Cobb

Consciousness Costs Money

I have bumped my head against one of the glass ceilings of the Internet. Among the many conversations I have had with folks online and offline in email, I have gotten the distinct notion that a significant portion are unaware of the connections between Kwanzaa and the Black Arts, and other Black movements of the 60s. To many it sounds like an indistinguishable hodgepodge. I can almost predict that when I hear the earnest sentiments in introductions by folks when they joke about how 'white' they are. Well everybody's got to start somewhere.

What we have out here in the wild, wild web is essentially Google and Wikipedia. Google tells us what's hot, for better or worse, Wikipedia tells us what people can agree upon, generally speaking, to be factual. Both are very good for navigating the truth. Neither are good for determining the truth in context.

One of the things that I learned during the time I hung out with academics is about the power of narrative. Even as a writer up until that point I didn't recognize that power. Since then I have used it, especially in this blog. It is one of the reasons I personalize my experience with Kwanzaa, and one of the reasons I've begged off of doing the Wikipedia thing.

At any rate I still get upset that those artifacts of the net are insufficient to combat the onslaught of ignorant echoes of the propaganda started by several oxygen-sucking righty pundits, and I encourage folks who get paid by the footnote to take a battle of facts to Wikipedia. Fortunately, George Kelly, a journalist straddles the fence. Checking his blog took me to the Oxford African American Studies Center, and it reminded me immediately why many academics don't bother with the web.

I think it would be rather obvious that if the best syllabi and materials were freely available on the web and the pedagogy of linking and blogging were credential-worthy, a heck of a lot of smart people would be out of a job. That holds a lot less for the sciences I think and that is a good reason why MIT doesn't mind. So it comes as no surprise that those who are blessed with the gift for academic writing should make themselves scarce. Why give away to the world on the web what middle class Americans scrimp and save for - 200 bucks a unit. And so I take it as axiomatic that superior factually correct, contextually rich texts will not make much of a dent in the free internet, google be damned.

You could try

• Debroah Lustig
• Waldo Martin

But you can only get so far.

I've had my issues with this state of affairs for some time now, and I cannot say that I am completely at ease with it. I will have to console myself with the faith that people who know what they are talking about will speak more freely when their knowledge is challenged by ignorance. It's something of a central theme in my writing, isn't it?

Well, I think there's a lending library workaround, and fair use is still fair play, so I'll do what I can to bring some of the better chunks of words that are salient to the discussions we have out here in the free world. In the meantime, there is some good background at the Oxford Center. Get what you can while you can.

Umoja 2006

Twas The Night Before Kwanzaa

Twas the night before Kwanzaa and all through the Sphere
All the wingnuts were praying it would disappear
For their very own president said to the nation
That he too respected this new celebration.

Compassionate's one thing but this went too far
They thought to themselves while out scrounging for tar
They loathed the idea of black african drumming
Somehow they must try to stop Kwanzaa from coming

So they dug up their references and scribbled up notes
And tried to keep all of that bile in their throats
But they couldn't. It spilled out on all of their pages
In their poison pen poems and raggedy rages

On Mulshin, on Malkin, on Coulter on Shaidle
On Barber, on Frontpage and on Redstate unbridled
The vomitous spew flowed without restraint
Telling all who would listen just what Kwanzaa ain't

Aint Christian, legitimate, reverent or true
And you know that it surely ain't red white and blue
Just a sham holiday that some Negroes enjoy
(Hey can we say Negroes? OK, just not 'boy')

But their secret weapon was no watermelon
But the hideous fact of Karenga, the felon.
Karenga? Who's that? Some would bother to ask
Why the black racist commie who started this task

They replied with abandon, back in 66
This FBI stoolie, he tortured some chicks
And shot up some Panthers, though that can't be proven
This is the moonbat who got Kwanzaa movin'

The Nguzo Saba and all Kwanzaa people
Were crammed in one grinchbag and hung from the steeple
No patriot ever loved Kwanzaa they said
And marched away confident Kwanzaa was dead

The bloggers they blogged and the writers they wrote
And so it just happened that some did take note
That something was fishy in this Kwanzaa smear
For there was one argument no one could hear

It seemed that the haters in their rush to judge
Indulged in an argument, well more like a fudge
Of making Karenga the butt of all jokes
While completely ignoring the millions of folks

Who love Kwanzaa and celebrate year after year
Without bile or hatred, racism or fear
Who quietly with loved ones light candles at night
Who pour the libation, who live clean and right.

And like JFK who was labeled a papist,
The wingnuts said Kwanzaans were just like a rapist
The sins of Karenga they laid on masses
And view them askance through their dung colored classes

And these seven principles, where is the crime?
Americans take pride in these things all the time.
Kujichagulia might be hard to say
But Self-Determination's the American way

It doesn't much matter when bigotry's spoken
That some part of our plurality's broken
I wish I could say that these wingnuts were joking
It's just too unclear what it is they are smoking

Some say wingnuts fear Christ is under attack
Some say they fear anything that is black
Some say they fear the same virtue they lack
Some say that the wingnuts are strung out on crack

No matter the angle no matter the reason
It's clear that these fears have all poisoned the season
For just when we claim our good will towards men
The haters start off with their rants once again

And so desecrate what they claim to hold holy
Perhaps when they see this more clearly then slowly
The truth of their neighbors devotions will show
Additional light added to Christmas' glow

And in that new light, new faith will arise
Without conflict or malice, without compromise
More true than the legend of Santa and elves.
We'll all love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

Kwanzaa Reborn

As I was writing a response to the big Kwanzaa thread for this year I was going to include a link to St Luke's Church in Harlem. Lo and behold it seems that I have started something. It turns out that they have continued to celebrate Kwanzaa, hopefully in the proper spirit. This is a pleasant surprise. I'm humbled by it.

I was also going to reference this post which I discovered had not been copied over here into the Typepad blog. It still brings tears to my eyes reading it today. I hope it can be of some use to you.

Regarding the picture below: That is me, the smallest in the line of boys. We were marching for the covers of Life and Look Magazines. We didn't ordinarily march, but that's what the photographer wanted. I found that picture in an old album and scanned it. The location is Ligon's Aquarian Center on Santa Barbara (now King) Blvd. Now that I think of it, it would not come as a surprise if the existence of Ligon's bookstore and center were not an important reason that Santa Barbara was chosen to be King.

From the archives. Orignally posted in Salon in 1999

I returned to the practice of celebrating Kwanzaa about 7 years ago when I was living in Brooklyn. On Saturdays I spent my mornings teaching school age children at St. Luke’s church in Harlem, right down the block from city college. After a time, as one would expect, I grew rather fond of and attached to these kids.

That fall, we arranged a field trip over to rural jersey to go apple picking. Johann, the young priest who ran the program had suggested this as part of a harvest mass in the church calendar. While we were over in jersey we got huge bags of apples and a few giant pumpkins to boot. The mass was a great success; it's always pleasant when you can excite young people to participate in church and I was feeling pretty good. But as this rite progressed I was shocked into recognition. This was Kwanzaa all over again - and watching these kids took me back to my own childhood.

We agreed to celebrate the Karamu on one Saturday instead of attempting to do the entire 7 day rite. I would lead. Some of the adults were concerned that it not be commercial or phony like the big Kwanzaa / black expo being advertised on the radio. Some of them had gone in prior years to the convention center and considered it all a big hustle. I shared their concerns.

I did a lot of reflection on why I hadn't celebrated it, and what it would mean to do it once again, since I was there at the very beginning and celebrated the first Kwanzaa in 1966 as a 5 year old kid. Our family had foregone Christmas to celebrate Kwanzaa and did so for several years. I came to the conclusion that I had become too secular - that exactly the kind of spirit Cornel West had been talking about was missing from my own dialog with the black community. Here I was teaching kids math and science and geography. Here I was writing essays and hanging out on the New York spoken word scene. Here I was having spirited debates on things like black cultural production (oh god can I recall how much we went on about Terry McMillan vs. Julie Dash vs. Ousman Sembenne vs. Living Colour...) But in my real community work, I was teaching sterile things. I wasn't communicating, other than through force of personality, any of the spirit of where my energy was coming from. I exemplified something 'positive' but I never explained that something. We debated the meaning of being black (and how we should teach black children (for days)) but I wasn't sharing what it meant to me, and how I came to be the man I am.

o there was a great deal of rediscovery and rededication in my approach to the celebration. As the elder, I was to be the caretaker of spirit for this occasion. I bought a new kofi, and borrowed my cousin's full length boubou for the occasion. I encouraged everyone to get some clothes or something - even if it was just a pin - to wear. One of the ladies brought some cloth to wear as sashes for kids who had nothing else. I photocopied some terms and passed them around.

That Saturday we sat in a circle on the raised stage in the parish hall for our Karamu. I started it off with a hearty harambee! And made sure everyone responded loud and clear. Habari gani, I said. Njama asante sana, they replied. It was just like the good old days, and corny too - like the kids on that old Stevie Wonder black history song. There were four or five adults and twice as many children in our circle, and we went through the Nguzo Saba each telling a story of how they've seen it and how they might practice it in the future. We sang Kumbaya and passed the libation. The libation was solemn and tearful, certainly more for us adults than for the children. For this was a kind of sharing we were unaccustomed to doing, and it shamed us and elated us at once. It was a transformation I can still feel, the bunch of us that cold winter day in Harlem.

When it was over, we all promised to do it again next year. But for me it was not to be. I moved to Boston, the coldest city in the world.

I married the following year and my family have practiced a small and simple ceremony along the full 7 days. We made our own Kinara and sanctified a few other household objects too. The broom from our wedding is part of the ceremony these days, and we tend to use a lot more candles, turning off all the electric lights in the house.

When we moved back to California, I was somewhat surprised to know that my father had returned to the celebration as well. It was his decision to break with Karenga and Kwanzaa long ago. He had a serious problem with Karenga the man, whose ego was unrestrained and consequently made for a poor leader, thus the eventual demise of Us.

We had the final Karamu at his house Kwanzaa before last which included some neighbor's children. I remember this Kwanzaa in particular for his seriousness when one of the children got a case of the giggles as another was speaking. He explained in a tone whose gravity shocked me why this, of all times, was not one where we should be laughing at each other. Silliness was put to rest. In the end, it was a great celebration, with about 20 family and neighbors in attendance. A reunion of sorts, older, wiser and much better.

mbowen 

On Knowing Kwanzaa

A well-meaning person suggested that it's not a good idea for me to link to this blog from Wikipedia. I replied:

I don't know what to tell you, I'm a primary source. I'm an eyewitness. It happened in my house. I haven't written a book, I've written a blog. I'm in a situation in which some reporter interviews me and the newspaper article is considered more credible than my own memory, even when they get subtle details incorrect. I imagine that if I were to write a book about Kwanzaa, that would be self-promotion. People will just have to read the material I present and judge for themselves, but there is no way the picture is complete without the detail I provide.

It's a queer situation in that being a primary source is never quite useful as one might think. I mean if it weren't for Juan Williams we would not have Eyes on the Prize. So which comes first, the interviewer or the interviewee? I leave that question for journalism students. As you see, I'm a blogger and my mind is already made up. I know what I know and I self-represent. I am, by dint of my experience and the context of my life, biased and informed. You can't get one without the other. While I recognize and respect the need for Wikipedia to appear unbiased as a reference, I cannot help but notice how this need shapes what is considered relevant. It seems to me that the best history and anthropology seeks to restore context, but I'm not going to wait for some research student's attempts try to breathe life into an otherwise bloodless text  50 years after I'm dead.

I can recall a huge debate I had several years ago with David Horowitz over in Salon before he got Front Page. We were discussing the implications of the LA Riots. I said something then that I regret now. I told him that his interpretations were so off-base that I could care less if he never got it right. It was a very disrespectful dismissal and something my arrogance had done before and would replicate again. Despite our differences, Horowitz acknowledged my persuasiveness and quality as a writer and even went on to suggest that I should apply for my own grants from Sciafe. I dismissed the notion but remembered the compliment. I don't feel particularly bad about my disagreement with Horowitz, but what I would do differently today is be more serious about my concern for his knowledge. This is something I say I officially learned this year but has been a lesson a long time coming. One should always pay attention to the quality of one's enemies, which is to say one should never be so lazy as to allow those opposed to you believe lies when the truth is at your disposal.

It is in this spirit that I defend Kwanzaa. It is in this spirit that I represent as a black man. I never say that what I know is something you can't understand, because it always implies that I'm either incapable or unwilling to explain.

That's not to say that ignorant people don't try my patience or that dainty folks annoy me with their unwillingness to face ugly facts. It is to say that I make an honest effort, even if sometimes I repeat myself. It's important enough for me to be interested, therefore it's important enough for me to make clear.

I cannot know, nor will I presume to know exactly which Strunk or White is the perfect delivery vehicle for what the Maitres D'Wikipedia prefer. I'm not interested to know. In fact my line is quite clear. I will give you what I know to be true in my own words. I leave the metadata to others.

I Was The Z

Warning, this video contains boring, non-controversial, common sense responsible talk about Kwanzaa. It will not enflame passion. In fact it may put you to sleep.

A couple clarifications.

• Ligon was a metaphysician first and a philosopher second.
• When I was in the 7th grade reciting the poem about Santa Claus, we had already returned to our Christmas traditions. We only skipped it one or two years.

Here is another interesting reference I haven't really thought about. I generally take it for granted that people have some passing familiarity with the Black Consciousness and Black Arts movements. Since there appear to be people who seem to have no idea about the connections to other intellectuals of the day:

As the movement matured, the two major locations of Black Arts' ideological leadership, particularly for literary work, were California's Bay Area because of the Journal of Black Poetry and the Black Scholar, and the Chicago-Detroit axis because of Negro Digest/Black World and Third World Press in Chicago, and Broadside Press and Naomi Long Madgett's Lotus Press in Detroit. The only major Black Arts literary publications to come out of New York were the short-lived (six issues between 1969 and 1972) Black Theatre magazine published by the New Lafayette Theatre and Black Dialogue, which had actually started in San Francisco (1964-1968) and relocated to New York (1969-1972).

In 1967 LeRoi Jones visited Karenga in Los Angeles and became an advocate of Karenga's philosophy of Kawaida. Kawaida, which produced the "Nguzo Saba" (seven principles), Kwanzaa, and an emphasis on African names, was a multifaceted, categorized activist philosophy. Jones also met Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver and worked with a number of the founding members of the Black Panthers. Additionally, Askia Touré was a visiting professor at San Francisco State and was to become a leading (and longlasting) poet as well as, arguably, the most influential poet-professor in the Black Arts movement. Playwright Ed Bullins and poet Marvin X had established Black Arts West, and Dingane Joe Goncalves had founded the Journal of Black Poetry (1966). This grouping of Ed Bullins, Dingane Joe Goncalves, LeRoi Jones, Sonia Sanchez, Askia M. Touré, and Marvin X became a major nucleus of Black Arts leadership.

That's from a Modern American Poetry website.

Here's another reference by the same author, Kalamu ya Salaam.

I should also include my original scans of Negro Digest from Pops' Institute for Black Studies Library (which I inherit, whoohoo!).

• Set One
• Set Two
• Set Three
• Set Four

Also I would add that we knew Mr. Cauthan of the Ebony Showcase Theatre, and later I was also a member of PASLA. It was my connection with Cauthan that got me my auditions for the television show Julia. I was going to be Cory Baker. I also was going to be the first black kid on Bonanza, but we had problems with the script.

The President's Kwanzaa Message

Just in case you didn't catch it:

I send greetings to those observing Kwanzaa.

During the seven days of Kwanzaa leading up to the New Year, friends and family come together in a spirit of love and joy to honor their rich African heritage, reflect on the Seven Principles and give thanks for the blessings of freedom and opportunity. Forty years after the first Kwanzaa, this hopeful occasion remains an opportunity to build the bonds of family, community and culture and move ever closer to the founding promise of liberty and justice for all.

Our nation is a better place because of the contributions African-Americans have made to our strength and character over the generations. As you gather to celebrate your ancestry this Kwanzaa, I encourage you to take pride in your many achievements and look to the future with confidence in your abilities and faith in a brighter tomorrow.

Laura and I send our best wishes for a joyous Kwanzaa and a blessed New Year.

Thank you Mr. President.

Kwanzaa 2006: First Shots Fired

This year I have decided to be a little bit sweeter in my defenses of Kwanzaa. So I'm basically going to do a roundup for you so that you can sniff out the haters with a bit of facility. My basic response, which I haven't quite written up yet will be something to the effect that we should pray for people who feel the need to attack Kwanzaa. Maybe that will be my Kwanzaa prayer.

All of the essays and background are in the Kwanzaa category that I organized last year. I'll find some way to make it prominent.

Anyway I've discovered that Technorati is actually working on Cobb now, and this new blog has finally gotten most of the links that went to the old Cobb. I'm still short about 100. Last March before I switched over to Typepad I was a Large Mammal and had over 250. So I'm crawling back slowly. So I may not make as big an impact as I should. One of these days I'll get a marketing department. In the meanwhile let me introduce you to the first propagandist, Mr. Minority who says:

What bothers me most about Kwanzaa is that duped people and the Gov't (US Postal Kwanzaa stamps) are starting to give legitimacy to this racist 'holiday' without acknowledging it's background and purpose. It is not a 'holiday' which all people can celebrate, it is a holiday for Blacks to separate themselves from the rest of America.

On the off chance that Mr. Minority is not beyond redemption let us take a moment to recall that the background and purpose of black consciousness movement was to devise a way for African Americans to break the Negro Church Monopoly. It's what people do who want to separate church and state.  Kwanzaa was one of the most successful artifacts of the black consciousness movement.  Now there may be some of you who remain convinced that having a black consciousness movement in and of itself is racist. I would politely remind you that the alternative is permanent dependence. Blackfolks, my family included decide it best to take care of our own in ways the black church hadn't and the rest of America wouldn't or couldn't. So be careful where you tread on that one. We're all better for it, and that's the truth.

The Truth about Kwanzaa Attackers

My third day into my mission of being a one man hit squad has yeilded some interesting insights. I can state them as the axioms of opposition.

1. Karenga is an athiest, therefore Kwanzaa is anti-Christian.
2. Karenga is a criminal, therefore Kwanzaa is illegitimate
3. Karenga is a racist, therefore Kwanzaa is racist.
4. Karenga is Marxist, therefore Kwanzaa is Anti-American.

That's it. This is basically what all the fuss boils down to. You'll notice the pattern Karenga is therefore Kwanzaa is. It's a clever little trick that really boggles the mind of someone like me. You see I would expect more cogent arguments to say something about the people who celebrate Kwanzaa, rather than the guy who kicked it off.

Secondly, you would think that people who go one step beyond the ad hominem would say something substantial about the Nguzo Saba. That is to say that they might show their reasoning that Kuumba, for example, defies one of the Ten Commandments. Not that anyone swears a sacred oath to Kawaida or the Nguzo Saba. But perhaps they think that even repeating one of those 'East African' words might send them straight to Gehenna. Who knows? There's plenty of credibility in the vaguely stated arguments that Karenga is Marxist and therefore Kwanzaa must be Anti-American in some way, but nobody has really mentioned 'Ujamaa' itself. The irony is that they'd get no quarrel from me. I think Ujamaa is provincial and that most ideas about 'recycling black dollars' are impractical and of very little use. But it's one thing to say that going to black barbershops, black car washes and putting your money in black banks is useless as a basis for economic uplift in the American context, and another altogether to say it is racist or un-American. It's simply a level of discussion these folks don't wish to pursue.

So what is unsaid give rise to speculations about the considered yet unexpressed. Perhaps there's something sinister that nobody really wants to say straight out. It's implied with the Ham story but not said much. Yes, there have been people who have said 'Happy Kwanzaa, Niggers' and such rot. But for the most part these attacks, owing primarily to Mulshin, Horowitz, Ham, Barber & Coulter are skating around the issue. What issue is that? The issue of race of course. Put plainly, only bad negroes celebrate Kwanzaa, good negroes don't. Why are they bad negroes? Because they follow Karenga, who is clearly a bad negro. Oops. Did I say negro? Let me put this politically correctly... The truth about Kwanzaa is that it was invented by Ron Everett who calls himself 'Maulana Karenga' who is a psychopathic FBI stooge and torturer..blah blah blah... So is this a truth that Kwanzaa celebrants know? Or is it a truth that good people are supposed to know? What is the point of bringing the ugly facts about Karenga front and center as they have on a regular annual basis?

Which brings us to a very interesting conundrum. What are we to make of all of the corporate and commercial and government co-sponsorhsip of Kwanzaa? When the guys at The Gap and your local PTA and Virgin Mobile stick Kwanzaa into their agendas, what does it mean? Are we to assume that they are endorsing the bad negro(es)? Do the anti-Kwanzaans expect to criminalize Kwanzaa, are they working to take Kwanzaa out of the public domain? Do they wish to make Kwanzaa an enemy of the state? Perhaps all Kwanzaa celebrants should be shipped to Gitmo? Really, what is the point?

I think there are two things going on. The first insidious but predictable, the second less obvious but equally pathetic.

1. (Insidious & Predictable) Black people should....
2. (Obvious & Pathetic) Multiculturalism sucks...

What's insidious about the 'black people should' in this equation is that it's basically a Christian Fundamentalist thing. The rest of the story is that Black People Should Dismiss Kwanzaa. There are about a thousand reasons why that is completely wrongheaded, not the least of which has to do with the regressive nature of the provincial Negro Church. I will discuss this at length, but the summary of that discussion is this: The Negro Church stands in political opposition to Black Power and Black Liberation. Kwanzaa is a little piece of Black Liberation. There are lots of ways to come at that, but I'll want to talk about the specifics in the context of black intellectuals in the 60s who wanted to break the monopoly of the Negro Church on black political organizing, cultural expression and economic habits. In other words, that kinda transformation Malcolm X went through once he broke with the Nation of Islam is what black intellectuals would have ordinary Negroes do in breaking with the Negro Church. To become citizens of the world, or at the very least an African Diaspora was the aim of such intellectuals, who in the 60s saw a bigger role for African Americans than just in the margins of society. They were making way for the Bill Cosbys of the world. To criticize the Negro Church in any context is to pick a bone with Christian Right and, via their crude calculations, make one an Enemy of Christ(mas), which is the victimology du jour for 2005. It's an interesting form of patronization that seems to work, at least for the likes of Jesse Lee Peterson and those who find him refreshing.

I am only marginally conflicted on this score as a Conservative, that is because I am a civil libertarian and I believe strongly in the idea of a global presence for African Americans. I don't think we should view the world strictly in provincial religious terms or be represented strictly through the Negro Church but through a variety of modes. But like I said, more on that later.

As for the Obvious and Pathetic whinging against Multiculturalism... well what else can you say? It's obvious and pathetic. At least with the Nguzo Saba you have something concrete to base your whining against. It's not like trying not to insult Native Americans because of some sports teams logo. What can be said for Kwanzaa unlike other squishy PC garbage is that Kwanzaa actually states what it is all about. This is something declared and principled, not something ineffable and essential. Anybody can be equally into Kuumba, just like anybody can eat Thai food. It's about something whereas a lot of PC nonsense is about nothing at all.

And this is where the enemies of Kwanzaa fall flat. I mean how could you not see that huge softball teed up and not take a swing. What is Kujichagulia and why is that Anti-American? Well, Kugjichagulia is Self-Reliance. Oops, can't go there. How about Ujimaa? Well, that's Collective Work and Responsibility. Hmmm. Can't really knock that. How about Umoja (Unity), Kuumba (Creativity). Imani (Faith), Nia (Purpose).. Damn, strike six. All anyone can really point an accusatory finger at is Ujamaa, the little Marxist problem child of Kwanzaa. But when you really look at where Marxist and socialist influence comes from in American politics, it ain't Kwanzaa. So there's a bit of a chicken and egg problem here. Simply stated, Democrats are more influential on black politics than Kwanzaa, so tearing down Ujamaa (which most Americans have never even heard of) is kind of a non-starter, propaganda-wise.

Therefore the criticism of Kwanzaa can't get most of its weight from the substance of Kwanzaa itself. Much better to go after Karenga, a convicted felon.

This year, however, the litany of complaint has got a new twist. Without really talking about the substance of the Nguzo Saba, the Korageous Kwanzaa Killers have decided to go bring up another American nightmare and use the old guilt by association trick:

Coincidentally, the seven principles of Kwanzaa are the very same seven principles of the Symbionese Liberation Army, another charming invention of the Least-Great Generation. In 1974, Patricia Hearst, kidnap victim-cum-SLA revolutionary, posed next to the banner of her alleged captors, a seven-headed cobra. Each snake head stood for one of the SLA's revolutionary principles: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba and Imani – the same seven "principles" of Kwanzaa.

I'm quite sure that this is what my local Rite Aid had in mind when they stocked the shelves with Kwanzaa cards, and what the PTA of my school was all about when they taught the kids Kwanzaa songs in Swahili. Coulter and her ilk are so lunatic on this because they can't stand the idea that the President is actually a Compassionate Conservative who does actually care about black people. Even us bad negroes who celebrate Kwanzaa.

Blogospheric Kwanzaa Annex

It's always nice to have academics and sensible people around when things get hairy. I've found a swell compendium of nicely stated pieces on Kwanzaa, including some dissertation stuff that I added over at Wikipedia. Our first stop is at Rising Up where Joe puts LaShawn into context.

Kwanzaa Deserves Respect

The problem with such reasoning isn't that it's dumb; Barber makes a fine, coherent case. The problem is that critical distinctions between religion and culture simply haven't been well differentiated at the traditionalist/rationalist stage of development. At Barber's level of analysis, all religions and cultures are to be weighed against the One True Myth. Surprise, it just happens to be HERS! Yes, HER Myths. HER Church. HER Sacred Books. HER Country. HER Culture. What is reasonable is that which is in conformity with the One True Myth... and surprise! It's okay to celebrate Christmas, but not Kwanzaa. Kwanzaa is bad because it's a "made-up, anti-Christian observance." And Christmas is good because it's a "deep-rooted, historical, [and] true observance."

...

As a celebration of culture and diversity within a context of affirming both traditional values and development to a greater stage of Unity, Kwanzaa is a premiere holiday of the multicultural pluralistic historical stage... and derives from a truly integral expression of wisdom. In this sense, Kwanzaa is an elite cultural holiday: it's based on a vision that simply could not have arisen until the arrival of modern and postmodern intellectual expressions in the African-American community in the mid 1960s. And it is a vision that has succeeded where so many other pie in the sky ideas have failed: it has become part of the cultural mainstream. By some reckoning, Kwanzaa has been celebrated by as many as 60 million individuals. Kwanzaa-related segments are regularly featured on Oprah, Martha Stewart Living, and the HGTV cable channel.

I'm not so convinced that Kwanzaais or should be considered post-modern. But Joe's got a good grasp on the false dichotomy forced into the premises of Christian fundamentalist attacks on Kwanzaa.

Additionally, we find some great stuff at Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Over there I found most notably, this entry which gives a good perspective on what ought to be the discussion about Kwanzaa:

This dissertation examines the creation and early development of Kwanzaa as a response to racial and cultural oppression in the 1960s and 1970s. Though Kwanzaa was created by Maulana Karenga and the US Organization, the response in creating and celebrating a new black holiday quickly transcended Karenga, involving a broader section of black cultural nationalists, local grassroots activists, and many more attempting to raise the level of black consciousness. The dissertation also discusses the appropriation of Kwanzaa by American corporate and cultural institutions in the 1980s and 1990s. By the late 1980s and 1990s, Kwanzaa ceased being the sole property of the black nationalist community; it had been embraced by a broader segment of African-Americans, corporate and religious bodies, cultural and media institutions, and well as the Federal government. In crossing a number of historical terrains, the dissertation explores the following: Kwanzaa's place within the two-century-old black holiday tradition and the development of a black cultural calendar; the origin of Kwanzaa in Los Angeles; the growth of black cultural nationalism and Kwanzaa's diffusion within the black neighborhood public sphere in American cities; the corporate and cultural institutional commodification of Kwanzaa not only for profit, but for public relations and goodwill. In examining these areas with the use of oral histories, mainstream and community newspapers, magazines, academic periodical literature and personal collections, I have uncovered two Kwanzaas: one, the black nationalist Kwanzaa steeped in ideas about traditional Africa, the essence of race, and the absence of culturally viable representations. This Kwanzaa was designed to liberate African-Americans from white oppression by rejecting American culture. The second is the multicultural Kwanzaa-a holiday less concerned with liberation and Black Power, but more attuned to bringing people together and celebrating diversity. The multicultural Kwanzaa was a product of corporations, museums, schools, the media, and the state.

I'll continue to update this one as I find material on the subject of Kwanzaa that is new and not covered somewhere here.

Kujichagulia 2005: Do For Self

Of all of the Nguzo Saba, none resonates for me as much as Kujichagulia. First of all, it's the most fun to say, and it's the one I remember above all. It's not squishy like some of the others and it resonates with talented as well as conservative folks (not that there's a necessary dichotomy there).

Of course my boy Ray Nagin got in trouble for putting together an emergency plan in advance of Katrina that employed the value of Kujichagulia. He said, we might be first responders, but your primary safety is in your own hands. That sounds like hard medicine to swallow, but should it be? In perhaps the biggest racial bombshell of the year, Kanye West said George W. Bush doesn't care about black poeple. Had Kanye a bit of common sense and some Kujichagulia he would have understood that George W. Bush's care is besides the point. Do for self means care for self. It means not putting your destiny in the hands of others who may or may not have your best interests in mind. It means having your own plan, defining your own place in the scheme of things.

In that meditation penned by the great man (the likes of whom we may never see in my lifetime) Reinhold Neibuhr he wrote:

God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change those things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference. --(Reinhold Niebuhr 1892-1971)

We select our destiny according to our ability. We accept help when we need it, but we pick our orientation. We decide which way we must go. Doing for self doesn't mean working alone. It means defining a self and investing it with integrity. It means not letting anyone turn you 'round. it meands killing the little demons inside your head. the demons of self-doubt and inferiorty. It means being proud of determining your own fate and not being afriad to put your name and reputation behind things you believe in. It not about being solopsistic or living in your own little nasty world. It means confronting challenges and staying true to true purposes that are at the heart of yourself.

There are lots of ways of expressing this value. I like what Shakespeare said in Hamlet about being true to yourself such that you can be false to no other man. I like what Nikki Giovanni said in 'Revolutionary Dreams', and I leave it at that:

Revolutionary Dreams

i used to dream militant
dreams of taking
over america to show
these white folks how it should be
done
i used to dream radical dreams
of blowing everyone away with my perceptive powers
of correct analysis
i even used to think i'd be the one
to stop the riot and negotiate the peace
then i awoke and dug
that if i dreamed natural
dreams of being a natural
woman doing what a woman
does when she's natural
i would have a revolution

Sounds like a plan.

A Kwanzaa Counterattack

Here follows an open letter to all defenders of liberty.

I have found myself in a very uncomfortable predicament. You see I celebrate Kwanzaa. I do so for all the best reasons you might imagine, including the rather unique fact that my parents and I were there at its inception. Because I am a blogger and have no mainstream media credentials, there isn't much that I have been able to do to correct the revisionism attending much of the publicity given to Kwanzaa by certain Christian activists and their defenders on the web. Yet I feel very strongly that there should be some balance given the distortions of this tradition and its meaning, and so I appeal to you.

The difficulty with defending Kwanzaa is part of its redeeming quality. As with Christmas, there is no central authority that controls the way its celebrants behave or what they think. People come up with all kinds of reasons and ways, some good some bad, but not strictly dictated and controlled to spend Kwanzaa week. And yet the primary attack on this meek celebration presumes that very thing - that all of us who enjoy Kwanzaa are under the spell and thumb of its primary founder, Ron Karenga. There are plenty of ugly things to say about Ron Karenga, and the enemies of Kwanzaa have spared no details. I think it is sufficient to say that he was a convicted felon. But those who continue their attacks on the holiday have found no end of ways to putting their interpretations of his intent on center stage in their rants against it. To say that Karenga's definitions of Kwanzaa supercede all others is very much like saying there could be no improvements to America and those who celebrate it based on the sins of Thomas Jefferson - whatever those sins might be. Literally that the sins of Karenga should and do haunt everyone who celebrates Kwanzaa.

This is particularly distrubing and hurtful to me, not only because it indicates the depths to which people will debase themselves to smear others, but because of my personal connection to it and my relative inability to counter the onslaught. In a very real and significant way this has come to represent to me a failure of the blogosphere to live up to its promise of getting useful information to the public by people who are personally invested but not attached to some media machine. But I hold out hope.

My initial inclination is to find some blogging allies to spread the word, and I'll probably continue to do that, but my first move is going to be getting my own blog in order. There's no easy way to describe my relationship to the holiday other than mostly good, as with Christmas, and I cannot say at this moment that I'm in a charitable mood. Part of me is saying, what is the point of explaining something like this to these morons. Yet I have to recognize that people may come here with an open mind. Anyway, I'm creating a Kwanzaa category under which you'll find a bunch of related blog entries. I've left everything in it's original form including my defense of Karenga when I didn't know what had gone on years after my parents and he parted company.

So I think I may have said enough over the past two or three years to show a nuanced appreciation for the holiday, its strengths, weaknesses, origins and practices, but I hope to get some intelligent questions and maybe a trackback or two.

In France They're Ten Days Late

Have Yourself a Divisive Little Kwanzaa

All married couples should learn the art of battle as they should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest - never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings to a marriage the principle of equal partnership.
-- Ann Landers

I'm not married to LaShawn Barber, but we used to be league mates in The Conservative Brotherhood. LaShawn, however has outgrown our smallish coterie and has become a blogging superstar on her way to media stardom. It is therefore with a bit of sadness that I fnd myself having to battle her over a matter of personal concern, which is the integrity of Kwanzaa. I've had to deal with Malkin on this before as well as some stuff written years ago by Mulshin. Now Ambra's got troops on the wrong side of this too. (sigh)

Although I didn’t ask to be, I am probably the foremost authority currently writing on the origins and meaning of Kwanzaa on the web today. That’s because I was there at the beginning. Any of you who care to get a nuanced understanding of these origins are welcome to check out my blog which has plenty of references, some serious, some lighthearted. Right now, I need to be serious.

The most important thing that I would like to stress in this post is that Kwanzaa is not anti-Christian. It has transcended its roots and has become something different than what it started as. I think what it has become depends entirely on the spirit of the people who celebrate it. Which is to say that somewhere there is someone just as evil, wicked, mean and nasty as LaShawn states who celebrates Kwanzaa just to spite people like LaShawn. I’m not sure it’s very charitable to consider them as the poster children for Kwanzaa. If anyone, I am the poster child for Kwanzaa. As I said, we started it.

When I say we, let's get one thing clear. Ron Karenga didn't go from house to house burning down Christmas trees and demanding that blackfolks substitute Kwanzaa. The people of the time, including my parents, the Ligons, brother Damu and other families took the celebration into their homes and spread love and started the tradition. So if you learn one thing from your 'What is Kwanzaa' question, keep in mind that Karenga is not the celebration, but the spark. His Kawaida philosophy made a big book and everybody didn't live their life from it like a bible, Kwanzaa was simple and good. Think of Karenga as you might think of Jefferson or Franklin, but understand that among the founders were my family. If you want to hate, know who you're hating. You're hating me and my family, and I don't appreciate being lied about.

I’m sure many of you have heard the old saw ‘religion is the opiate of the masses’, and there is no Christian of any experience who doesn’t know some fakers who are the reason the other expression ‘God helps those who help themselves’ is in existence. Just as there are fools who call themselves Christians and attend service for the wrong reasons, there are fools who celebrate Kwanzaa for the wrong reasons. That’s not who we are here to talk about.

The reason Kwanzaa was created lies fairly parallel to why the Afro was created, why ‘black is beautiful’ was created and why James Brown sang ‘Say it Loud: I’m Black and I’m Proud’. It was about evolving a mindset towards independence and liberation. It was about black people doing something for themselves for a change - not demanding that the government, or Jesus, do things for them that they ought to be doing for themselves.

Today we take it for granted that there is a level of independent mindedness among African Americans that nobody ever expected of the Negro. And in creation of that omlette, a lot of eggs needed to be broken, a lot of militant posturing, angry rhetoric and loud protests were made. That’s called mental revolution and it doesn’t come easy. Sometimes people are crucified for radical ideas. That’s the way of the world. But I think anyone with half a brain recognizes that militant posturing, angry rhetoric and loud protests are associated with Kwanzaa. It’s in Wal-Mart already - the place that can’t handle gangsta rap.

To the extent that the Negro Church was considered the only legitimate expression of African American culture in the 60s, the founders of Kwanzaa and like-minded people fought bitterly for attention. Anyone who has watched television to see the most ignorant blacks ‘represent the community’ knows exactly how intolerable that can be. Imagine that in the days where the very idea of a black journalist working on a white newspaper was unheard of. This is the proper context for understanding the antipathy between kwanzaa’s founders and the black church.

Such antipathy is no longer necessary or encouraged. Anybody who says different is just shouting to be shouting. There is plenty of room for Kwanzaa and Christmas. I celebrate both and I think I do so in the proper spirit without contradiction. But every year ignorant people come out of the woodwork the spit on Kwanzaa as racist, separatist, militant and anti-Christian. Why? Why is Osama bin Laden? Why ask why? I just have to deal with that nasty fact, and every year it gets me more and more steamed, even though I try not to be. The insults are intolerable.

I understand that there must be some orthodoxy in Christian sects which forbid the celebration of Kwanzaa or any number of other events not on the official calendar. I don’t have any problems with Jehovah’s Witnesses who find birthday cakes to be blasphemous or Southern Baptists who find Harry Potter sacreligious. That’s them, but that’s not all Christianity. But I would hardly expect to take a Jehovah’s Witness’ word on what goes on in the minds of people who celebrate birthdays. So I don’t expect that reasonable people should give anti-Kwanzaans a great deal of credibility as to what goes on in my mind when I celebrate Kwanzaa.

So here's my message to all you Christians who think they are doing the world a favor by spreading ugly ideas about who celebrates Kwanzaa and why. Stop burning your crosses on our lawns. Your ignorance and hatred is nauseating.

Cobblers Alert: Dap & Kwanzaa

It looks like I'm coming back around to some cultural work that needs doing in the fabric of cyberspace. These days I'm focusing on three reference sites that I think are fairly important. They are the Wikipedia, Flickr and LastFM. Black culture is what it is, but a lot of what it is hasn't been translated well into cybermedia. So I'm doing my share, and I ask Cobblers to pull a little weight too.

It turns out that nobody has really got a good definition of Dap. Now that's a damned shame. Most everybody knows what dap is, but it's kind of hard to express in writing. I mean little babies learn how to slap five before they can even talk, so dap is deep. My understanding is that dap originated among the black troops in Vietnam and made a big splash in the US when they returned. Of course there was the black power handshake as well as the black power salute that originated back then. Today everybody gives a pound and men all over give love.

It's interesting that the embrace and handshake is just a thing I call 'giving love', and until this moment, I never really thought about another name for it. I know that after the LA Riots in Los Angeles it was considered very offensive if black men didn't recognize each other with the head up or didn't give love when greeting. (excuse me, I'm tearing up, seriously). I was in Brooklyn at the time but I got the word clearly from my brothers, Deet and Doc. So there's no question that dap is deeply embedded in contemporary African American culture.

Of course dap also has verbal components. I'll only comment on one, which is the offense of 'leaving me hanging'. If I offer you five by raising my right hand to slap you and you don't offer your upturned palm, then you are leaving me hanging, which is similar to not offering a hand to shake, except sometimes with Tom connotations - a greater insult.

As for Kwanzaa, I see that Wikipedia is cleaning up its game, but on Flickr there are only 50 photos tagged with Kwanzaa. Damn. I know we can do better than that. You'll see me in both places for the week. I'm on a mission. Join me.

On the First Day of Kwanzaa My True Love Gave To Me

Umoja, meaning unity.

