Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa starts today, which means I have to look forward to a week of people asking me if I celebrate Kwanzaa.

Black people never ask me this. Only white people do.

It seems to be one of those “defining” questions. Conservatively included white folks seem to assume that telling them that I don’t celebrate Kwanzaa indicates a blanket rejection of all things “black” or “African American.” Progressively included white folks cock their heads and ask “Why not?”

Christmas meets all my holiday season needs. Since it also comes along with my birthday and wedding anniversary, I end up with a chock full schedule on top of it. I like Christmas because of its winter solstice celebration aspects. It promises the end of the long nights, and a defense against seasonal “affect.” I like the celebration of the birth of Jesus, a great spiritual teacher. Most of all, I like the recollection of childhood Christmases past. Kwanzaa doesn’t offer any of that to me.

I’m essentially “pre-Kwanzaa”. The holiday didn’t really take root until the 1980’s, when African Americans moving into the larger society were looking for a way to hold onto a distinct cultural heritage. I was still celebrating Christmas with my friends and my mother, who by then was living alone. I then took up with my wife, and spent time with her family getting to know them (and getting married right after Christmas.)

I pretty much know more about African and African American history than most dashiki-wearers I’ve ever met. Being a Thoreau-by-the-pond type, the intellectual connection suits me fine.

The only issue I have with Kwanzaa is the use of Swahili, an Arabic-based trade language spoken on the east coast of Africa, far away from where African Americans’ ancestors were enslaved. It became “hip” during the ‘60s (even Lt. Uhura on ‘Star Trek’ spoke it) and stayed around. It was the language of Tanzanian president Julius Nyrere, whose economic self-help philosophy became part of the basis for the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa. So it fit, even though it’s historically inaccurate as a “connection” to Mother Africa. But that’s a small quibble.

One of the charges leveled against Kwanzaa is that it’s an “invented holiday.” Heck, all holidays are invented. Christmas only took off when the mercantile economy