Word: karenga
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...This diversity does not delegitimize Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, nor does Kwanzaa's relative newness. No one, including "would-be wise man" Maulana Karenga, is insisting that all black Americans exist in the same social spaces. Kwanzaa is about certain core values and norms and very little about Africa. We hope anyone who comments on Kwanzaa has thoroughly researched the rituals involved therein. They will find that they have no basis in any actual African practices or religion...
This diversity does not delegitimize Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, nor does Kwanzaa's relative newness. No one, including "would-be wise man" Maulana Karenga, is insisting that all black Americans exist in the same social spaces. Kwanzaa is about certain core values and norms and very little about Africa. We hope anyone who comments on Kwanzaa has thoroughly researched the rituals involved therein. They will find that they have no basis in any actual African practices or religion...
...contrast, consider for a moment Kwanzaa, a black quasi-alternative to Christmas. The inspiration for Kwanzaa was born not in a manger, but in the mind of a would-be wise man, Dr. Maulana Karenga, a college professor in the 1960s. The holiday is founded on a fairly simple, if somewhat alarming, syllogism: blacks share a common African cultural heritage; blacks do not have a winter holiday of their own to celebrate; so blacks ought to have a holiday of their own with African underpinnings, festive rituals and all the trappings of a religious feast...
Despite the African name, which means "first fruits" in Swahili, the celebration is American in origin, created by Maulana Karenga, who is now a professor at UC Santa Cruz...
Asante and Karenga question the academic approach of the department on intellectual grounds...