On the front page of the Miami Herald this morning Leonard Pitts began a long article about Jews and cartoons that culminated on page 26.  Today is the first day of Kwanzaa and there was no mention in Mr. Pitts’ story about Kwanzaa, “A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture”.  I wondered why there were no stories about Kwanzaa in the Herald and did a little research for I know nothing about this “created” religion, a synthesis of many ideas that “(has) modern origins rooted in the Black Freedom Movement of the 1960’s.  It is thus a celebration of the recovery of African culture from the ravages and ruins of the Holocaust of enslavement and subsequent continued oppression by the dominant society.”  I found these words on the “Official Kwanzaa Web Site” by Dr. Maulana Karenga, Creator of Kwanzaa. I wonder what Kwanzaa means to others?

There is a lot more and the history of this Holiday is laid out from the perspective of Black Americans directly from the turmoil of the times when not only African Americans but women, children and old people’s rights were being examined and found lacking “freedom” which is boasted about by the major culture of White, Anglo-Saxon, English Speaking Protestant America.

In trying to find out what Kwanzaa means to me, I had to do a lot of researching and found its origins in the words above.  Its beliefs boil down to seven principles whose “African names” I will not repeat here.  They are, in English: Unity; Self-Determination; Collective Work and Responsibility; Cooperative Economics; Purpose; Creativity and Faith. One could argue that these are redundant; they are found in the other major religions in the world.  They are, however, the articulation of the thought of Dr. Karenga who was professor and chair of the Department of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach and chair of various organizations and author of the “authoritative book on Kwanzaa titled Kwanzaa, a Celebration of Family, Community and Culture.”

I have done this research to understand how Kwanzaa has been accepted, at least included on the calendar I have.  Kwanzaa is celebrated on the day after Christmas and comes at the traditional harvest time in Africa with links to Tribal practices on that continent, melding with Jewish and Christian elements.

It is confusing to me how this ‘created’ religion is not really religious since it is not involved with Creation stories and the involvement with “God” as understood in the traditional religions.  The word “chosen” is found in Dr. Karenga’s explication but there is nothing about Kwanzaa in the prescient Mr. Pitt’s review on this day about the Jewish origin of Superman and the other super-heroes that came out of the Depression days before the Holocaust of World War II. I wonder what Kwanzaa means to Mr. Pitts.

One should not wonder why Kwanzaa needs to be included in this holiday season.