It is Christmas Day 2016, and today is a time when I get sort of a kick out of watching The Family Man, starring Don Cheadle, Nicolas Cage and Tea Leoni.

Within it are white people’s stories about “magic negroes” (Christmas elves this time) who pop up at certain times to save them from themselves because they do not have the foresight or wherewithal to understand the meaning of life or even “figure it all out” until one of us comes along and helps them get it together. For them, it’s all about money and fame; for us, it has always been all about LIFE and living — money or no.

In it, I always watch for the back stories — the heads up white guy who works while it is daylight, who gets $4k in cash to invest in “commercial paper until the Deustsch mark turns,” and a 20-year old bottle of Scotch for Christmas; and the head down subservient Black man who sits at his desk all alone and late into the night, scrapping in his own mind over whether he should run to get a rich white guy’s car, send it to his home, or figure out some extra way to “serve” his white master and keep him from getting cold. It doesn’t say the Black man didn’t get cash, investment advice, and an expensive bottle of alcohol for Christmas from the building’s residents; but it almost goes ‘without saying’ — as they are not mostly around late at night and likely don’t know nor care that he is there protecting their stuff in a building he can’t afford to live in.

If you dig deeper and pay even closer attention, you get a couple of deaf-mute Blacks tossed in, and hanging out in the background for racially proper pepper decoration. Typically, though, they have nothing much to say or if they do get to speak at all, it’s about something non-committal or white subservient.

Without throwing a negative spin on this happy and festive occasion, I am glad that history is a self-correcting thing and that the truth eventually gets around to telling on itself.

And I am always glad when this season is over and people can stop faking their “holiday spirits” and pretending that they care about others, especially when the other 364 days a year do not count for much. White Jesus is the reason for the Christmas season and so is white Santa Claus; but the Son of God and His native-born Hebrew birth has nothing to do with Christmas. I can never pretend that they are one and the same, because it simply never happened and never will.

If we have been conscious and WIDE awake, we are already well aware that several man-made holidays happen throughout a one year period.

They begin with New Years and go all the way back around to Christmas again. This is an endless cycle of carrying on about nothing significant in life or the world at large, and I find it amazing how easy it is for us to get on board with meaningless holidays and to push away well-defined ones that carry legitimate significance in the world and in this land of our involuntary forebears.

If I were going to celebrate a spiritually deep “time of year,” it would be Kwanzaa. Then I would add in Memorial Day and Labor Day, the only other two truly meaningful celebrations that are of national significance in Black America.

Kwanzaa, while a man-made holiday like all of the others, it is also a time -not for materialism and the worship of trees and falsified meanings about the birth of our Lord & Savior – but a time of cultural significance between and among Black people the world over. It is a way of celebrating the truth and THE ROOT of our inheritance, our godly heritage as a People, our families, faith, and firstfruits, and our ascended ancestral history over and above white race-mongering rituals rooted in paganism and false belief systems. Kwanzaa is man-made just as is Christmas, but it is also a culturally accurate and truthful way to celebrate our inheritance and rights in the world, and our birthright origins in the Holy Lamb of God.

Most of us who are conscious and aware enough to have learned the truth already know Christ was not provably born on December 25 of any year, and that annual commemorations of His birth were never sanctioned nor mandated in a Bible in any translation.

But we do it that way because we were taught to do it that way on plantations, by whites who got unusually “generous” during their superstitious self-glorified annual times to do right at least once a year. This tradition did not come from OUR Hebrew ancestors in the Holy Lands whose stories are told in that Bible we read, but by their own Roman and Greek superstitions and myths, with some “bible stories” mixed in just to legitimize combining truth with lies. Even the Euro-jews who are not an ancient people in Israel get their “Chanukah” or “Hannukah” from combining Roman Catholic christian stories with their own Russian/European family traditions.

If we can get all corporately excited about spending boatloads of money on a piece of whitenized materialistic fiction that has nothing to do with Black people or Christ the Savior, I often wonder why it is so hard for us to get excited about the possibilities of telling the truth about who we are, of controlling the narrative and turning the world around right again; of not allowing others to control the stories about our Abrahamic Covenant and birthright in these last days.

How is it so hard for us to get together on getting together and yet continuously and simultaneously and boldy empower white supremacy by feeding into Roman and pagan fiction. But then, we are talking to a lot of people who still feed like dogs eating dog poop, on the leftover intestines of a pig; and may as well eat the pig’s poop right along with it. Same thing.

If we are going to do “Holy Days” of old, then there are plenty of them in the Bible in the book of Leviticus to celebrate and NONE of them are about Christmas or Easter. White folks made all of that up.

That said, I honor the significance of Memorial Day only because it is a Black American holiday that celebrates the only real and true freedom fighters in the history of this nation.
They fought wars, not to enslave others and steal their resources to make themselves rich, but to free even white people from the eternal hell in which they lived as they tried to dehumanize us and make their skin color the be-all end-all of modern society.

Black people, free only to do as white skin demanded, are the only true and right Americans to fight for RIGHTEOUSNESS and GODLY freedoms and not just the freedom to steal from, kill and destroy the rights and resources of others. White Jesus commands THEM to do these things, the Lord & Savior and Son of the Most High God created us to be above all of that and the Bible tells us so.

I commemorate Labor Day only because it is the one annual holiday that celebrates the working class people of ALL races who actually built this nation. Without America’s WILLING workers, the ones you will never see around the likes of a lazy finger-pointer like Donald J. Trump, America would never have become an industrialized post-slavery nation, and that means it would never have been able to lean into high tech such as we have now. “Happy Slaves” would not have made for a progressive nation, because whatever we were okay with, they would have been okay with it and never moved.

