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Friday, December 9, 2011 | 11:23am
Is Kwanzaa a Racist Holiday?
File this under ‘good for the gander’
There has been talk today over an incident involving the President lighting candles during last night’s White House Hanukkah festivities.
During a ceremony where he was supposed to light a single candle, he lit all of them instead.
Conservatives are joking that perhaps the President was confusing the menorah with a KWANZAA menorah, which (I am told) involves lighting all of the candles at the same time.
That got me curious about Kwanzaa, so I read about it here.
Since everyone is still probably worked up from the debate earlier in the week, I guess I’ll step in the sh*it and ask the question… Is Kwanzaa a racist holiday?
According to the Wikipedia entry, the founder of Kwanzaa did so because in order to…
give Blacks an alternative to the existing holiday and give Blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and history, rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society
Initially, the founder claimed that it would be an alternative to Christmas, stating his opinion that Jesus was psychotic and Christianity is the ‘white mans religion’.
Later, as Kwanzaa went mainstream, the meaning of the holiday was toned down, and is now considered a celebration of the seven principles of African Heritage:
Unity; self-determination; collective work and responsibility; family, purpose, creativity and faith.
Now… as a general principle I’m not going to question someone else’s beliefs or holidays.
But considering the mood of the site lately, I’m just going to raise a few points…
First: As a specifically African-American holiday, is Kwanza inherently racist? If we are going to (rightly) claim that the various ‘white power’ movements are racist, doesn’t that mean that the same must apply to ‘black power’ movements, and therefore the theme of Kwanzaa?
Second: I notice that Kwanzaa is celebrated from December 26th to January 1st. As a business owner I must ask: are we sure this wasn’t just a big scam to get the week between Christmas and new years off work? As Scrooge pointed out, Christmas is little reason to pick a mans pocket every 25th of December. But an entire week?
Third: Am I the only one who thinks that the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa sound an awful lot like your typical inner-city black-renaissance plan?
A holiday that teaches black men to work, take care of their family, be responsible and creative? Do black men REALLY need a holiday to tell them that?
It kind of reminds me of the ‘grandmother phase’ the nation went through. You remember that, don’t you? The time they tried to convince us that the only thing that would save black America was the grandmother, since the father was obviously a worthless piece of sh*t?
So have it… Is Kwanzaa a racist holiday? And does it matter if it is?
FILED IN Editorials
Is Kwanzaa Racist???? Hell no… It is a racist as Christmas or the History books. Since when was god given a color? And then given a color that didn’t represent the color of the people he would have been born from. Or While reading American history you barley find anything About great black American achievements. All i hear about is First we were in chains. Then we hear quick blurps about MLK, Harriett Tubman,3rd good and a few others… But what about Lewis Lewis Latimer, Booker T,George Washington Carver, Madame CJ walker.. And many many others!!!!!
During this time we generally go over these topics and talk about principles that in that Black community has lost over time due to our history here.
When else would most African Americans go over there history other than is this holiday. You also have to remember that this holiday was invented around the time when Black children would pick a white barbie over a black one because she thought it was ugly due to the skin color.
So my question is this. Are our history books and holidays Racist for leaving a lot of American history out due to the fact they are not White?
Black history is American history.
NUFF SAID!!!
@Mr Bad Guy… no, not nuff said. I’m not letting it go that fast.
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@NTS5… You’re bypassing the question.
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I didn’t ask if Kwanzaa was a good thing, or a valuable thing. I asked if it was a RACIST thing.
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I agree with almost everything you said, especially referencing the doll experiment conducted around the time that Kwanzaa was started (and the need to do something about it).
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One of the reasons I chose Kwanzaa as the subject is because it forces us to separate the question of racism and good/evil.
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For example: The KKK or the Nazis. They are racist, but they are also evil. It’s easy to argue against them because the racism is also tied to their evil works. You would be naturally opposed to them for either reason, most probably both reasons.