I tried to buy a Charlie Brown tree this year. No such luck. I'm trying to have Kwanzaa lite this year. Maybe I'll be more successful. It's amazing that people have managed to convince themselves that Christmas itself is under attack. What a bunch of maroons. Of course I have been too busy and too happy eating all of the abundance of homemade grub to pay much attention. In fact, I think we've gone through more eggnog this year than any in memory. But I'm also tightening the belt and taking it light in multiple dimensions.

So instead of getting into yet another pointless pissing match with Michelle Malkin (although I have yet to be provoked). I'm going to change the pose on the poster child that is me and give the Official Guide to Kwanzaa Lite, A Compendium of Authentic Yet Spiritually and Intellectually Inexpensive Actvities for the Kwanzaa Season.

Today's Kwanzaa Lite Theme is Unity
That means everybody in the family has to agree to do three things together and stick it out to the bitter end. We're going to play that favorite game 'Life' by Parker Brothers. We're also going to finish watching Oliver! the musical and everybody is going to watch it all the way to the end without getting up and going to do something else. We're also going to all do the Kwanzaa thing together tonight before dinner.

Since this is the first day, we've got to get the basics in order. We've already got the old kinara and the mkeke still has some wax splatters on it from Kwanzaas past, but it's in good shape. All we have are a few ears of Kwanzaa corn. Right now, I'm going to run out to Rite Aid and see if they have all the colored candles I need. Actually, that's the hardest part. Finding the right hues of red black and green is a real pain, especially if you want to get them all in the same size. I should have done that earlier, but I am in time. So I'll check with y'all tomorrow, and I'll let you know who won in Life.

BTW: If you prefer a more expensive and serious approach, then click HERE.

Malkin Extends Her Rant Against Kwanzaa

I've got one gripe with Michelle Malkin, and that's her vendetta against Kwanzaa, which is little more than a broadside against Ron Karenga which is nothing more than a continuing insult to people who celebrate the holiday. Every opportunity she gets to slander the festivities is just another kick in the groin to honest, decent people who find many reasons to recall and rededicate themselves to fine values and a young but growing tradition.

There can be no denial that Karenga himself had plenty of trouble with the law, some of it his own doing. But that is the price paid for having the audacity to assert a black cultural revolution. However as I've patiently explained, Karenga wasn't the only one who saw the usefulness of the idea, nor did it blossom based upon his example alone. Suggesting that Kwanzaa celebrants are somehow bound to the conduct of Karenga is irresponsible and mean-spirited.

I wonder how Malkin would react to someone who suggested that the Japanese Tea Ceremony was the product of murdering, suicidal Kamikzes, and therefore anyone who drinks tea with any reference to it is morally and intellectually suspect. If she's going to keep up her tirade against Kwanzaa, she's going to have to review her logic. From where I stand, it stinks.

Karenga, Copernicus & Kung Fu

I've been thinking briefly about what Spence mentioned yesterday about Kwanzaa. He said that nothing particular about the slandar against it warms him to the celebration although he is sympathetic in principle. But if there were to be a more real Kwanzaa, we know what it was that West Africans celebrate and we could ligitimately assimilate real African traditions into modern celebrations. I can dig that.

However on second thought it occured to me that in 1966 when this party started, that body of research didn't exist. There weren't even Black Student Unions on campuses, much less Afro-American Studies departments. Who was going to provide that research? It's as if people believing the Earth was the center of the universe upon reviewing Galileo 30 years hence was chiding him for not thinking about ellipses instead of circles. My history of science is sketchy, but you get the point. What Karenga has set in motion will inevitably be refined and changed over time.

As one commenter has pointed out, St. Patrick's Day was a holiday invented for political reasons. Today it's just an excuse to drink green beer, and among GenX, get a green dye job. But Spence's idea of incorporating some actual West African traditions into Kwanzaa might not be such a bad one after all.

In 1991 at BAM, I learned to dance the Sounou and the Koteba. It was easy. I just walked in and the instructors were patient. It was a great experience and every bit as deep as learning a martial arts form. I don't expect that West African dance studios will begin cropping up in every strip mall, but it would be a great addition to the American cultural scene.

I wonder if American students of Karate and other Eastern disciplines consider their schools to be authentic. Here too is a practice that only began taking shape in the 60s. Nobody who watches Batman really thought any of them could beat Kato, and every Western bar fight on TV now looks completely staged. In the light of Jennifer Garner of Alias, there has never been a real female superhero. And now Batman is being reloaded, centering him on Eastern martial discipline.

We evolve, apparently.

Kwanzaa Alert

A Little Kwanzaa Research

Now that I've been fishing, I'm in a bit of a more charitable mood and decided to write up something new that I haven't seen compiled anywhere about Kwanzaa. Those of you that know me, know I defend Kwanzaa like I defend my parents, sorta. That is because my parents have something to do with the creation of Kwanzaa, sorta.

The man on the left is 'Brother Damu'. We kids are the Young Simbas. That's me in the front. We are marching for the cover of Look Magazine. I would guess that's the summer of 67 and we are most definitely in front of Dr. Alfred Ligon's Aquarian Center on Santa Barbara (now MLK) Blvd. in Los Angeles.

It turns out that Damu died in '95. Unless the following excerpt (which was all I could get for free) is not an obituary:

Shelia Hardwell

Los Angeles Sentinel

02-22-1995

Sam Damu, Longtime Angeleno.

Sam Carr Damu was born Dec. 15, 1930 in Dayton Ohio. He moved to Los Angeles during the summer of 1960.

After arriving in Los Angeles he developed an interest in acting and joined a black actors ensemble while simultaneously working with various political campaigns.

These early interests introduced him to a variety of people to include Dr. and Mrs. Alfred Ligon, owners of Los Angeles' oldest black bookstore and the Aquarian Spiritual Center.

In 1964 while taking a night class in Swahili from Dr. Ron Karenga at Fremont H.S., the Afro American cultural group "US" was formed with Damu as a founding member. He was the founder of the "US" Taifa Dance troupe in California. It was a great success boasting performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, several local television shows and numerous community and college events.

So Googling 'Taifa Dance' I came upon this conference program, and I'm going to see what I can get out of Scot Brown at UCLA about Damu and others influenced by the ideas behind Taifa Dance in LA. All this is part and parcel of the intellectual ferment behind Kwanzaa.

I cannot tell which came first for Damu, Taifa or US. But I think the simple fact that he saw his contribution to black society through the vehicle of dance as very significant. I would hope others stop and consider this before being cowed by the virulent diatribes against the founding of Kwanzaa.

Now that I think of it, I have another old photo which is worth mentioning.
This shot was taken in October of 68, the year everything was burning. The fashionable woman on the left is my mother, and this was the backyard of a friend of the family just south of Liemert Park. It was a community art show organized under the auspices of my father's little group. I helped build the displays which were constructed of 2x2s and pegboard, painted white. Again, this is the kind of black cultural power we were all about.

My point in bringing this forward is, as I wrote to Dr. Brown. As an original member of the Young Simbas, I have been frustrated by the distortion of the origins of the celebration of Kwanzaa which travel around the net around this time of year. In particular I am offended by the 'legitimacy' of Kwanzaa attacked through ad hominem attacks on the person of Karenga. I find these attacks a constant source of irritation, and I am motivated to fight back with some historical precision as well as personal passion. Moreover, I seek to express some dimension of the intellectual ferment of the black cultural nationalism independent of the individuals, organizations and politics of the time.

It is not my aim to be an uncritical champion of Kwanzaa. In fact I am particularly put off by its association with the person of Karenga as if its celebrants were victims of a cult of personality. I have my own interpretation of its value and applicability as both symbol and substance. Yet there is no question in my mind that it has transcended its origins. It is that transcendent quality I seek to preserve, and if I stand as something of a heretic, sobeit.

Here are a few more links from last year:

Ujamaa: The Problem Child.
Dickerson On My Tits.

Kwanzaa Defended

It's about that time of year when people with too much time on their hands and too much bile in their guts begin to spit on the celebration of Kwanzaa. I cannot abide this. I think it beneath any honorable spirit which finds reason to ridicule another's convention.

I started my blog because this issue riled me. It's difficult for me to understand what perverse pleasure people must get from their sanctimonious bleating. You'd think they'd pick something actually wrong or hurtful. It comes as no surprise that most of the barbs come in the form of questioning its legitimacy. I needn't remind you of the sort which question the purity of another's origins.

Today, I guess I'm just too old to care why people are foul. I simply call them as I see them. And like so much of the world's wrongheadedness, I'll steer clear of it until such time as I have the power to stamp it out.

In the meantime, a few references from the Archives:

• The Thankless Task
  
• Kwanzaa Reborn
  
• Kujichagulia 2003
  
• Kwanzaa Google
  

Black Jews

Today is Sukkot, I think.

I listened at length to an interesting inside story about a Jewish cat who found the equivalent of a Jewish Almanac which had references dating back about 350 years. He is using it to help wayward Jews find their way back to knowing Sukkot and other holidays as more than just dates on a calendar.

It immediately occured to me, as such parallels do, that 350 years is the kind of authenticity we modern Americans drool over. So it comes as no surprise that this cat made it to NPR's radio show. But it didn't escape my notice, as he began describing the feeling of connectedness that this newfound old knowledge game him, that it sounds precisely like what blackfolks are often found wanting. I know, having represented, how cavalierly some folks have dismissed Kwanzaa as a wannabe Jewish holiday. I take their point, but only so far.

As the Jewish cat rambled on about the significance of doing things just like the enslaved Isrealites, my tolerance hit a wall. Nobody really wants to be an Isrealite slave. Reenactments are so bourgie, and modern. What we want is the feeling of home and belonging. Everybody wants that, and especially wayward Jews and American blacks. But can anyone really trace their bloodline back to the house of Levi? That's very dubious for the overwhelming majority. What Jews have, after all is said and done, is their faith. Faith is learned. Those who do, get. So as you can imagine, I began to become slightly peeved at this cat whose newfound pride had him representing the Israelites, kinda like Whitney Houston at the Slave Castles.

