Kwanzaa is a made up holiday

"Kwanzaa is a made up holiday"

I hear it a lot, and its funny to me because all holidays are made up. Really think about it, someone decided to celebrate Easter, Christmas, Hannahka and everything else.
So just b/c the Black or African American culture evolved hundreds of years after other religions, or cultural groups, we are not allowed to makeup our own traditions?

Hmm instead of trying to find fault with a group of displaced, opressed, and generally mis-treated working to create a sense of unity, shared-traditions and cultural pride, why not support it?

Sometimes, the worst ones are the faith-based people who just can't seem to understand that all holidays are not about God. Look at Valentine's. I don't see any ministers trying to disuade people from buying chocolates flowers and gifts. Is just that this is a specific holiday created for black people that makes it so bad to them?

In my cursory study of various cultures, religous groups and cohesive communities, there is always at least a few shared traditions that serve to bring the group together. As black people share a variety of religions from Christianity to Islam to Buddism, we can't rely on religion to unify us.

Yes we need to be unified b/c although we may not act as a single group, when the world looks at us, they see us as one. Most of the time they don't distinguish you as a black christian, black muslim, black atheist, or black jew (yes they exist) they see you as black. We are treated as a group, yet do not function as one.

Kwanzaa may not be the perfect holiday (whatever that means) but I challenge you to find a real problem with it. It simply promotes community values that if we truly worked to embody would propell Black people foward leading to emplowerment and mass success!

I don't celebrate Kwanzaa according to the strict 7-day, plan but you can do something simple like getting your family and friends together at least one night throughout the week to acknowledge the positive aspects of the celebration.

FYI: The Nguzu Saba (Seven Principles of Kwanzaa) are:
more info @ The Official Kwanzaa Web Site>>

	Umoja (Unity) To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.
	Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.
	Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.
	Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.
	Nia (Purpose) To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
	Kuumba (Creativity) To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
	Imani (Faith) To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle

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