Happy Kwanzaa, Etc. Part Two
(Please see “Happy Kwanzaa . . . Part One,” http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3157, which discusses the invention of Kwanzaa. Part Two features more information on Kwanzaa’s inventor, Maulana Karenga/Ron Everett, his annotated ”Welcome” to the official Kwanzaa website, his criminal, seditious background and history, and a brand new invention, “Trees, and Shrubs, Are People, Too Festival.”)
Included on the site are the 2010 Kwanzaa theme, ”Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba: [helpfully translated as] An Ethics of Sharing Good in the World,” details on Kwanzaa’s “Seven Principles,” invitations to make donations and to purchase books and other products, and “The Founder’s Welcome,” which is remarkably rich both in both imagination and ironies.
In appreciating Kwanzaa, and its founder’s imagination and irony, it’s worthwhile to reprint that 3 paragraph welcome, presented here with bracketed editorial comment:
The Founder’s Welcome
Dr. Maulana Karenga . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3186)
Showing posts with label maulana karenga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label maulana karenga. Show all posts
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Happy Kwanzaa, Etc. Part One
Happy Kwanzaa, Etc. Part One
I hate to rain on anyone’s parade or holiday and at my age I guess I’m easily confused but Kwanzaa really confounds me.
Wikipedia defines that confounding holiday as “a weeklong celebration held in the United States honoring universal African-American heritage and culture, observed from December 26 to January 1 each year. It features activities such as the lighting of a kinara, [a candleabrum very similar to a menorah] and libations, and culminates in a feast and gift giving [which sounds suspiciously like Christmas]. It was created by Maulana Karenga and was first celebrated from December 26, 1966 to January 1, 1967.”
How does one ”celebrate” a fantasy?
Maybe it’s the fact that Mr. Karenga could just sit down one day and decide he would “create” a holiday or that Kwanzaa just happens to coincide with the Christmas season that confounds me. Since he was manufacturing his holiday, anyway, why not choose February which only has Groundhog Day as competiton or August which cries out for something to distinguish it besides heat?
In protest of commercialism, George’s father, Frank Costanza on “Seinfeld” created the holiday of “Festivus,” replete with an aluminum ”Festivus Pole” to be celebrated on December 23rd but everyone, okay, most people, realized Festivus was a joke.
Today, many people take Kwanzaa seriously!
Festivus was more real, and funnier, although I admit that the inclusion of a “traditional” Kwanzaa song at my granddaughter’s holiday concert was pretty amusing. It mostly consisted of two kids listlessly banging on African bougarabou drums as the chorus sang some very forgettable lyrics. I wondered when the “tradition” began. A month ago? Last Tuesday? . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3157)
I hate to rain on anyone’s parade or holiday and at my age I guess I’m easily confused but Kwanzaa really confounds me.
Wikipedia defines that confounding holiday as “a weeklong celebration held in the United States honoring universal African-American heritage and culture, observed from December 26 to January 1 each year. It features activities such as the lighting of a kinara, [a candleabrum very similar to a menorah] and libations, and culminates in a feast and gift giving [which sounds suspiciously like Christmas]. It was created by Maulana Karenga and was first celebrated from December 26, 1966 to January 1, 1967.”
How does one ”celebrate” a fantasy?
Maybe it’s the fact that Mr. Karenga could just sit down one day and decide he would “create” a holiday or that Kwanzaa just happens to coincide with the Christmas season that confounds me. Since he was manufacturing his holiday, anyway, why not choose February which only has Groundhog Day as competiton or August which cries out for something to distinguish it besides heat?
In protest of commercialism, George’s father, Frank Costanza on “Seinfeld” created the holiday of “Festivus,” replete with an aluminum ”Festivus Pole” to be celebrated on December 23rd but everyone, okay, most people, realized Festivus was a joke.
Today, many people take Kwanzaa seriously!
Festivus was more real, and funnier, although I admit that the inclusion of a “traditional” Kwanzaa song at my granddaughter’s holiday concert was pretty amusing. It mostly consisted of two kids listlessly banging on African bougarabou drums as the chorus sang some very forgettable lyrics. I wondered when the “tradition” began. A month ago? Last Tuesday? . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3157)
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