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In the case of Kwanzaa, It may or may not be racist (that is the debate), but the ends and actions are undeniably good. So we are left to decide the question of racism unable to use the good or evil of its results in our arguments.
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Excluding all of the possible positive results coming from Kwanzaa, we are still left with the question: Is the act of celebrating a specific race… inherently racist?
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Neither the 4th of July, Cinco de Mayo, nor St Patrick’s day celebrate simply on racial lines. No matter how much these holidays may be concentrated in specific races or ethnic groups, the holidays themselves are based on events or individuals; which means that they transcend the race or ethnicity of the person celebrating.
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If you separate the followers, the acts, the history, and the results (good or bad) from the root question; and boil it down to a single intellectual (and objective) question, you still have to ask… is having a holiday to celebrate blackness the same as having a holiday that celebrates being white?
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It’s a tough subject. That’s why I asked the question in the first place.
Well, my answer would be no. For the simple fact of celebrating the achievements of a one race without implying or rejecting the achievements of another is not Racist.
Racist would be not allowing any other races to participate or to condemn another race, by the structure of the Holiday.
So again I say no.
Um Satan PatricKKKs is all about The Irish(Irish Pride etc) and get’n faded or ur Buzzlight year on. I have 2 these Irish pubs….Lookn 4 a white girl 2 “skeet on” of course ….but when I go u see so much white pride and a bit of racial overtone . O’Brien and Mc’Neil looking at me like I am not suppose 2 be in this free 2 the public bar.Kwanza is not racist in the least it’s about racial pribe , just like what white people do on an hourly basis.
But once again… for the sake of this question, we can’t use someone else’s racism is a mitigating factor. You can’t say a person who steals a loaf of bread is honest because he didn’t steal a car.
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And your statement that ‘Kwanza is not racist in the least it’s about racial pride’ IS the same sort of arguments we hear coming from the neo-nazi’s.
>>> EVERYONE <<<
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For the sake of making it easier for others to keep up on, I suggest we all place our replies at the top level (instead of as replies to replies).
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Since replies are posted by time, we can assume that each reply is a reply to everything else said.
@ NTS5
I say that celebrating the achievements of a single race is in itself a racist act.
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That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. But we still need to acknowledge that it is a racist act.
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I also don’t think that it matters whether you are punishing those of other races. Here’s an example: A Japanese woman works the counter at a fast food restaurant. She charges the regular price for all customers except other Japanese, who get their food for free.
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In this case, the other customers have not been punished or prejudiced against, because they are paying the regular price, nothing more. But the cashier is still acting on racism by giving a benefit to those of her same ethnicity isn’t she?
She is only acting in a racist manner if her race was the only reason she was given the freebie. But celebrating your own culture is in no way racist. What would be racist is only black folk got to have 7 days off from work because we where black. Or if we could do things because we are black that no one else could do. But a holiday celebrating the achievements of black folks because other wise it is not represented is in no way racist.
No Neo-Nazi’s taught they were better than everyone else because of pure race. If they were just taught the about the achievements of what white folks have done and took pride in it I wouldn’t have a problem with it. But they teach lie’s with an agenda of killing Jews and non-whites. That is a very different agenda than teaching about people of the same race and taking pride and building community.
I am Native American and I celebrate Christmas. Now when I say Christmas I mean Santa And his deer, not Jesus. I am not Christian, most Christian belief systems would call me a pagan. I dont believe that celebrating ones heritage should be considered racist. This is the time of year when people from all religions and races celebrate in America. If someone says Merry Christmas to me I reply with the same but would not be offended if someone replied Happy Kwanza or Haunnaka or what ever they celebrate. Whether the creators intention was to stir the trouble pot or not people can relate to the celebration of their heritage and shouldnt feel like they are doing wrong. America is the place where we can pray to and be proud of what and who ever we want. I dont feel that kwanza is racist even if it was entended to be people saw the beauty of their African Heritage and should feel no guilt celebrating it.
