‘Tis the perfect season to observe Kwanzaa
19th December 2022 · 0 Comments
The Kwanzaa season, which runs from December 26 through January 1, is a time for creating and sharing good in the world. Practicing the principles of Kwanzaa can lead to repairing, renewing, and remaking American society if the political will existed.
The Kwanzaa holiday season was created in the 1960s by Maulana Karenga, a Black nationalist who later became a college professor, as a way of uniting and empowering the African-American community in the aftermath of the deadly Watts Rebellion.
Kwanzaa has seven symbols–mazao (crops), mkeka (mat), kinara (candleholder), muhindi (corn), kikombe cha umoja (unity cup), zawadi (gifts), and mishumaa saba (seven candles) arranged on a table. Three of the seven candles are red, representing the struggle; three are green, representing the land and hope for the future; and one is Black, representing people of African descent.
According to Karenga, non-Black people can also celebrate Kwanzaa, just as non-Mexicans commemorate Cinco de Mayo, for example.
Each year, Kwanzaa celebrants commit to incorporating the seven principles into their daily lives: Unity (Umoja), Self-Determination (Kujichagulia), Collective Responsibility (Ujima), Cooperative Economics (Ujamaa), Purpose (Nia), Creativity (Kuumba) and Faith (Imani).
How closer would the U.S. be to achieving a more perfect union if these principles were codified and practiced nationwide? Could America become a utopia under such a practice? No. American culture is too diverse to achieve such homogeneity.
Practicing just two Kwanzaa principles could move the U.S. toward a full democracy, however. Collective Responsibility and Cooperative Economics could forge a bond between Americans and help the country to live up to its motto: “E Pluribus Unum.”
Instead, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is talking about a “National Divorce,” the Texas GOP is pushing for a referendum in 2023 to determine if it should “reassert its status as an independent nation,” Alaska has an independence party pushing nationhood, while some in Northern California would like to secede from Southern California.
Add those actions to the slow-moving gerrymandered coup in states like Florida, which gerrymandered two predominately Black districts out of existence (Louisiana gerrymandered one Black Congressional district out of the state years ago), and white supremacy fait accompli.
In Florida, at least a half-dozen current and former Proud Boys have secured seats on the Miami-Dade Republican Executive Committee. According to The New York Times, their ranks include adherents who face criminal charges for participating in the Capitol attack.
And elected Republicans in so-called red states that have unfairly gerrymandered districts to the point where they hold more seats in the legislatures than they have GOP voters.
We are indeed living in the throes of a divided country.
The South won’t rise again, as die-hard white neo-confederates wish, but they have gerrymandered themselves into a position where legislators in state houses and Congress are predominately white. So, the “Lost Cause” for the moment is not lost.
The Lost Cause was a historical ideology and a social movement created by ex-Confederates that characterized the Confederate experience and defined its value for new generations. By the twentieth century, the Lost Cause became enshrined as part of the national story of slavery and the American Civil War era. It evolved through that century’s most essential revolutions, according to “The Lost Cause Myth,” posted on IndependentHistorian.com.
“It (Lost Cause) was never just about the Civil War, but about slavery, Reconstruction, southern race relations, the place of the South in national life, and Americans’ self-identity.
Today, historians and museum professionals reject the Lost Cause’s historical and cultural claims as a narrow distortion of history at best and a lie at worst. Still, many of its cultural tropes and political assumptions occasionally thrive in the American South and across the country.
The January 6 Insurrection, recent hate crimes, and refutation of Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory are examples of the “Lost Cause” mentality, along with the dangerous “Independent Legislature Theory,” embodied in the Moore v. Harper lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court.
On December 7, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Moore v. Harper, a redistricting case. If the conservative-leaning court affirms the independent state legislature theory, our democracy will likely end, the Summit Daily reports.
The independent state legislature theory posits that state legislatures operate independently of any oversight by the judicial or executive branches.
In Moore v. Harper, the North Carolina Supreme Court threw out gerrymandered districts it said violated the North Carolina Constitution. The North Carolina legislature is challenging that ruling. The legislature says it has unilateral, unchecked authority. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in two 2019 cases that gerrymandering is political and not a matter for federal court review.
“For the record, Democrats represent the single largest block of party-affiliated voters in the country, according to Pew Research. Yet, state legislatures are 59 percent Republican,” Summit Daily News columnist Susan Knopf wrote.
Many GOP leaders brag about being the party of President Abraham Lincoln, but they neglect to follow his sage advice: “A house divided cannot stand.”
Or President Ronald Reagan, the communicator’s wisdom: “A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and – above all – responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.”
Reagan’s wise words sound a lot like the Kwanzaa principles. Unfortunately, his prudent wisdom has fallen on deaf GOP ears. Still, hope springs eternal. We, the people, can only fight like hell to keep our democracy and embrace Kwanzaa principles simultaneously.
‘Tis the perfect season for Kwanzaa.
This article originally published in the December 19, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
