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"What are you doing for Kwanzaa?"
Is something I might ask my family and friends who I know that celebrate. The answer is either some kind of community service, making donations OR it could be something like starting to exercise more, or studying a new language. That thing where you start the habit for your new year's resolution on the week before so you can keep going all year.
What I remember most is cleaning the whole house and donating and repairing things.
I'm speaking very generally, I hope that's obvious.
As I understand it Hanukkah is a happy holiday that isn't as big of a deal as Passover for the Jewish people I know. But in the US it gets amplified for the reasons you describe.
Kwanzaa is a bit different in that it grows out of that gap between Christmas and New Years ... which have always been popular holidays where seeing family was mandatory in Black communities. There are a LOT of Black New Year traditions.
They are also both kind of holidays of excess, Kwanzaa is a contrast.
Kwanzaa literally starts right after Christmas. For Christians who celebrate the holidays kind of amplify each other.
It's never been a "replacement" for Christmas. The idea is kind of horrifying honestly.
When I've been alone without anyone to celebrate with I'd do writing. One year I edited a Wikipedia article for each day to celebrate and that felt perfect.
But that is just me.
Kwanzaa has always been embedded in Christmas and New Years for me. So, you might go to a Christmas service, have Christmas dinner, see the nativity play (or better yet check out Black Nativity*) then spend that next week cleaning the house, doing repairs, helping neighbors and just getting ready for the new year.
After a week of hard work and community service a New Year's party feels earned. The year is over and boy was it a lot of work! On to the next one!
False, racist and antisemitic. It's racist because it implies that Black Americans can't come up with any new ideas without being puppeted around. Antisemitic because it implies that there is a Jewish conspiracy to "sow division"
It's just a needlessly ugly way to look at a holiday that is literally about unity.
If you feel like Kwanzaa is divisive that's from YOU. Inspect why you think that. I've invited you to join the celebration. Just say "no thanks" if it bugs you.
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?
Even the concepts of dawn and sunset are made up.
Yes. And that's a part of it too. Who gets to define us?
I remember the first time I saw a little Black girl in a toy commercial. I ran to get my mother. "Look mom look!"
It was a My Little Pony commercial and there was a very light-skinned little black girl with perfectly permed straight hair (why couldn't my hair do that) playing with the toys I loved. On TV!
Consider the mixed feelings this would cause for any sensible parent. Yes. You want your child to feel like they are a part of the world. But what will the world take from them?
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.
Yup. I'm feeling very excited about it this year.
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.)
Oh hard agree. Investing in pirates, making it a viable "business model" is cartoonishly evil to me.
Might makes right dressed up in contracts and military jargon. It's anti-social.
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.
11. The week from Christmas to New Years is a perfect "time of reflection" this is one of the most compelling aspects of the holiday. You are invited to spend a week reflecting on the year in seven ways:
Umoja: Community unity eg agreeing on what the work is.
Kujichagulia: Self-determination to do the work
Ujima: Doing your share of the work.
Ujamaa: Material local investment.
Nia: A shared vision of a better future.
Kuumba: Creativity, your differences and new ideas are valued.
Imani: Faith
Well, you are still going to be stuck with red and green with Kwanzaa. Red Green and Black are the "colors."
7. Dr. Maulana Karenga wrote extensively about Kwanzaa but personally I feel saying he "invented Kwanzaa" misses some of the significance of the holiday.
8. It grows out of a long tradition of Black Americans seeking a connection to the homelands we cannot name.
9. It is a holiday about self improvement and personal growth and VERY anti-commercial.
10. It's a time to ask if you are doing enough to support your community.
I grew up celebrating Kwanzaa. So this is just my perspective.