Black people in America. The Seven core principles of Kwanzaa are:
  • 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 hearts in God, our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

I definitely agree with most of the principles and I am definitely on board with celebrating blackness. The points at which I have some dissidence is it perceived position against multiculturalism and the secular humanistic influence.

At first I must mention that I like multiculturalism  I am a practicing christian, so I find it hard not to at least try to love other types of people. That being said, I am against separatist world view. However, I do not have a problem saying that there should be an emphasis on Blackness, especially within a society that has depreciated the value of blackness for so long. I think it is good, not just for the society on a whole but for the sustenance of black people within America. The suppression of that cultural expression is not opposed to Christianity (not considering libations LOL) but considering secular humanism and its support by Kwanzaa's creator, I would have to be weary in my celebration using this holiday. 


Next Post: Part 2 in the documentary response.
I'll try to fill you in on the Self Esteem thing by next week Monday.

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