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Is Kwanzaa a racist holiday?
Yes 63%  63%  [ 10 ]
No 25%  25%  [ 4 ]
Just show the results 13%  13%  [ 2 ]
Total votes : 16

pandabear
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11 Dec 2011, 10:33 am

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/ ... nd_kwanzaa

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I looked it up. Kwanzaa was invented 1966. It was invented by a guy named Ron Karenga. Yeah. Yeah. His name was Ron Karenga but he had an alias, Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga. (laughing) So he was a doctor. And he invented Kwanzaa, which is a seven-day feast, runs December 26 to January 1st. In 1966 he branded it a black alternative to Christmas. The idea was to celebrate the end of what Ron Karenga considered the Christmas season exploitation of African-Americans. Now, what was that? What was the Christmas season exploitation of African Americans? Was it all the black Santa Clauses that were out there in the department stores? What was it then? What was the exploitation of African-Americans at Christmastime? According to the official Kwanzaa website, as opposed to the Hallmark Cards Kwanzaa site, the celebration was designed to foster conditions that would enhance the revolutionary social change for the -- anyway it also has a candelabra. It was seven days, seven candles instead of eight for Hanukkah, and you light 'em all at once.



Vigilans
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11 Dec 2011, 10:34 am

In the same way that the song "White Christmas" is racist

[img][800:1016]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AyhjIFb1O6s/TPk8zlgRdMI/AAAAAAAAAk4/YYDYMpdevtw/s1600/20101203.jpg[/img]


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ruveyn
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11 Dec 2011, 10:48 am

No. Dark skinned folk with Channukah envy have a right to their own holiday. And it has to include candles.

ruveyn



dmm1010
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11 Dec 2011, 2:31 pm

Image



blauSamstag
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11 Dec 2011, 2:39 pm

Maybe not, but the guy who made it up out of whole cloth 40 years ago is a real piece of work.

Maulana Karenga

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In 1971, Karenga "was sentenced to one to ten years in prison on counts of felonious assault and false imprisonment".[10] One of the victims gave testimony of how Karenga and other men tortured her and another woman. The woman claimed to have been stripped and beaten with an electrical cord. Karenga's former wife, Brenda Lorraine Karenga, testified that he sat on the other woman’s stomach while another man forced water into her mouth through a hose.

A May 14, 1971, article in the Los Angeles Times described the testimony of one of the women:

"Deborah Jones, who once was given the Swahili title of an African queen, said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Miss Davis' mouth and placed against Miss Davis' face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vise. Karenga, head of US, also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said. They also were hit on the heads with toasters."
Karenga explained his actions by saying that one of the women he had tortured had attempted to assassinate him, but he had no evidence.



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11 Dec 2011, 3:00 pm

blauSamstag wrote:
Maybe not, but the guy who made it up out of whole cloth 40 years ago is a real piece of work.

Maulana Karenga

Quote:
In 1971, Karenga "was sentenced to one to ten years in prison on counts of felonious assault and false imprisonment".[10] One of the victims gave testimony of how Karenga and other men tortured her and another woman. The woman claimed to have been stripped and beaten with an electrical cord. Karenga's former wife, Brenda Lorraine Karenga, testified that he sat on the other woman’s stomach while another man forced water into her mouth through a hose.

A May 14, 1971, article in the Los Angeles Times described the testimony of one of the women:

"Deborah Jones, who once was given the Swahili title of an African queen, said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Miss Davis' mouth and placed against Miss Davis' face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vise. Karenga, head of US, also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said. They also were hit on the heads with toasters."
Karenga explained his actions by saying that one of the women he had tortured had attempted to assassinate him, but he had no evidence.
He may have been, and, according to the Wikipedia article, clearly was, a barbaric misogynist but let us not forget the fallacy of association. Thus, I prefer Kwanzaa to Christmas by far, as it is a secular holiday.


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Fnord
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11 Dec 2011, 3:13 pm

I prefer Yule - at least, one of the New Age versions...

It starts on the Winter Solstice (Dec. 21, 2011), and lasts 10 days (the "Yule-Tithe" or Yuletide) to New Year's Eve (Dec. 31, 2011). It begins with a bonfire, singing, eating of cakes, drinking of ales, and dancing to ward off the cold and darkness (in the northern climes). Gifts may be exchanged. People may go from house to house to make music in exchange for more cakes and ales, as well as donations of cash and food for the poor. Decorations remind us of the coming spring (bright, shiny, fruit-like objects hanging from trees, for example).

At the end, there is one final countdown, and more bonfires are lit, more cakes and ales are consumed, and more gifts are exchanged. This is also the day when people get engaged to be married or "Bound" to each other - the actual wedding may take place immediately, or sometime within the coming year.

...

Okay, so I'm making this up from a hodge-podge of Pagan traditions and secular practices. But where does the above description say anything about what you should believe?

So let us eat, drink, and make merriment! Have a safe and joyous Yule, y'all!



pandabear
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11 Dec 2011, 3:31 pm

It does seem rather curious--a new 7 day holiday, suddenly made up out of nothing, by someone who was a convicted felon, with some vague claims of African origins. Hallmark is quick to sign on with any opportunity to sell cards.



zer0netgain
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12 Dec 2011, 9:34 am

As I've understood it, the holiday was created by people who wanted a specifically African-American holiday to flaunt in contrast to Christmas and Hanukkah.

It's origins doesn't even go back what...20 years?

Not that new traditions can't be brought into being, but it's roots are in ethnic exclusivity, which, if I go back to the P.C. garbage drilled into my head at college, is supposed to be a bad thing. :roll:

I suppose something is only racist if a white person does it, right?



naturalplastic
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12 Dec 2011, 7:38 pm

Its not racist.
Its just dumb and inane.


The purpose of the holiday was to assert Black pride.
Which is perfectly fine.

But it doesnt succeed in that end.


It manages to be antichristian( so it excludes the god fearing of any skin color) without even being authentically Pagan ( so you neither have your cake nor eat it).
Its a contrived paganism that has nothing to do with real African traditions.
It tries to be a Black version of Yule but ends up being an Afrocentric parody of Channukka thats niether fish nor fowl.
Blacks per capita are more fervently christian than whites so rejecting christmas in the name of Black nationalism doesnt make any sense.

Subsaharan cultures didnt need a midwinter festival of lights so looking to Black Africa for an alternative midwinter holiday to christmas is pointless to begin with.



Tequila
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12 Dec 2011, 7:55 pm

Fnord wrote:
I prefer Yule - at least, one of the New Age versions...


And I'll sit on the bog on Christmas morning making my Yule log...



Tequila
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12 Dec 2011, 7:57 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
The purpose of the holiday was to assert Black pride.
Which is perfectly fine.


Is it alright to assert White pride then (if it doesn't have supremacist overtones)? If not, why not?



pandabear
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12 Dec 2011, 8:21 pm

Tequila wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
The purpose of the holiday was to assert Black pride.
Which is perfectly fine.


Is it alright to assert White pride then (if it doesn't have supremacist overtones)? If not, why not?


It might be okay, but in the past it got taken to violent extremes, like the snowman above, or the Nazis. We have certain White ethnic things we celebrate, like St. Patrick's Day. or Swedish Day.



Tequila
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12 Dec 2011, 8:41 pm

pandabear wrote:
We have certain White ethnic things we celebrate, like St. Patrick's Day


That's not really an ethnic thing, though, is it? It's really an Irish-American (more so than in Ireland itself) expression of their sense of Irish heritage. It will be a multiracial celebration soon.



naturalplastic
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12 Dec 2011, 9:09 pm

Tequila wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
The purpose of the holiday was to assert Black pride.
Which is perfectly fine.


Is it alright to assert White pride then (if it doesn't have supremacist overtones)? If not, why not?


In a country where Whites are a minority and have been kept for centuries in slavery by non whites- followed by a centurey of descrimination by the same nonwhites and were severed from their European roots- and were severed from all sense of having a European heritage-then- in that case it would be fine to assert "White pride".

In England or the USA where Whites are the ruling group and the majority its absurd to even ask if its "alright to assert white pride- if it doesnt have supremist overtones" because in that situation any assertion of "White pride" would be an assertion of White supremacy.



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12 Dec 2011, 9:51 pm

Well, I'm not a racist!

I roast black and white children in honor of Moloch.*

















*Has nothing to do with Kwanza. I just wanted to share. :oops:


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