+1
Literally, just getting back in town, and here is a great topic…thanks, Malcolm…
Anything that singles out a race, for whatever reason, is racist. In and of itself, this isn’t necessarily wrong…where the wrong comes in is when a race of people starts targeting other races and takes away their GOD-GIVEN rights, or outright eliminates them, based on their racial characteristics alone (you mentioned Nazis, KKK…and throughout history, there have been many more)…
Collectively, Black people in the U.S. CANNOT be racist because we don’t have the power to exercise our racism. Individuals may have some power to exercise racism, and many do….
I think many mistake prejudice for racism. The vast majority of people are prejudiced. The way we are bombarded with racial crap (of all different races) through the media, you’d have had to be living in a cave somewhere, cut off from civilization your entire life, to have no prejudice in your mind, ever…There are probably few people in the “modern” world that can claim to be like this….
So, Kwanzaa is racist, in my opinion. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. It does no harm to any other race…
@ EL …
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Are you saying that racism can only be limited to an act? That is: racism is the act while prejudice is the thought?
Man, I wrote this wonderful, long response and then my computer started acting crazy and I had to restart it! short version: yes! prejudice is a belief that can develop into racism. Every action is preceded by a thought. So you need to act on your prejudices to be a racist.
So let me get this right… Kwanzaa by definition is Racist. Sorry I think you are both reaching… the Definition of racism is
1. the belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors and that this endows some races with an intrinsic superiority over others
2. abusive or aggressive behaviour towards members of another race on the basis of such a belief
(this was taken from dictionary.com)
So celebrating ones cultural achievements is in no way Racist…
Well, that’s their definition of racism. Mine makes more sense to me, LOL…
I’ve always viewed Kwanzaa as this kind of “inoffensive” and even ineffective ceremonial “celebration.” Never really paid much attention to it, and neither do most Black people in this country…As Malcom questioned at the start, “the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa sound an awful lot like your typical inner-city black-renaissance plan?” So this info/knowledge is already out there…unused to a great degree.
I’m Latino(Puerto Riqueno and Mexican), raised Roman Catholic. I celebrate Christmas and the whole nine, I really dont know much about Kwanza, guess it all depends on how you look at it, as far as it being racist or not. White people have been labeled as racists every time they say, “White Pride/Power” because of their history. Cinco De Mayo is a bullshit American holiday thats not even celebrated in Mexico for the exception of Puebla. Cinco De Mayo is the celebration of, “The battle of Puebla”, in which the Mexican Army defeated the invading French, it is NOT Mexican Independence day. Since White people have fucked over a lot of minorities, they try to make it up by doing bullshit things and allowing minorities to call them crackers and etc. Back to the topic, I dont see Kwanza as a racist holiday and you’re right, you dont need a holiday to know your worth.
White Pride/Power have been seen as racist because it has been linked to the Nazis and groups like that, that have tried to wipe out other races. Kwanzaa has never said anything about Black power or denying that any other race has done anything useful. It is just a cultural Holiday that was developed to celebrate culture. And if it is racist then so is any other Cultural holiday.
Is Kwanzaa racist? No, because nobody is stopping a Caucasian, Asian or Hispanic from celebrating Kwanzaa. Now, you may get a weird look or two if you were to openly state as a race other than African-American that you celebrate Kwanzaa, but noone will knock over your Kwanzaa candelabra and “wish a cracker would” try joining in on the festivities.
Nice black hood over the Kwanzaa ceremonial items, Malcolm! Classic!
Lol… thanks for noticing.
Is Kwanzaa racist?! Simple answer is YES!! You don’t fight Racism with more Racism. Obviously Kwanzaa was created to combat the feelings of racism that Black Americans(we) felt but creating something to separate yourself further, basically creating a Black Holiday isn’t the answer to feelings of inequity with Holidays or anything else. The Holiday has evolved just like all Holidays and like Mr. Bad Guy said, ANYONE CAN CELEBRATE KWANZAA. Things become universal with time but it was created from “Racism”. I can’t deny that.