Category Archives: Holidays

Do we still need Black History Month?

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Do We Still Need Black History Month?

WW Wednesdays Presents: Black History Month Up Close and Personal

Part I: Do we still need Black History Month in a Post-Obama Nation?

It’s been about 3 centuries since we were removed from our continent and stripped of our land and identities, about two centuries since Lincoln freed the slaves, almost half a century since the Civil Rights Act was passed and 2 plus years since we elected a black president.

So, do we still need a Black History Month?

When I researched this topic I found raging debates from obvious arguments like “it should be year-round,” to downright racist writings of “why do people of certain ethnicities get their own month, why shouldn’t we all?” and every argument in between.

Our kids are at the bottom of the pile in terms of their cultural knowing and awareness. Our little kings and queens think Fantasia wrote and sang “Summertime” and know nothing of Billie Holiday or Nina Simone (as Drum recently uplifted this gifted sister). They know nothing of Nate Turner or Fannie Lou Hammer. But they know Lil Wayne (comparing him to Tupac, really?) and Nicki Minaj (the Grace Jones/ Lil Missy copycat/diva). They know how to text but not how to read for comprehension.

Of course there are those of us who celebrate BHM in how we live each day. Then we see those who give us a bad name and make us shake our heads and wonder “WWMD”-What would Martin & Malcolm Do? Sometimes we get tired of fighting this fight and February seems to add insult to injury looking at where we are and where we could be.

To this day we are still collecting money to properly honor MLK’s memorial. To this day countless souls line the ocean floors that never made it to land and yet they are not honored or even counted in the Great African Slave Trade Holocaust.

In schools nationwide the typical display of a worn image of MLK and Harriet Tubman grace the walls, children recite “I have A Dream” lacking passion, not aware of the meaning, and some school lunches featuring fried chicken and other “southern delicacies.”

Personal Note: I thank God everyday my grade school principal, Mr. Nathaniel Gillon, taught us the Negro National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance and instilled in us great pride we took with us throughout our lives.

In most college campuses African Studies are still an elective meanwhile African History and our contributions to America are secrets known only to those seeking true and ultimate knowledge. Our history is just that, ours alone! Our textbooks lack color!!!

Next week Tuesday we will again dishonor those who shed their very blood for our right to be represented by sitting on our collective butts and not voting.

So family, I ask you, do we still need a Black History Month?

Should we start insisting it be an everyday, all day celebration? Should we start insisting Black History be in American history books, not just a chapter, and our history included in all curriculum? Hint, hint MPS and other school districts trying to keep kids interested in core subjects.

And one last rant! I expect our president to be wearing Kente cloth ties and doing something African during this month? So far I have seen nothing on the schedule, but I am hoping for more than a “one night only” music festival. He should be at schools once a week teaching Black History and why not read “I Have A Dream” or something poetic to the nation during his address or hell, interrupt regular “programming.” Thanks to Giant for reemphasizing the real meaning of TV programming!!

I was in fact expecting to see him turning the White House “black” year-round. If I look at him one more time in the Oval Office with not one piece of African artifacts gracing the backdrop I am going to scream.

Peace Family,

WW

A story from NPR I share with you about the subject.

Yes, We Still Need Black History Month

by John Ridley

February 17, 2009

So it’s February. That means school kids across America are learning that George Washington Carver didn’t actually invent the peanut, and a black man did invent the stoplight. And while the kids are learning, February by February, grown-ups are asking if maybe it’s time to retire Black History Month.

This year, one op-ed writer flat-out said Black History Month “has come to seem quaint, jarring, anachronistic” and “robs blacks of [their] part in U.S. history.”

The country is for sure in a different place than it was when historian Carter G. Woodson originated “Negro History Week” in 1926. Most obvious, of course, is that 83 years later we have a black man in the White House. Beyond that, black American history is now seemingly cranked out on a regular basis. Eric Holder becomes the first black attorney general. Mike Tomlin becomes the second black coach to win a Super Bowl championship in three years. The Republican National Committee is so desperate for relevance it elects Michael Steele as its chairman, and does so over Katon Dawson, who until last September belonged to a whites-only country club. Somewhere Strom Thurmond is doing about 8,000 rpms in his grave.