So what have Jews got that blacks don't? It's a dumb comparison that everyone keeps doing. It's the slavery thing, it's the political thing. There is supposed to be the special bond that Jesse Jackson famously unmade for us way back when the Rainbow Coalition was still something of a good idea. But the fact is that Jews have nothing blacks don't, culturally speaking, because whatever Jews can get by faith, blacks can too. Just join your local synagogue.

Huh? What?

There's something slightly unbelievable about a 40 year old man receiving First Communion in the Catholic Church, but there is nothing unserious about it. I don't see why it is that Evangelical Christians should get all those who 'get it' later in life. Furthermore, there are so many different degrees and sects of Judaism, there must certainly be one ready for new converts. Considering how many slacking Modern, Reformists for Jesus there are (if you believe the Lubavichers) it's a wonder that more folks don't take to Judaism. Well, I can see why certain whitefolks might think they have something to lose, but for blackfolks that might not apply.

As for me, I'm rather devout to the church of American Black History, so I've always looked at our acceptance of our Africanness not so much as a necessary recovery but as a global cosmopolitanism. There was a time when I considered myself a New World African, never so much as when I was dating an Afro-European within a year of my first trip to Europe. It was a Diaspora thing and she did a lively business in Kente and Mud Cloth. But that was then. The point is that I'm hardly looking for that ineffable something that Jews supposedly have 'over' us putatively 'rootless' blackfolks. I know my family tree back 7 generations. That kind of kills a lot of longing for me - and I think the more one knows one's family the more ideological Black Nationalism suffers, but I digress.

For those who need a groove and something a bit more historically weighty than Kwanzaa.com, the Jewish faith should be wide open. So consider it.

Right Wing Epiphany

Over in Orkut, where I tend to be a bit more lower-case and provocative than I am here, I re-engaged the Cosby argument. And as I was engaging in the discussion I think I had a breakthrough. I think can genuinely see exactly what it is that the right wing sees in the left wing. The difference, of course, is that I'm not afraid of the left wing and I don't believe they are a threat. A danger and a menace perhaps, but not a threat.

The thing that nailed it for me was the quotation of some Z Magazine article written by a political science professor from Ohio. I didn't parse it very closely because it immediately reminded me of something else that got me right to the edge of epiphany. That other something was the NPR segment about Freedom Schools in Kansas City. Basically there was this very uplifting story about those young people that Cosby recently loves to hate, beating the odds by attending a 'Freedom School' during the summer in an super supportive environment. I'm listening to this radio segment saying, man this is so cool but I would never do that work in a million years. That's for my buddy Monroe.

Now while it's true that I did a very heartfelt stint teaching Saturday School at St. Luke's parish in Harlem several years back and it was that experience that reintroduced me to my own family tradition of Kwanzaa, I have serious problems with the scalability of Ujamaa and a couple of the principles. So my enthusiasm is just for this very organic and grass roots sounding program. The voices of the people convinced me that this was done from the heart and that it was all good.

BUT.

The KC program, which included about 7 of these schools was expanded because of the charity of a large [white liberal] foundation. Now the origin of the Freedom Schools was all about education of rural blacks to understand what kinds of things they would be getting that they have always been denied in the deep South. How government derives from the consent of the governed, so black people need to vote kinds of things that the redneck highschool teacher supposedly teaching civics wouldn't cover. But now 50 years later, it's part midnight basketball, drug-free, supplemental education, afrocentric support, summer school. In combination a great point of light for those who get zilch in the ghetto. (Remind me never to say 'inner city' again - I understand that American Apartheid was designed to create ghettoes and keep blacks and browns there - like Jewish ghettoes from where the term originated). I cannot presume to know exactly what Mr. Liberal Daddy Warbucks sees in these poor black ghetto kids, but I have a general idea about the parameters (poor, black, ghetto kids, money for programs).

At the end of the program, the NPR announce clinches it. Some university is sponsoring a study of these kids. ARGH!

Can you feel it? Little black kids are lab rats for a university study. The volunteers who dedicated their time in 'giving back to the community' in a modified form of Deep South rural education for poor blacks victimized by poll taxes, will be replaced by professionals. The university study gets read into the Congressional Record, several left organizations line up behind it. Daddy Warbucks elbows a couple of his cronies at a garden party and the whole thing is off to the races.

Now some of this stuff works. Headstart I would say, and the kind of stuff in California under the heading of the First Five. But that's not a black racialized liberal co-optation of more Civil Rights Era stuff.

So when this cat started quoting... hm let me find it:

Bill Cosby's decision to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision by proclaiming that poor black people deserve their fate at the bottom of America's steep socioeconomic pyramid has delighted many white Americans. Large numbers of United States Caucasians are grateful for Cosby's widely reported intra-racial top-down smack-down, which gave politically safe - because nominally "black" - confirmation to their own self-satisfied opinion that poor African-Americans have nothing and nobody but themselves to blame for their difficult circumstances in this great "color-blind" "land of opportunity."

Paul Street ([email protected]) is an urban
social policy researcher in Chicago, Illinois.

http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=5631§ionID=30

OK it wasn't Ohio. But it suddenly hits me. How does an urban social policy researcher make money? How do they pay their bills? The are professionally engaged in the 'industry' of politics that comes up with plans and politics and basically federal government money that goes to programs. So the Cosby us against them can get rendered into policy and dollars via university studies and policy research and all of that business that goes to direct our tax dollars.

If you asked me what makes the Freedom School concept work, I think I heard enough with the interview. People saw a need right in front of their faces and did something about it. I could immediate recognize those blackfolks valid concerns - the concerns we are all rightly facing. But it's the ways and means of the institutionalization of this abstracted thing that suddenly make me say whoa. And that's where the epiphany was coming from. I see the wheels cranking, and I see the whole thing growing from the original Freedom Summer (no foundation money, no corporate sponsorship, no tax dollars), to this Freedom School (no corporate sponsorship, no tax dollars) to the next steps. Where is all the money coming from? Non-black hands.

So at the end of this rainbow I see failure and bitter disappointment. And I think that is exactly how the right sees left tax & spend. Except a lot on the right wing as we know, think the whole effort is of dubious merit. Epiphany.

Black Misery Month

Since M9 is about to be promoted to M10 within the next few weeks, I have already started to think about February. You know and I know that it's Black History Month, and I've already begun to dread it.

Last year, I started out on the good foot with Carter G. Woodson. I ended up doing pennance by serving some time at SCAA as a community service. Considering a comment I got a few days ago, I think perhaps it's time to remind everyone how real white supremacy is in America. Here. Now.

So if you do nothing else for Black History Month, spend an hour reading what goes on at SCAA and try to imagine hearing that kind of bullcrap your entire life.

It's not that I don't support and respect Black History Month. On the contrary, I'm drawn to it for all the right reasons, just as I am to Kwanzaa. Since you may be aware of the kind of bodewash that passes for legitimate commentary about Kwanzaa, you can probably imagine (well you can see for yourself at SCAA) the kind of offal downpour heaved during February. What am I supposed to do, ignore it?

As it happens, the jagoff they shot yesterday was named Bikel and his partner in crime was named Schlagel. Somehow, some idiot kids thought it was cute to pronounce his name 'Schnigger' in my wife's presence in the local elementary school library. As she shushed them knowing they were playing around the bad word but not necessarily directed at her, M9 didn't quite understand. This means I had to give the 'this word is Nigger' speech that I created purely off the cuff.

Interestingly (or not) enough, there aren't any big pictures of lynchings on Google when you need them. But I essentially explained that this is what people did to people they considered niggers. It is a word of profound disrespect. I'm fairly certain by his brief expression of puzzlement that he has yet to be dissed in such a manner. I would hardly expect my explanation to be an inoculation, but the spousal unit and I made it clear (we hope) that we are especially intolerant of that particular word.

What a headache. I'm glad I know what I'm doing.

Howling At The Moon

Well, it's about time to kiss 2k3 goodbye. And good riddance.

We shall highlight the evening's festivities with a number of old and new traditions. We will have noisemakers and confetti balloons. We will burn old bad news in the fireplace. We have another Kwanzaa candle to light. I will blow the digideroo I got from Sydney and most assuredly we will howl at the moon.

Nothing like a second four day weekend. See ya next year.

Ujamaa, The Problem Child

Ujamaa, cooperative economics, has given me trouble since the first time I understood it. That is primarily because I find it lacking as a strategy of liberation. So while I light the candles this evening, I'm not going to engage in any hypocrisy. Fortunately, it's the birthday of the spousal unit, so the festivities continue unabated.

There is, in my mind if not on the minds of everyone in the Kwaku Network, some measure of conflict between Ujamaa, Black Capitalism and Blackface Capitalism. It is a very difficult discussion that I have singly been unable to maintain in any forum, try as I may.

Now I have only been to a few colleges, so I don't have the last word. However, I cannot recall ever having met one black business major declaring that what they intended to do with their degree and first 50 thousand dollars was go (back?) to the ghetto and buy up the local 7-11 franchise. The emphasis is still cool. 70's cool. Integration cool. Corporate America cool. As we speak, it is not a recognizable black thang to invest 20 large into the local fruit stand. Now for the twisted critic, this brings up the dysfunctional culture question. Wrong turn. The fact is, we much prefer the black owned operated and oriented bookstore to the black grocery store. Kellogg's Corn Flakes will suffice, but not McKnowledge. In Eddie Murphy's Coming to America. Everybody laughed at John Amos' McDougals. A black capitalist, but not Ujaama.

I've made peace with the fact that Ujamaa simply doesn't scale. The cooperative economics of the small shopping village, say Leimert Park, is not ever going to work as a strategy for African Americans. As a tactic, maybe. So while I accept it as a value in the Nguzo Saba, I'd have to say that it is not a transcendent value. Aside from that, anyone who has studied Liemert Park knows that cooperative economics didn't work there either. If it did, the large theatre there would be bustling with the entertainment progeny of Marla Gibbs, The Comedy Act Theatre, birthplace of Chris Rock would be rockin' instead of quiet and The World Stage wouldn't have gotten in trouble.

There are successful businesses in Leimert Park and in Fort Greene and in various lovely black cultural & shopping districts. But I daresay cooperative economics is not a part of the business plans they are talking with their bankers.

