TIL: Kwanzaa is not as innocent a term as I thought it was

I have heard the phrase "Happy Kwanzaa" for some time and mostly just passed it off as something like people saying "Happy Holidays" as they protested any concept of saying "Christmas", or even "Hanukkah".

I guess I should have looked into that word a little more rather than simply assuming. It is even something President Obama is known for saying. Though if people know much about him then he likely knows the real meaning and was saying it anyway.

I can honestly say it is a phrase I've never said, but I have heard it many times.

Kwanza is a holiday that was invented in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga. He is also sometimes called Ron Karenga. Karenga was also the founder of United Slaves. United Slaves was a movement similar to the Black Panthers, but embraced more violence.

They pushed heavily for socialist and communist ideologies. Karenga claimed his movement took the best parts of Chinese Socialism and Cuban Socialism. Once he was allegedly asked how his movement differed from Marxism. His was response was something along "we hate white people too."

So it is essentially taking Marxism and mixing in racism. That is kind of what the Nazis were claiming to do as well.

So how many people out there embrace Kwanzaa without actually knowing the history of this pseudo-holiday?

I suspect most people that celebrate it and talk about it don't know this.

The above poll is what Google decided to feed me as I was researching this.

I will state as my previous post today stated. If someone emphasizes race, or ethnicity then that is in fact racism. Kwanzaa is not the only "accepted" practice out there that has a lot of racism in it, there are many such things and with emphasis on different "races".

People should be able to practice whatever holiday they want. They should be able to make one up. They even have the right to be racist. I am not a fan of racism of any kind, and I'll not like such people, but I would fight for their right to freely believe what they want and talk about what they want.

I wouldn't have written this post at all other than I don't believe most people actually know much about this holiday and the guy that created it. It was an eye opener to me.