Tag: Kwanzaa

Ujamaa

I have often lamented the fact that I went through undergrad and grad school (two times) and came out at the end of each process looking for a job. I’m not saying that seeking employment was equivalent to failure, but no job will provide the type of economic development that OUR communities need anywhere in the world.

Our communities are characterized by what Walter Rodney called “underdevelopment”. They have been exploited by the avarice white supremacy and capitalism. Many of us, stricken by the psycho-social malady that Kobi Kambon calls “cultural mis-orientation”, in addition to physical assaults, displacement, and structural change have been constrained in our ability to martial a collective response to this condition. Nonetheless, we know, just as our ancestors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries knew, that our collective fortunes, our ability to be self-sufficient, our ability to refine and defend ourselves and our culture is contingent on us controlling our economies.

Thus Ujamaa–cooperative economics–is and remains an imperative, one that we must model in our families, our educational institutions, our religious institutions, and in every space that we inhabit. This does not have to be an abstract affair. Growing food in a garden teaches us the importance of feeding ourselves on a larger scale. What’s more, it teaches the skills, that when scaled up, enable for us to cobble together a potential food system. Studying “alternative medicine”, creating programmatic and institutional models for promoting physical and mental well-being enables us to begin building a community-based health system, one that when networked to other systems–including allopathic systems with Black healthcare professionals–teaches us the value and necessity of caring for ourselves. Ultimately, whether we are focused on any of the six levels of institution building (as taught by the Council of Independent Black Institutions)–education, food, shelter, clothing, health care, and defense–we are engaged in the process of nationbuilding. This is what Ujamaa teaches. This is what it necessitates. Taking small steps now can lead to magnificent accomplishments in the future.

Heri za Kwanzaa Jamaa (Happy Kwanzaa Family)!

Kujichagulia

Our movement has been defined by constant and incessant acts of self-determination. Whether we are referring to the maroon tradition among enslaved Africans in the Western hemisphere, the Stono Rebellion of 1739, the declaration of Haitian independence in 1804, Denmark Vessey’s planned insurrection of 1822, Harriet Tubman’s defiant quest to free enslaved Africans, Martin R. Delany’s work in support of emigration and nationalism in the mid-1800s, Benjamin “Pap” Singleton’s support of the Black Exodusters in the 1870s and Black emigration abroad in the 1880s, Marcus Garvey’s work to empower the global African community, Drusilla Dunjee Houston’s contribution to the reclamation of African history, Carter G. Woodson’t declaration that mis-education is the dominant institutionalized form of socialization afforded to Africans in America, Kwame Ture’s 1966 call for Black Power, Black people in the U.S. recognizing themselves as an African people, the movement for Re-Africanization that ensued with great ernest in the 1960s in the context of the Black Power Movement, the Republic of New Afrika’s declaration of independence on March 31, 1968, the Black independent schools movement of the 1960s and 1970s, the creation of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations in the 1980s, and so on. We continue to engage in acts of Kujichagulia (self-determination). Declaring our commitment to reclaim our culture and restore our sovereignty are acts of self-determination.

Umoja

Heri za Kwanzaa Jamaa (Happy Kwanzaa family)! A long, long time ago, when I was first introduced to Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba this is how I learned Umoja: To strive for and maintain unity on seven levels: self, family, neighborhood, community, nation, race, and world.

Let’s practice Umoja in all that we do, recognizing that unity is strength, and that the various differences between us are not unbridgeable chasms. They are a ground of struggle that enables us to forge even stronger bonds that steel our resolve against our enemies, both internal and external, who would act to undermine the well-being of our people.