So, clearly, a nation whose icons are the likes of Tiger Woods, Oprah and Barack Obama doesn’t need a Black History Month.

Yeaaaah, no.

What the advocates of dumping Black History Month miss is that watching Tiger sink a 20-foot putt or Oprah cooking with Rachael Ray doesn’t exactly teach the kiddies about the Tuskegee Airmen or the Middle Passage or Plessy v. Ferguson. That’s kind of like saying you can get a master class in Hispanic heritage by watching an episode of Ugly Betty.

Now, I happen to agree that Black History Month is a set-aside. But the reason it’s set aside is because even in 2009, most schools do a poor job of integrating black history — or Hispanic history or Asian-American history — into their yearly curriculum. Are kids really taught about the Nisei brigade or Executive Order 9066, the Trail of Tears or the National Farm Workers Association?

This isn’t the history of one ethnicity. It’s our history. And until our history is fully explored throughout the school year, then Black History Month remains relevant.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100602219

We Are The Drum 2011 Wisconsin’s Largest Black History Celebration

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Africa to America We Are The Drum

Since 1990 CAPITA (City at Peace in the Arts) has presented We Are The Drum.

The show is set to resume for two weekends in February 2011.

February 18th, 19th, 20th & 25th, 26th, 27th.

There are also student and group shows that will be presented.

The show will be held at North Division

1011 West Center Street, Milwaukee, WI  53206

www.capitaproductions.org or call 414-429-6573

You can also find us in Facebook and of course you know the Drum will get all the details and special information for VIP’s first!!

Peace,

WW

Redefining Kwanzaa

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Simply put we stopped celebrating Kwanzaa and our culture!

 

Redefining Kwanzaa

In the time it took me to type this title I know I have lost most of the people who read my blog every Wednesday. People are more concerned about their Christmas dinners and door buster deals then they are about reclaiming our future and getting rid of the black apathy that has nestled in like the proverbial snowball, growing and gaining speed about to crush us all like waiting deer unknowingly pandering about at the bottom of the hill!

Again I say WAKE UP PEOPLE!

In this time of an infant millennium, a new black president, a new social network, possibly a new black mayor, and new media that allows us to connect 24/7 in real time, here we are collectively not discussing issues, not supporting black businesses, getting into elected positions to support the white man’s agenda, using black organizations for personal gain. All this while we sit and “SMH” because it is too much to type out “shake my head” and even more of an imposition to do anything of significance about it. We have let the power of the internet become our new crack, dumbing us down to shorthand and “lol’s” and “:),” we have become useless and tired, overrun and some of us overburdened trying to carry the load for an entire race.

If we do not make our sankofa soon, we risk charting a path of extinction. Though people are so comfortable with the life we seem to be accepting in America, we watch and witness every other race else grow and flourish except for us. We linger and when we move one step ahead, we seem to fall 2 steps behind.

Obama, a great leap forward.

Our National Black Caucus stealing college scholarships, 4 steps behind.

Mayor-to-be Willie Hines, saving families and homes after the floods, a major step forward.

Mike McGee Jr., a young bright mind caught up by the fame and fortune, working our community and its plight. Still people defend him and few publically blast him out of fear and backlash, another tragic step back.

We are so quick to condemn tea party extremists, confederate red states, and our own racist Badger state where colored students cannot protest without being robbed and victimized. We sit quietly by and let our own people tell us how to vote, how to think, what designer clothes to wear so we can look like clowns. We do things that do not help our cause, but make us look like damn fools trying to live like the Jones’ when we should be living black and setting our own trends and standards.  What the hell is up my people? Have we just blended in and forgotten we still have work to do? Is there still some fight left in us or did it stay behind in 2008?

The Power of Kwanzaa resulted in our own postage stamp.