On the whole, I believe that the appeal of Ujamaa has much to do with nostalgia for the leadership and control black elites had over the average black in the days before racial integration. When the ladies of the Links had more scholarship money for young black highschoolers than General Electric, when your neighborhood black doctor who studied at Meharry made housecalls, when you didn't worry about redlining because Golden State Mutual Life Insurance took care of that for you. Those were the good old days.

But black banks can't compete. I can remember when it was a 'black thang' to not use ATMs because black banks like Founders Savings Bank couldn't afford to join the network. And so people stood patiently in line, for a while. Now the building that was new in the 70s on the corner of Marlton & King Boulevard is now dusty, empty and for lease. Blackfolks wanted low prices more than they wanted black owned banking. Spin that four different ways iteratively substituting 'needed' for 'wanted' in the previous sentence for subtlety's sake. Pick whichever you like, but in the end, the market wins.

In the 'black mecca' of Atlanta, there are black radio stations that advertise as ebonically as they please that black car dealers are having Juneteenth sales on late model automobiles. ("Don't play like you didn't hear it") Of course you're not going to get any guarantee that Toyota was made with black hands, the paper won't be carried by a black finance company and insurance we've already covered. But you will get black customer service and marketing, and that's all good. It crystalized the idea in my head that there are limits to the amount of recourse one needs in a consumer economy. I continue to remind those who tilt at boycott's windmills that black people, by all rights, have no reason whatsoever to wear cotton. What has the cotton industry in America ever done for blackfolks but work us into early graves? Yet nobody seems to mind at all. I'm sure there are some Jews who will never, ever buy a German auto, but I don't think anyone cares about that either.

Some take this with gloom and say that it is yet another feature of our doom that there is no escaping the pervasive immorality of the Man's markets. Except the Man does not control the market and it is amoral. It's the nation of millions that holds you back (and gives you lower prices).

So try as they might, black Marxists may try to paint markets in evil colors, (generally white) but they cannot explain why millions of African Americans have made the economic choices we have, which include abandoning Ujamaa for banking, employment and other roles. Well, they say that we're all brainwashed for eating potato chips instead of 'recycling black dollars', but I'm not going to dignify any black mass hysteria arguments. It's not an explaination.

While I'm on the subject, allow me to remind you that it can be argued forcefully that the greatest enemy of Ujamaa is the Diversity Industrial Complex. Think about it for a moment. Whom are they training to be sensitive to whom? Somebody is getting paid to show Joe Millionaire how to attract the attention and respect of Jamal Ordinary. That's a good thing, but it is not empowerment despite smushy rhetoric to the contrary. It may or may not take a village to raise a child but it definitely takes a crafty capitalist to beat another. So I think that Malcolm, the patron saint of steely-eyed independence would be kicking Ujamaa to the curb and owning shares of General Electric, not painting the corporate hallways in melanin-friendly earthtones and inventing a race-normed Myers-Briggs test. But I digress.

I am convinced that it will be critical masses of African American millionaires who will be the successful conservators of all that Ujamaa might have been were it capable. Black Capitalism will work in niches as big as corners of professional sports. Yeah I admit it, I'm an elitist. Then again everyone celebrates Harriet Tubman but can't name the passengers of the Underground Railroad. Ujamaa will continue for mom and pop whom I'm all behind but don't expect any more from them than I the local Pakastani owned 7-11 to help Pervez Musharraf.

Finally, I'm going to put my boy Fleming on the spot. Is he Ujamaa? Does anybody need a PhD for Ujamaa?

Ujamaa = Howard University Drama Club
Black Capitalism = Rocawear
Blackface Capitalism = Denzel Washington movies.

Blackface Capitalism rules.

Kujichagulia 2003

This morning, I went to the African Marketplace & Kwanzaa Parade at Liemert Park, entirely by accident.

The plan was to meet Pops at Lucy Florence and talk about days past and days to come. That happened uneventfully, but I got a chance to see a bit of the K in action. Interestingly enough it was who wasn't there that got my attention.

The Muir High Alumni drum corps just blew all the recorded and amplified music everywhere away. They had the kind of beat that made you change the rhythm of your walking pace. It was powerful. While I had just been hanging around the natty dreads and their incense and t-shirt booths, it was that booming that let me know a real parade was happening. I finally got out to Crenshaw and found the Dorsey HS cheerleaders, and an incredible set of steppers whose name escapes me (all in black and gold) and finally a group of about 30 black equestrians trotting in grand style.

Something about black horsemen (and women) really impresses me. Whenever I see them in parades, whether they be the Buffallo Soldier re-enactors, part of some other equestrian group, or just trotting up the street in a horse community like Altadena, it always piques my interest. These folks were styling in white longsleeves with black pants, as their horses highstepped in black, red and silver tack.

Still and all, the sparsity of the whole affair was the most remarkable thing I noticed. There couldn't have been more than 1000 folks at Liemert Park itself. Power106 had their radio truck in the parade, so it must have been announced. Still, it's hard to judge considering I was at the very end of the parade route. Everybody who wants to get their African thing on was in force including the usual suspects, but the huge crowd that shows up for the King Day parade was conspicuously absent.

Not looking for inspiration these things don't encourage or discourage. I really wished I had a little bit more cash to spend and that I had brought the kids. But there will always be another opportunity to get into roots. While I was there I was able, finally to get some red, black and green candles. I called Rite-Aid last night, they said they had them in stock but that was not the color green nor size red I had in mind. It's great when the kind of stuff I'm talking about is right there. The vendors of African objets d'art were making their small fortunes, and that's some commercialization nobody could object to. On the whole, it was a good thing.

Kujichagulia is fun to say 80 different ways, and so the kids had a field day with the word this evening. We can do what we want, just give us room.

I'm bushed this evening and don't really want to get into the personal Kujichagulia story. Besides, all of you know that being a black Republican is about as Kukichagulia as one can get. Of course, that brings one in conflict with Ujamaa. But that's for another day.

Kwanzaa Questions

Dickerson on My Tits

Debra Dickerson gets on my last freakin' nerve today. I haven't even lit my first candle and already I'm getting upset defending my family tradition. Her NYT editorial is an insult that is popping the veins on my forehead.

First let's get to standing:

Until two years ago, the mere mention of Kwanzaa would have me cracking wise about kente cloth boxer shorts and artificially lengthened dreadlocks � and cultural pride as mere show and consumerism.

and with dripping condescention worthy of Chirac

Kwanzaa, like Christianity, does nothing for me but I have to respect that it does for others.

and then the blatant contradiction:

In rejecting Christmas and Christianity, blacks reject the primary force for black American sustenance and resistance.

So presuming you are black, how the hell did you make it in this world if Christianity does nothing for you?

Umoja 2003

You may not know it, but under ordinary circumstances, I would be a celebrity of sorts. Who knows, in time my story may make headlines. But the obscure fact of the matter is that I was something of a privileged youth. Although I don't often think or talk about it, I was the original kid cast in the role of Corey for the groundbreaking television series 'Julia' starring Dianne Carroll. I was also the fist black kid scripted to star in an episode of Gunsmoke. None of that actually happened because my parents were not stage parents. It's deeper than that, but that's a story for another day.

One thing that I mention more than those other brushes with fame is my association with the origins of Kwanzaa. So in my middle age, I feel some responsibility to the celebration and its values. In fact, a year ago I got much of my impetus to blog publicly over the venomous idiocy being spread by Ann Coulter. At the time I was rolling my own blog and then transitioned it to 'Cobb Static' at any rate. Here is the kwanzaa section of my first days of Cobb.

This year as my kids have become old enough to understand more than simple symbols, I will bear the burden of exemplifying various of the values with tales of my own youth. I cannot believe that my children will be black in the same ways I was, but as I have said on behalf of the Old School, there are certain strengths forged in the furnace of yesteryear that maintain their fortitude today. They can be admired for what they are even if they are not duplicated, as if they could be. No one need race a tortoise and a hare today to understand the moral of that story. So while I am an exponent of Kwanzaa, I am not a die-hard for strict interpretation. This is why I have no particular objections to whitefolks celebrating watered down or variant versions, multi-culti style.

On this, the first day of Kwanzaa, the theme is Umoja. Unity. It is of great value in the proper context, and nothing has demonstrated greater power for African Americans than our unanimity in opposition to those who have initiated perpetuated conditions which subjected us over the centuries. There are others who have dedicated themselves to the purple prose of all that, I'll just tell one old personal story and allow you to consider the resonance.

Oh Yeah, Love

i also wanted to say that the spouse and i scared each other. the prospect of losing what we've built came close, and now we realize what idiotic hotheads we were being. at least i do. yesterday, for the second or third time since our blowup, i've gotten The Look. and if you have ever loved a woman and she gives you The Look, then you've been in paradise. it's that one ineffable magic that you can never catch on film because it's the look of love, given at a hand's distance face to face. the eyes glow slightly upwards and towards you, pulling you in. you can physically feel the heat from her forehead. in that moment you know you are in love and that she's in love with you.

it's christmas morning and everyone is still sleeping. the girls tried to make it to midnight but didn't last. so we took their pictures with clocks to prove that they just missed santa. chris called from new york and i talked him through the setup of his east coast xbox, that's why i'm up so damned early.

i've split enough logs with my handy hatchet to support several fires. me, i love the tradition of throwing all the colored paper into the fireplace as everything gets unwrapped. this year we unstitched the barbie hair and twistie ties beforehand. as i sit and type, i hear the soft snoring. we are but a few moments away from that precious time.

i am bedeviled by the spectre of karenga the crook. my love for kwanzaa doesn't parse well enough. people are thanking me for exposing him and it as frauds, and i was just being balanced. one email had me up until 2:30 putting together a black mental liberation booklist at amazon.com, because the poor girl suffered through a 'black man think tank' (presumeably for disaffected frosh) featuring the maulana himself. she was devastated to find in him, a woman beating past. why does everything have to be so perfect? how have we become so fragile and demanding, so desparate for god's own grace? hmm. well, there it is. god.

and so now i feel strange for the analogy to easter. i said that we couldn't celebrate it without pilate's unoriginal demand for crucifixion, but that of course we don't celebrate pilate.

perhaps it is faith itself that requires perfection. perhaps this is why we both admire and ridicule those with abundant faith in mankind, why p.t. barnum's edict and the golden rule are so permanently with us. faith is damnably difficult, so why bother unless there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. with god, that's easy. with people it's both angelic and foolish. there will always be a battle between the cynics and the stalwarts.

