Kwanzaa…what it means to me.

Mmmm, fake food!!

Tis’ the season to be militant…what?

No, not really. Let me explain…

First and foremost…I’m a Christmas girl. I love the shit out of Christmas. In fact I’ll be posting some pictures of Christmas from the two places that I spend the majority of my time lately, my uncle’s house and my mom’s house…but getting back to the topic at hand.

I love and celebrate Christmas…but around these parts we also celebrate Kwanzaa.

Now for a lot of people out there, Kwanzaa is a separatist non-holiday that some wacky black leader pulled out of ass one day on a whim.

But let me tell you what Kwanzaa means to me.

When we’ve had Kwanzaa “celebrations” in the house it’s always been a reflective, harmonious and interesting time for us. Sometimes there are tears, many times there is singing and prayer and always there is laughter.

The entire point of Kwanzaa is to give someone a sense of community and togetherness from a social standpoint, not a religious one like Christmas (at least the non-commerical version of Christmas).

The tenents of Kwanzaa are as follows:

1. Umoja (Unity) To strive and maintain unity in family, community and the nation.
2. Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) To define, name, create for yourself instead of being defined by others.
3. Ujima (Collective Work and Responsiblity) To build up your community and solve community problems together.
4. Ujama (Cooperative Economics) Build up business and profit together.
5. Nia (Purpose) Building up and developing to help those around us.
6. Kuumba (Creativity) Doing what you can to leave this place better than you found it.
7. Imani (Faith) To believe in your leaders, community and nation that we will overcome all obstacles.

Now…granted…Karenga who is best associated with the holiday is one of those scary black militant types who believe in black nationalism…but if you think about it…there are a lot of holidays and traditions that started with a negative bent, but achieved a better and higher purpose in the end. Take for instance, Thanksgiving…well at least the spirit of what it’s about…and not the gluttony…but I digress.

And while Kwanzaa uses a lot of African terms, it’s not a call for us to want to go back to Africa…but an acknowledgement of a lost heritage and traditions…sharing of crops and the celebration aspect in many African tribes. It’s a tip of the hat to those that came before, not a wish to “return to the mother-land”.

In our house, Kwanzaa has always been celebrated with white, black and anyone in between who wanted to work together for a better world in the spirit of community. That’s it. Kwanzaa at least as it is practiced in OUR house is about including and not excluding others.

We would give of our talents which would be singing, playing piano or in my case busting out my flute and tooting off a song. Telling others what we planned to do for the next year in regards to helping make this world, and our community (Detroit) a better place.

It’s always been a positive and joyful time being entertained and provoking thought and discussion about the issues of the day. My friends, white/black and whomever else, have always had a great time and were glad for the experience of trying this “new” holiday.