Simply put we stopped celebrating Kwanzaa and our culture! With each passing year people equate Kwanzaa with some cheesy 70’s black exploitation type of stereotypical Negro outdated event. We spend more money on hair weaves then we do on anything black, let alone Kwanzaa. We let Glen Beck make a joke out of this great holiday and he still stays on the air and only a handful voice their opposition to his wrath.

Once upon a time in the 90s, Kwanzaa rivaled Christmas and negative white people actually feared the power and unity created by this EVENT! Our kids learned history, tradition and honor. People lined up at Reader’s Choice and other black stores to buy their Kwanzaa kits and made it a truly powerful, enriching holiday. News stations gathered around to show our pride and power, now they just run a 30-second fluff piece on December 26th.

Really, is that how it’s going down?

What Kwanzaa was, was a chance to have something that was just ours. We welcomed others but this was the annual, all black people meeting to refocus and reenergize the troops. We used it to learn about how to come together and unite, we displayed future generations, their gifts and talents and welcome them into the community and lifted them up! We also celebrated and honored our elders and their accomplishments. We used these seven days to sit and talk and prepare for the journey ahead, reaffirm, recommit, revitalize. We also used it to just be united and call attention to what was going on especially living in this community. We needed Kwanzaa and we still do.

To the creator, to our ancestors, to our youth, we owe you much and yet we give so little. This year, celebrate Kwanzaa! Take time to research this and Facebook less. Buy a Kwanzaa kit or make one of your own, they are not expensive and homemade is the preferred method anyway.

Reader’s Choice is selling kits for $60 and they include everything you need! If you want to get just candles, or books, or some part of the Kwanzaa kit, I am sure they are happy to help. They also have excellent reading material and great Kwanzaa books. Please visit this landmark in our community. It is very worth it and take a young person along, tell them to leave their cell phone and other devices of distraction at home so they can focus on this little diamond we take for granted.

Family, we need to do some serious evaluating and changing. We are not moving forward at the pace in which we should be, despite a recession we are not here for each other, we are not united as we should be and we can no longer blame the white man or government conspiracies, this one is ours to own if we don’t get it together.

 

Peace Family and Nguzo Saba,

WW

 

 

Reader's Choice Bookstore, your Kwanzaa Headquarters! (414) 265-2003

 

Readers Choice

1950 N Dr Martin Luther King
Milwaukee, WI 53212-3642
(414) 265-2003

http://www.blackcatholicsforlife.org/nbcalife/nbcalife_press_releases/NBCAL2006.pv.pdf

For those who are Christian and want to incorporate Kwanzaa with your religion, there are many sites from every denomination that help you celebrate in accordance with your faith. Here is one such link for Catholics for example:

This site focuses on choosing life and not abortion as well as the principles of Kwanzaa. It is very powerful and filled with traditional Christian and Black Catholic spirituality.

For more about Kwanzaa start here: 

http://www.novareinna.com/festive/kwanzaa.html

Kwanzaa is an African-American and Pan-African holiday that celebrates family, community and culture. It is observed from December 26 through January 1 and its origins may be found in the first harvest celebrations of Africa, from which this holiday takes its name. Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase, “matunda ya kwanza,” which means “first fruits” in Swahili, a Pan-African tongue that is the most widely spoken language of Africa. The first-fruits celebrations are recorded in African history dating back to Ancient Egypt and Nubia, with references, both ancient and modern, appearing in other classical African civilizations, such as Ashantiland and Yorubaland, and among societies as large as empires…Swaziland, for example…and smaller groups like the Matabele.

