PrintDecember 31, 2010
The Obamas' Kwanzaa Message
The President and First Lady have issued their Kwanzaa message:
Michelle and I extend our warmest thoughts and wishes to all those who are celebrating Kwanzaa this holiday season. Today [Dec. 26] is the first of a joyful seven-day celebration of African American culture and heritage.
The seven principles of Kwanzaa -- unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith -- are some of the very values that make us Americans.
As families across America and around the world light the Kinara today in the spirit of umoja, or unity, our family sends our well wishes and blessings for a happy and healthy new year.
As most readers here know, Kwanzaa was invented out of whole cloth in 1966 by Ron N. Everett, AKA Ron Karenga, founder of United Slaves, which fought with the Black Panthers over control of the African Studies Department at UCLA. One of Mr. Karenga's achievements was torturing two women who were members of his cult and living in his house:
The victims said they were living at Karenga's home when Karenga accused them of trying to kill him by placing crystals in his food and water and in various areas of his house. When they denied it, allegedly they were beaten with an electrical cord and a hot soldering iron was put in Miss Davis' mouth and against her face.
For that session Karenga spent four years in prison, after which he found a berth in the Department of Africana Studies, California State University, Long Beach, where he still holds forth, a committed Marxist. According to Karenga, "The sevenfold path of blackness is think black, talk black, act black, create black, buy black, vote black, and live black." What an inspiring figure to found a quasi-religious holiday. (For more on the specious holiday, see Ann Coulter's article here.)
But to return to the Obamas' Kwanzaa message. "The seven principles of Kwanzaa ... are some of the very values that make us Americans." If Mr. Obama had said "some of the seven principles ..." it would not be so offensive, but here he is accepting all seven principles without demurral. "Collective work and responsibility"? "Cooperative economics"? And the Left wonders why so many of us suspect - merely suspect - that our president is a Marxist.
Henry Percy is the nom de guerre for a technical writer living in Arizona. He may be reached at saler.50d[at sign]gmail.com.
