Upon futher research I grew even more suspicious about what Kwanzaa really was. The more I learned the more I realized some things just didn't add up. "Kwanzaa is supposed to be celebrated from 26 December through 1 January: It competes with Christmas and Hanukkah while incorporating some echoes of both, e.g., and a ceremony built around a seven-holed candle-holder that recalls Judaism's seven-branched menorah." That seems a little to convenient for me that an Ancient African "holiday" would coincide with our today's "American" traditions.
This is a joke right they make Kwanzaa look like something out of Africa instead of something from Los Angeles County. If you scan The Official Kwanzaa Web Site, you'll read that the origins of Kwanzaa lie in "the first harvest celebrations of Africa," which allegedly "are recorded in African history as far back as ancient Egypt and Nubia" -- but there is no explanation of why any ancient Egyptians or Nubians might have held harvest festivals around the time of the winter solstice, and there is no identification of the crops that they harvested. Part of celebrating Kwanzaa requires the use of two ears of maize -- but maize is a New World plant, and it wasn't known at all in ancient Africa.
According to an article in
http://www.textbookleague.org/114kwanz.htm The organization that was originally named United Slaves now calls itself The Organization Us (or simply Us or US). It was created some 40 years ago, in Southern California, by a black racist who had begun life as Ron N. Everett but later had assumed the name Maulana Karenga. Karenga -- known chiefly as the inventor of Kwanzaa, a fake "African" holiday that he contrived in 1966 -- has enjoyed a truly colorful career. He was a prominent black nationalist during the 1960s, when his organization was involved in various violent operations. He was sent to prison in 1971, after he and some of his pals tortured two women with a soldering iron and a vise, among other things. He emerged from prison in 1974, and a few years later -- in a maneuver that even The Kingfish might have found difficult -- he got himself installed as the chairman of the Department of Black Studies at California State University at Long Beach.
According to Wikipedia, an African-American scholar and social activist, Ron Karenga created Kwanzaa in 1966 as the first African-American holiday. Karenga said his goal was 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." The name Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili phrase "matunda ya kwanza", meaning "first fruits". The choice of Swahili, an East African language, reflects its status as a symbol of Pan-Africanism, especially in the 1960s.
The Official Kwanzaa Web site describes as "a Pan-African language" and "the most widely spoken African language." The labeling of Swahili as a "Pan-African" language is rubbish. Swahiliis spoken by some 50 million people (i.e., about 7% of Africa's population). Most of those Swahili-speakers are concentrated in eastern Africa. The language which is used most widely in Africa is Arabic; and indeed, Swahili was originally written in Arabic script.
I have decided that Kwanza is more than just politically incorrect, it is a flat out lie. It was a holiday based on lies to give one race a holiday all for themselves. Why did they have go and pull Africa into it. It is an AMERICAN holiday for black people based on bs versions of African history. The fabrication of false history is a discrace to the African nation.
BTW everything I quoted is from
http://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/index.shtml Heather