Kwanzaa was conceived and developed in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga, an author and scholar-activist who stresses the need to preserve, continually revitalize and promote African American culture. Dr. Karenga is a professor with the Department of Black Studies at California State University in Long Beach. Kwanzaa was first celebrated on December 26, 1966 and having been introduced in the midst of the Black Freedom Movement of the mid-60s, reflects a concern for cultural groundedness in thought and practice. Unity and self-determination are also associated qualities. Primarily created to reaffirm and restore rootedness in African culture, this celebration is an expression of recovery and reconstruction of African culture. The founding organization of Kwanzaa is the Organization Us, which is the authoritative keeper of its tradition. The second function of this holiday is to serve as a regular communal celebration to reinforce and reaffirm the bonds between the African people. A third purpose of Kwanzaa is to introduce and reinforce the “Nguzo Saba” (also known as the “Seven Principles”), representative of communitarian African values, which are: (1) Umoja or Unity; (2) Kujichagulia or Self-Determination; (3) Ujima or Collective Work and Responsibility; (4) Ujamaa or Cooperative Economics; (5) Nia or Purpose; (6) Kuumba or Creativity; and (7) Imani or Faith.

Nguzo Saba Family!

Thanksgiving: A Call To Unification

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Happy Holidays

 

Wonder Woman is deep in the heart of preparing turkey and all the fixings. Here is a little article I thought very interesting which serves as a good reminder about giving thanks, preparing for Kwanzaa and coming together after so much turmoil lately. Especially now we need to rededicate ourselves to the idea of community and what we can do united as one people.

Please do take time to read the Reverend’s words as they are so meaningful RIGHT NOW more than ever.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Peace Family,

WW

From the blog of Lisa Vox, African-American History Guide 

http://afroamhistory.about.com/b/2010/11/22/thanksgiving-and-african-american-history.htm

Thanksgiving and African-American History

Monday November 22, 2010

Thanksgiving may be a national holiday today, but originally it was a “Yankee” holiday. As New Englanders migrated to other areas of the country, they took the holiday with them, spreading it south and west.

President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863 during the Civil War to promote national unity. Thanksgiving had already spread, but white Southerners still tended to see it as a Yankee holiday, especially after Lincoln’s proclamation.

So, after the Civil War, many white Southerners celebrated Thanksgiving on their own schedule or forwent the holiday altogether. Meanwhile, African Americans in the South embraced Thanksgiving, celebrating it along with the rest of the nation.

African-American pastor, Alexander Crummell, used the occasion of Thanksgiving in 1875 to deliver a powerful sermon, “The Social Principle Among a People and Its Bearing on Their Progress and Development.” Crummell argued that it was the duty of himself and his congregation to reflect on racial progress on Thanksgiving Day, urging that “[i]t is peculiarly a duty at this time when there is evidently an ebb-tide of indifference in the country, with regard to our race; and when the anxiety for union neutralizes the interest in the black man. . . .”

It was not until the opening decade of the 20th century that white Southerners fully adopted the holiday as well. By the time President Franklin Roosevelt signed a bill permanently placing Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November, it had been incorporated as a holiday celebrating family into the lives of most Americans.

Excerpt Taken from:

Rev. Alexander Crummell "What this race needs in this country is POWER the forces that may be felt."

Rev. Alexander Crummell’s

“The Social Principle among a People and Its Bearing on Their Progress and Development.”

For the text in its entirety:

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai2/institutions/text1/crummell.pdf

“. . . I see nought in the future but that we shall be scattered like chaff before the wind before the organized labor of the land, the great power of capital, and the tremendous tide of emigration, unless, as a people, we fall back upon the might and mastery which come from the combination of forces and the principle of industrial co-operation. Most of your political agitation is but wind and vanity. What this race needs in this country is POWER the forces that may be felt. And that comes from character, and character is the product of religion, intelligence, virtue, family order, superiority, wealth, and the show of industrial forces. THESE ARE FORCES WHICH WE DO NOT POSSESS. We are the only class which, as a class, IN THIS COUNTRY, IS WANTING IN THESE GRAND ELEMENTS. The very first effort of the colored people should be to lay hold of them; and then they will take such root in this American soil that only the convulsive upheaving of the judgement-day can throw them out! And therefore I close, as I began, with the admonitory tones of the text. God grant they may be heeded at least by YOU who form this congregation, in your sacred work here, and in all your other relations: .They helped every one his neighbor, and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage. So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for the soldering; and he fastened it with nails, that it SHOULD NOT BE MOVED!.”

Umoja Family, Hotep!