Let’s tell the truth about Kwanzaa, shall we?
Today’s Barbados Advocate has an article on page 5 called “Kwanzaa celebrations begin with Unity”
Elder Thelma Gill-Barnett was interviewed and stated “Kwanzaa is not political, not religious and not related to Christmas. Some people feel it’s going against Christmas, but Kwanzaa is not about Christmas and it’s not against Christmas. I would say that Kwanzaa is for Christmas without the political and economic side of things.”
Not political? Hmmmm…. maybe Elder Thelma should get in touch with the inventor of Kwanzaa at the Kwanzaa Information Center. Here’s some of what we learned…
Don’t forget… the first principle of Kwanzaa is Umoja – unity of race for blacks. As it says at the official Kwanzaa Information Center: “red, or the blood, stands as the top of all things. We lost our land through blood; and we cannot gain it except through blood. We must redeem our lives through the blood. Without the shedding of blood there can be no redemption of this race.” The Kwanzaa Information Center also notes that the flag “has become the symbol of devotion for African people in America to establish an independent African nation on the North American Continent.”
“Independent African Nation on the North American Continent” sounds political to me… and racist too!
Kwanzaa’s Inventor
Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by Ronald McKinley Everett who changed his name a few times and finally settled on Maulana Karenga. Karenga was the founder of the murderous United Slaves movement in the 1960’s and was funded at the time by the American Federal Bureau of Investigation – the FBI – in a warped scheme where the FBI decided the best way to fight the black power movement was to fund different factions to keep them from uniting.
“I’m trying to understand which of the seven principles of Kwanzaa was represented by founder Karenga putting a running hose and detergent into the mouths of kidnapping and torture victims…”
After inventing the racist celebration of Kwanzaa in 1966, in 1971 Karenga and two other associates were convicted of kidnapping two black women and torturing them in an effort to learn if they were working for anyone else. Interesting considering that Karenga was the recipient of FBI stoolie money himself!
“Deborah Jones, who once was given the Swahili title of an African queen, said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Ms. Davis’s mouth and placed against Ms. Davis’s face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vise. Karenga also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths…”
I’m trying to understand which of the seven principles of Kwanzaa was represented by founder Karenga putting a running hose and detergent into the mouths of kidnapping and torture victims…
At first I thought is was Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) “To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.”
… but then I thought it would be pretty hard to speak with the hose and detergent in the mouth, so I thought the principle represented might be…
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.”
After all… clean is beautiful, you know!
But then I found the answer right in front of me. Of course! Karenga had two other black brothers helping him torture the women, so the principle was…
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.”
That’s the principle being illustrated by working together to torture the women.
Happy Kwanzaa!
Barbados Free Press 
What an ignorant post.
That’s the way Koatz: don’t address any of the issues raised in the post or the truth about the creation of Kwanzaa and Karenga.
Let us face it. The Kwanzaa message is important for the peoples of the world to behold. I admit that the founder maybe a man with a tainted history but he is able to redeem himself somewhat. What has me is that many of us see it fit to tear down things that are in any way connect to the concepts of African and the Diaspora the seek to highlight our need to come to an open ones with our history and our destiny. We are probably the only race that is so inclined to hide our heritage.
We could take a look at the other December holiday. It is set to celebrate a birth that did not occur in December, the message it speaks to has long be over shadowed, the history of the ‘established churches’ – Catholics; Roman and it spin off Anglican- that pushed the holiday by tainted by their history, by the commercial and gluttony focus. But the message of Goodwill is one that we need to behold all year.
Likewise Kwanzaa – with it message of
1. Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
2. Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
3. 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.
4. Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
5. Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
6. 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.
7. 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.
Such a post should not be allowed to be made public.We as a people must believe more in the value of education and messages of self-respect and harmony of all races–Happy Kwanza.
Hello Deepsoul
Fortunately thanks to WordPress you and I are able to speak our minds freely. You want to censor the article why? Because you disagree with telling the truth about the creation of Kwanzaa? About the man who created it? What’s you point?
To BFP—-What’s the point of looking at the creation or the man–why not focus on the positive aspects regarding our children and the importance of loving themselves. Bros and Sisters– Nelson Mandela, Malcolm x, Dr. Walter Rodney they all stated—-Any outspoken black man is going to be defined as a radical….. WHY?
Deepsoul:
So you say we blacks should be inspoken and not tell it like we see it.
What is your problem with radicalism?
Or is the Kwanzaa boat not well built enough to be rocked?
Hello Straight talk-I applaud radicalism and dissent. Black pride doesn’t mean you hate white people as -many ignorant people falsely believe. When you go to see a film about Malcolm X you must walk out of that place with more hatred of injustice and not humanity. Happy Kwanza.
deepsoul you are not spelling Kwanzaa correctly.
Kwanzaa has two a’s at the end.
I know that the african word kwanza has only one a, but the man who borrowed that word to create the artificial thing that Kwanzaa is added the additional “a” at the end.
He explained that he knew seven children at the time and he wanted each one to be attached to the new holiday so he added the extra letter for the last child. He told each child which letter was their’s.
This account appears in Karenga’s interviews online as he gave at the time.
Please spell Kwanzaa correctly!
deepsoul: Malcolm X was a murderer! And so is the guy who made Kwanzaa. How can you defend such monsters?
It’s always so easy to attack the messenger, rather than the message. At least BFP is being consistent.