The man who invented the holiday Kwanzaa, Dr. Maulana Karenga (real name Ronald McKinley Everett born in Maryland) did an interview with Frontline on PBS in 1997, very interesting reading, the transcript can be found on the PBS Frontline web site. In the interview he has this to say about Kwanzaa (I left some of the surrounding text rather than taking only one or two statements out of context) -
KARENGA: ... Now one of the most difficult things to do in this context of black
multiculturalism, diversity is deal with power and wealth, and what the
established order tries to do is reduce diversity and multiculturalism to
fashion, foods and festivals. You understand? You dress a certain way, wear your
clothes a certain way, you eat a couple of pieces of ethnic food.
GATES: Celebrate Kwanzaa.
KARENGA: And well, yeah. That's supposed to help but that's different because
Kwanzaa is self-consciously a political-motivator holiday.
GATES: But its bourgeois fried too. You know that. People write books and --
KARENGA: People have practiced it in bourgeois ways --
GATES: Right.
KARENGA: -- but the holiday itself has not changed. The fundamental
principles are there. At the core of it is the seven principles. That's what
makes it. That's what makes it grow is that people see that as fundamental, this
value orientation, these principles -- umoja unity. Kujichagalia is
self-determination. Ujima, collective work and responsibility. Ujamaa,
cooperative economics. [Nia], purpose. [Kuma], creativity, and [Imana], faith.
They are all over the world. Twenty million people every year use these to the
bonds between us as a people, to reaffirm their rootedness in their own culture
and to speak their own special culture truth in a multicultural world, so that's
there.
I do have to wonder about the 'Twenty million people' part, where are they? All in the US? I was in Ghana last year in November and asked many Ghanaians about Kwanzaa celebrations there. They never heard of it, had no idea what the word Kwanzaa means.
Nonetheless, even if it is an invented American holiday originally designed for the black population, we can all take part in what it means. The fundamental Seven Principles of Blackness can apply to anybody of any race.
Here are the Seven Principles of Blackness -
Umoja (unity)To strive for and 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 brother's and sister's 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 development 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 heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
Happy Kwanzaa to all!