..but wait! a creature is stirring. time for gifts!

Represent

part of the difficulty in representing kwanzaa is that people take it entirely too seriously, or dismiss it out of hand. yet the dismissals are indicative of the seriousness at which they expect to take it.

and so in my further investigation of the my family complicity in the matter that is kwanzaa, i relate some of my father's reflections on black society, the holiday and the person of ron karenga. but i will do it gently for reasons that i'm certain are compelling but as of yet unknown to me. ordinarily i would just post directly words from his recent letter to me, but that's not going to happen.

firstly, i was a little bit surprised to find that the nobody in the family were ever members of united slaves. i had been itching to confront the characterization of them as a cult of personality for karenga as a bunch of revisionist hogwash with myself and my family as proof. however there were no bowens in US. on the other hand, i myself was a member of the young simbas. my bright yellow simba sweatshirt was my absolute favorite at the age of six. who wouldn't be proud to be a lion? having recently found a picture of myself marching in front of the aquarian center, i've recalled a few choice memories about the photo shoot which landed on the cover of 'look' and one other magazine.

i hadn't thought about the simbas until about 1990 when i found that very magazine on display at the afro-american museum in los angeles' exposition park. the first and foremost memory was that it took a good amount of prodding for me to put on the angry black face most appropriate for a magazine cover. i was a happy boy, not an angry boy, and i never saw the simbas as some paramilitary group. in fact, we did very little marching at all, and none that i remember for any other reason than the photo shoot. for the most part, we studied swahili and the nguzo saba in preparation for the kwanzaa equivalent of the elementary school christmas pageant. i recall being the 'z'; we held up signs and recited.

this brings up an interesting point. for as long as i can recall, i've always spelled kwanzaa with three a's. but both my parents use only two. i distinctly remember that we added another 'a' to the end because each of us kids was to recite one of the nguzo saba in the first celebration. but if there were only six letters in kwanza, the last kid wouldn't have have a placard. so there was a third a tacked onto the end. bratty prodigy that i was, i got shunted into the 'z' spot because that kid couldn't wrap his mouth around 'cooperative economics' or some such. i wanted to be the 'k', first in line, but i ended up being the 'z'. so depending on your take, kwanzaa owes it's own spelling to deference to the needs of children and parents.

Redondo Kwanzaa

last night was the christmas pageant at redondo union highschool. beryl heights elementary's children took the stage and sung joyous songs in celebration of diversity in the holiday season. the third graders were first, followed by 1st then kindergarten. the fourth graders followed, then the 2nd years preceded the fifth grade and the all grades finale. there were songs of winter, christmas & hanukkah. new years songs came in mexican and japanese flavors, and of course there were songs of kwanzaa.

one might very well wonder, in these days of trent lott, why white kids would sing about kwanzaa. one might be out of one's mind, this is america. in any case kids are never quite as white as their parents are, or would have them be. nevertheless, the coughs were in evidence (as opposed to polite laughter and applause) when a poor kid choked their festival of lights speech by imporperly naming the holiday kwanzaa. i hope for her sake she gets to live it down.

but it raises an interesting point about the interchangeability of youthful hope which matures into diversity under the best circumstances and adversity by default. (elaboration goes here)

the other point it underscores for me is that undying fact about american culture, its ability to levitate in the anti-gravity field that i've called the semiotic swamp. (elaboration goes here)

what remains real is the bitter conflict which underlied the development of kwanzaa, which makes it all the more american. who else but americans would swing the blues into a song? aren't holidays supposed to take our minds away from struggle? yet kwanzaa, born of struggle, finds itself as the latest in the american pantheon of ex-pagan rituals. it is now celebrated by so called white kids in a so called suburb were so called struggle does not exist. and yet as it crosses over and blends into the fabric of more and more lives it will bring hope and purpose there as well.

i am strongly of the opinion that the african-american deed is done. we broke open america and made it, for the enduring moment, truly a place of civil liberty. while our wars on terror and drugs continue to erode this world historical accomplishment, the window was opened into which millions of foreigners found our society open enough to try. and having tried and succeeded, their incremental influence has changed and continues to change what the american middleclass is. this america needs a new name because it is no longer a european thing, resembling little in its expression of a mere 50 years ago.

to sing of imani and nia in this america will require exactly that. the only grit which survives down to the last breath is that born in the intimate knowledge of struggle. birth is such an appropriate word, for childbirth is an intimate and painful struggle. birth can always be celebrated in songs of youthful hope, it can even generate an immaculate mythology unconnected to mortal existence. at root, birth is laborious and unpredictable. its ritual of first fruits are as old as time, but only truly connected to the single passion which created it.

we witness kwanzaa some 35 years after its birth as a youthful celebration, respected by most yet fully and intimately celebrated by few. its destiny is uncertain, no matter how certain its creator's intent, and its fate lies in the spirits of its celebrants, no matter how near or far they are to the intimacy of struggle.

as american children sing songs of kwanzaa in an international mix of celebration there can be little doubt that such a light embrace of the hopeful creation of darker days bears witness to the triumph of hope. if we can always expect this of our children, then our future holds marvels.

Ligon Forgotten

i was there. i was about 6 or 7 years old and participated in the first kwanzaa. my family knew ron as well as the rest of the US collective. we used to meet on a fairly regular basis at the aquarian center on santa barbara blvd before it became king blvd.

the simple story is that ron as well as a number of others in the movement at the time had very powerful enemies in the government which undermined the ability for blacks to organize any sort of reasonable community political group. however karenga was one of the first to realize that a positive cultural celebration could not be targeted like a political movement. it is a fallacy to assert that karenga was the only person with any ideas at the time. part of the reason the US group disbanded was simply because intelligent black folk don't need 'leaders' the way some folk assert. out of the black arts, black consciosness and black power movements there were several brilliant ideas, but once they were developed and cultivated there was no longer a need for the movement.

as for the slanted question which appears more bent on discrediting kwanzaa rather than understanding it or any of the cultural, political and philosophical background surrounding its inception, i don't know whether or not karenga went to jail. i do know that he fell out of favor with my parents due to some ego problems (there are certain people who feel like they need blacklight posters of them, like were made of huey and angela) and that he was a 'playa' with more than one girlfriend. in any case, it is doubtful that he was convicted of any felony level matter. he is a tenured professor at long beach state as we speak. but also, let me put it to you this way. i have been detained by police officers 27 times, cited 6 times out of those for traffic violations, and arrested once for a traffic warrant. all i am is an ordinary black man. i don't have the fbi out looking for me in the context of 'national security'. trying to discredit a radical black figure of the 60s because they went to jail, is like trying to discredit a republican candidate because democrats say he's a liar. it's all part of the same process.

as for kwanzaa's links to africa, they are simple and plain. we spoke swahili. we spoke swahili like parents who send their kids to french immersion private schools speak french. it wasn't like a phrase here or a phrase there. it was conversational. if you read 'japanese by spring' by ishmael reed, you can get an appreciation of what i mean by the centrality of language in culture. in that way, the originators (note the s) of kwanzaa were more afrocentric than those of the 90s afrocentricity movement. pan africanism was real at the time, members of my family regularly visited west africa, i had an uncle who was an economics professor at the university of ghana. most of the people involved in the early kwanzaas were progressive, as one might imagine. dr. ligon, proprietor of the first and largest black bookstore on the west coast (the aquarian center) was a father figure to most. many people admire king because he studied gandhi, but ligon knew much more of eastern metaphysics and religions. the black arts movement which spawned the watts poets, and was the origin of the career of famous critic stanley crouch, now of the lincoln center jazz organization, was also centered around ligon's aquarian center. alfred ligon and his wife were the property owners and many significant political, cultural and philosophical activities began and were done in his building. the late dr. ligon is the unknown hero here. if karenga was the father of kwanzaa, ligon was the grandfather. however there were many artists and thinkers who congregated around the aquarian center over the years - certainly every major black writer from the west coast over the past 30 years has paid some tribute to dr. ligon.

http://www.mdcbowen.org/p1/fpp/kwanzaa.htm
http://news.bookweb.org/news/737.html
http://slick.org/pipermail/deathwatch/2002-August/000212.html

as others have said, the origins of kwanzaa are important, but what is more important is how it lives on. i am satisfied that kwanzaa is here to stay and that most celebrants have got the spirit right. as i was going to say when i began speaking about progressives, those who would be black instead of negroes in the 60s were also likely to be outspoken critics of the contemporary black christian church. those who found the confrontational, and racist aspects of the nation of islam too strident were the type more likely to find kwanzaa more acceptable. our family declared christmas commercial, hypocritical and lacking in spiritual purity in a christian nation that would subject blacks to second class status. (what a unique insight) so we celebrated kwanzaa instead. later we changed back to christmas, because by the early 70s most of the black power intellectuals like those in my family were making their impact on college campuses instead of just the streets and communities. blackness was solidified and turning the mood in the country towards crossover.

it is foolish to demonize karenga and kwanzaa. in the larger scheme of things history will show what i know to be true. these black cultural nationalists spawned the best of what most americans freely admit, as well as the world recognizes as the best of african american contributions to the world. it is facile for know-nothings to badmouth and search out "he went to jail" in looking at the person of karenga, but that's only a fraction of the story. i think that official history has forgotten dr. ligon, and that his role in the black arts movement should be emphasized especially as it relates to kwanzaa. karenga rightly deserves the credit for selecting the artifacts, but he didn't work in a vaccuum. some of the very first kwanzaa karamus were held under my roof, and i feel that i should also be an ambassador for its roots.

as i celebrate it today (not religiously), many things have changed. ujamaa, for example, has a completely different context today than it did 30 years ago. i expect that kwanzaa will continue to change. but what will continue is its ability to inspire people to be their best, and remind them, in the context of a materialistic society that marginalizes and suppresses original spirits and impulses towards real freedom, that there are certain basic values that cannot and will not be denied. all that is needed is a little honest dedication and a ritualized reminder. that's kwanzaa.