12. Kwanzaa is always mutating.
13. Holidays have always mutated and adapted.

I think Kwanzaa is important. As a child I took all of that talk about self-determination and thinking carefully about how you can support the communities you are a part of very seriously and it has shaped the way that I face adversity and who I am.

@futurebird this year, these seem like especially important things for Americans to reflect on.

To understand Kwanzaa you need to think about what it would be like to be a Black parent raising kids in the US in the 60s and 70s. Your kids go nuts for Christmas and want gifts. Gimme gimme gimme! Then everyone gets drunk on New Years. How are these holidays as commercially pushed onto your family teaching any kind of good values?

I think that is a big part of the appeal.

(Of course there is another side to Christmas that isn't all Coca Cola Santa Claus and Black Friday fist fights.)

In the 70s and 80s Black Americans had amassed enough economic power that advertisers stopped ignoring us. No mater what color your skin the money's still green.

This mostly meant a proliferation of ads, especially billboards featuring a version of "Black Culture" filtered through an avaricious and distorted lens. In particular ads for cheap alcohol. Several Black pastors became famous and even got arrested for panting these billboards over.

But it was that feeling of an outside force coming in and imposing an image of who you were that people rebelled against.

Some people. Others embraced it. Culture is complex.

In the 70s and 80s Black Americans had amassed enough economic power that advertisers stopped ignoring us. No mater what color your skin the money's still green.

This mostly meant a proliferation of ads, especially billboards featuring a version of "Black Culture" filtered through an avaricious and distorted lens. In particular ads for cheap alcohol. Several Black pastors became famous and even got arrested for panting these billboards over.

@futurebird That was also the time of blaxploitation cinema, right?

Kwanzaa Facts

1. Kwanzaa is a made up holiday.
2. So is every other holiday.
3. Anyone can celebrate Kwanzaa.
4. It was created by Black, (mostly American and Christian*) people in the 1970s to celebrate Black history and the influence of African culture in the African diaspora and to assert the presence of Black people in US culture.
5. Most Black Americans don't celebrate Kwanzaa.
6. It is not a holiday tied to any particular religion.

@futurebird

#2 isn't entirely true.

I'm a pagan, and follow the solstices and equinoxes. Those are celestial events that define the shortest day, longest day, and equal day/night across the whole earth.

The solstices and equinoxes predate, well, biologic matter.

Kwanzaa Facts

1. Kwanzaa is a made up holiday.
2. So is every other holiday.
3. Anyone can celebrate Kwanzaa.
4. It was created by Black, (mostly American and Christian*) people in the 1970s to celebrate Black history and the influence of African culture in the African diaspora and to assert the presence of Black people in US culture.
5. Most Black Americans don't celebrate Kwanzaa.
6. It is not a holiday tied to any particular religion.

@futurebird Israel is probably involved

@pheelinwhitney

I have no idea what you mean by this. But what I suspect you mean isn't good. However I won't make an assumption and will ask: What on earth are you talking about?

@futurebird I mean they sow division in America who knows what they are capable of

@pheelinwhitney @futurebird what has this got to do with Kwanzaa?

@futurebird I mean they sow division in America who knows what they are capable of

@gsuberland @futurebird its almost like zionists want people to stop celebrating Christmas, i mean they hate it, they're the ones who made the old song White Christmas that started the trend of removing Jesus from Christmas