The “Magic Negro” in all of us all year long is that they cannot get along in life or in the world as long as we are willing to be their slaves and stay subjected to them as if we are nothing more than mechanized robots. That forces them to BUILD slaves to take up the slack for their laziness, and that in and of itself lays the groundwork for the future. America is no longer limited to ultra-dependence on free labor and we have only our God and our BLACK ancestors to thank for that, not NEVER them.

Outside of Memorial Day, Labor Day and Kwanzaa, there are no other holidays of any significant meaning to the Family of All Humanity as it currently stands in America. That’s all she wrote when it comes to having a Black consciousness and real education about the way the world truly works.

Now, for those who don’t mind the fairy tales of European white supremacy and consider it all in fun, remember that that is all there is to it and there is no more.

As this world comes to a definitive close, simply be aware that Christmas was never a significant nor relevant holiday to the birth of Christ, same with Easter and His crucifixion and resurrection. Also be aware of American nationalist holidays, as they are just as man-made and fictitious in root meaning as Christmas and Easter: The fight for white skin survival [Mighty Whitey] and not for all humanity is always fiction, and always will be.

I’ve heard Black people who celebrate Christmas call Kwanzaa a “made up holiday,” without ever taking into account that Christmas is also made-up, along with Easter and all of the others.

Therefore, if I had to choose between the superficiality of made up man-made white salvation stories embedded in cultural attrition, superstitions, heresy, paganism, and slavery -or- the depth of a man-made celebration about us as a People who do not yet know we are a People, I choose the United States of US all day every day…3.6.5…not just one generous white retail sales and charitable giving day a year.

I choose US.

-30-

The Meaning of Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa is a Swahili word that means “first” and signifies the first fruits of the harvest.

From December 26 to January 1, many people of African descent in America-celebrate Kwanzaa. There are many customs rooted in Africa that are common among the various ethnic groups found on the continent.

One of these is the celebration of the harvest. At this time of the year, people of the community/village come together to celebrate and give thanks for their good fortune. Working towards a successful harvest is a communal effort, as is the celebration. Here in America in 1966, Maulana “Ron” Karenga and the U.S. Kwanzaa Organization adopted the basic principles of the Harvest Celebrations [entirely scriptural] of African lands to create the observance of Kwanzaa. Karenga recognized that on the whole, African Americans do not live in an agricultural [farm] setting. Nonetheless, he sought to emphasize that the basic principles found in producing the harvest are vital to building and maintaining strong and wholesome communities. In this-way, Kwanzaa was developed.

Kwanzaa is that time when we reflect on our use of the basic principles, share and enjoy the fruits of our labor, and recommit ourselves to the collective achievement of a better life for our family, our community, and our people.

Symbols of Kwanzaa
There are symbols which have a special meaning to the celebration of Kwanzaa.

The mkeka is a straw mat which symbolizes the tradition as the foundation on which all else rests. The kinara is a seven-space candle holder, representing the original stalk from which the African people originated. The mishumaa saba (seven candles) stand for the Seven Principles. The muhindi are the ears of corn which represent the offspring (children) of the stalk (parents of the house). The zawadi (gifts) represent the fruits of the labor of the parents and the rewards of seeds sown by the children.

Kwanzaa Customs

During the celebration of Kwanzaa, it is customary to greet friends and family with the Swahili phrase, “Habari gani“, meaning, “What is the news?”

To respond, answer with the principle of the day. (Umoja, for example, is the response given on December 26th.) Fasting, or abstaining from food, is often done during Kwanzaa, as a means of cleansing of the mind, soul, and spirit.

The Candlelighting Ceremony

The candlelighting ceremony, central to the celebration of Kwanzaa, takes place at a time when all members of the family are present. Children are encouraged to take an active role in all activities.

The ceremony begins with the TAMBIKO (libation), an African form of praise which pays homage to personal and collective ancestors. To begin, the elder of the household pours wine, juice or distilled spirits from the KIKOMBE CHA UMOJA (unity cup) into the earth or an earth-filled vessel. While pouring, the elder makes a statement honoring departed family members for the inspiration and values they have left with descendants. Friends are also remembered.

After the TAMBIKO, as a gesture of unity, the elder drinks from the KIKOMBE CHA UMOJA and then passes it for all to share.

The elder leads the call, “HARAMBEE” (Let’s all pull together), and everyone participates in repeating the phrase seven times.

Candlelighting, central to the ceremony, reinforces the meaning of the principles.

The placement of the mishumaa saba (candles) in the kinara is as follows: Black, for the color of African peoples everywhere, is located in the center. Three red candles, represents the blood of the ancestors, are placed to the left. Three green candles that symbolize the earth, life, and the ideas and promise of the future, are placed to the right.

Beginning December 26 with the black mushumaa, a different candle is lit for each day, alternating from left to right. After the candlelighting, the principle of the day is discussed.

The evening of December 31 (Day 6) is the KARAMU, a joyous celebration with food, drink, dance, and music for the collective family and friends.

It is a time of rejoicing, reassessment and recommitment to God and to one another.

The ZAWADI, handmade or similarly meaningful gifts for children, may be opened at the KARAMU, or on the final day of Kwanzaa, January 1, when Imani is observed.

–National Museum of African Art and the Anacostia Museum–