RSSHappy Kwanzaa, Happy Days, Happy Festivus, Happy Whatever! Part Two
Gene Lalor | December 27, 2010
(Please see “Happy Kwanzaa . . . Part One,” http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3157, which discusses the invention of Kwanzaa. Part Two features more information on Kwanzaa’s inventor, Maulana Karenga/Ron Everett, his annotated ”Welcome” to the official Kwanzaa website, his criminal, seditious background and history, and a brand new invention, “Trees, and Shrubs, Are People, Too Festival.”)
Included on the site are the 2010 Kwanzaa theme, ”Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba: [helpfully translated as] An Ethics of Sharing Good in the World,” details on Kwanzaa’s “Seven Principles,” invitations to make donations and to purchase books and other products, and “The Founder’s Welcome,” which is remarkably rich both in both imagination and ironies.
In appreciating Kwanzaa, and its founder’s imagination and irony, it’s worthwhile to reprint that 3 paragraph welcome, presented here with bracketed editorial comment:
The Founder’s Welcome
Dr. Maulana Karenga
“As an African American and Pan-African holiday celebrated by millions throughout the world African community, [actually, outside the United States, it's largely ignored] Kwanzaa brings a cultural message which speaks to the best of what it means to be African and human [and human? Are African and human normally mutually exclusive terms?] in the fullest sense. Given the profound [?] significance Kwanzaa has for African Americans and indeed, the world African community, [again, that "significance" is grossly exaggerated since an estimated 4.6 million, at best, of America's 42 million African Americans celebrate Mr. Karenga's holiday], it is imperative that an authoritative source and site be made available to give an accurate and expansive account of its origins, concepts, values, symbols and practice. [That's one man's opinion.]
“Moreover, given the continued rapid growth of Kwanzaa [not quite] and the parallel expanded discussion of it and related issues, an authoritative source which aids in both framing and informing the discussion is likewise of the greatest importance. Therefore, the central interest of this website is to provide information which reveals and reaffirms the integrity, beauty and expansive meaning of the holiday and thus aids in our approaching it with the depth of thought, dignity, and sense of specialness it deserves.
“The holiday, then will of necessity, be engaged as an ancient [as in 34 years ancient] and living cultural tradition which reflects the best of African thought and practice in its reaffirmation of the dignity of the human person in community and culture, the well-being of family and community, the integrity of the environment and our kinship with it, and the rich resource and meaning of a people’s culture. It is within this understanding, then, that the Organization US, [for United Slaves, although Karenga-Everettt fails to mention that] the founding organization of Kwanzaa and the authoritative keeper [and inventor] of the tradition, has established and maintains this website.”
Where are those so called “ironies,” you ask? They are contained in the omissions in Mr. Karenga’s welcoming remarks.
There is no mention of the founder’s black supremacist affiliations, no reference to FBI investigations of Organization US, no comment on that group’s para-military youth contingents, no comment on its similarities to the revolutionary, racist Black Panthers, no comment on Karenga’s 3-year imprisonment for felonious assault and extended strip torture of female dissidents, whom, he said, had tried to assassinate him or why they allegedly tried to kill him.
For more detail on Karenga-Everett’s Marxist background, his depravity and hatred of America, the mainstream media’s calculated coverup of who he is and what Kwanzaa really is, and that horrendous torture, see “The Rotten Roots of Kwanzaa,” http://tiny.cc/jjgww.
People do change, though, and they tend to change even more when they land a cushy, affirmative action job in academia and after they hit on the cushiest of all positions as founder, leader, and grand poohbah of a fantasy “holiday.”
Nevertheless, just as poor, pathetic Linus annually squats in a pumpkin patch awaiting in vain for the arrival of his holiday fantasy, the “Great Pumpkin,” some 4.6 million African-Americans are said to be Kwanzaa adherents. Outside America, people seem to have more common sense, at least with regard to outrageous scams.
I have a scheme, excuse me, a vision, for yet another holiday, not to compete with the deeply-revered “traditions” of Kwanzaa but perhaps as an alternative for Arbor Day which falls anywhere from Groundhog February to mid-May, depending on your state, and therefore deserves little respect because of its fickleness.
My plan is to assign a name for every perennial woody plant on the planet, and shrub so those little fellas won’t feel discriminated against. One variety would be assigned to every family on Earth to worship for a full month with appropriate, attendant revelry, feasting, libations, and vegetational gifting.
I chose that neglected month of August to jollify since it’s usually so damned hot that people would be delighted with a summer saturnalia but devoid of Roman-ish orgiastic licentiousness, mainly because of that aftorementioned heat. (Needless to say, in the southern hemisphere the chosen month would be February, unless, of course, too many southern hemisphereans objected due to groundhog infringement, in which case it would be relegated to a week or so at the end of January or even to an hour or so in mid-March.)
I would call my worldwide holiday the “Trees, and Shrubs, Are People, Too, Festival!”
It would be symbolized by a Giant Sequoia, 
or maybe 7 giant sequoias arranged as candles and be accompanied by festive parties, gifting of hydrangeas and/or baby sequoias, depending on the size of the recipient’s yard, and sworn affirmations of dedication to plant life above all else.
Like Kwanzaa, my “Trees, and Shrubs, Are People, Too, Festival” may some day in the near future get its very own USPS commemorative stamp!
And maybe not.
Absurd? Maybe, but, hey, it makes as much sense as Kwanzaa.
Contributor's website: http://www.genelalor.com/
Content posted by users from other sites is posted for commentary and news purposes under fair use and each author is responsible for their own postings and a particular posting should not be construed as being endorsed by this site or its owner.
Leave a Reply
Loading ...Recommended Reading:
