People who have been following me for a while may be familiar with my hate-hate relationship with Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin State Senator and worst person alive. Well, he’s decided to branch out from his usual sexism, bizarre theories about abuse and (worst of all) statistical illiteracy to question why schools teach kids about Kwanzaa.
I will now summarize his arguments:
1) Kwanzaa was invented by some dude in the sixties. As we know, no holidays were ever invented (certainly not by Hallmark). Instead, as we have learned from Nightmare Before Christmas, all genuine holidays come from towns where they’re enacted and occasionally stolen by endearing stop-motion animation characters. By ignoring this age-old tradition, Kwanzaa threatens the very definition of holiday itself.
2) Maulana Karenga, the inventor of Kwanzaa, assaulted some people and was involved in an organization that murdered people. Clearly, we cannot celebrate holidays invented by people who did bad things, which is why no one celebrates Thanksgiving Genocide Day.
3) No black people care about Kwanzaa. Except, presumably, the five million black people in America who celebrate Kwanzaa every year. They don’t count.
4) Kwanzaa is an attempt by liberals to keep black people from celebrating Christmas. Because no one can celebrate two holidays during the same month! That’s just crazy talk. We may expect any day now Grothman’s press release about the anti-Christian horrors of New Year’s.
5) Liberals hate America and want to destroy it by convincing people that the values of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution don’t apply to everyone. You may be like “hey, wait, don’t liberals and other lefty-type people usually support the ACLU?” but actually supporting the values in the Constitution are just the liberals’ cunning attempt to disguise how much they hate the Constitution. Instead, liberals are going to fight the Constitution by getting people not to celebrate a holiday that is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution. Oh those fiendish liberals!
6) Nobody fucking tell Senator Grothman about Hanukkah. I don’t think he could face the revelation that there are people– white people!– who don’t even celebrate Christmas. His head would explode.
The thing about it being invented in the Sixties has always filled me with extreme feelings of so-the-fuck-what? Every holiday was new once. I bet Mr. Grothman falls all over himself every September to celebrate “Patriot Day,” established by George W. Bush during his tenure as President so that we as a nation might maintain permanently high levels of grief, outrage, horror, and paranoia toward Muslims and the Middle East, thus justifying whatever the government feels like doing to them.
I’m in basic agreement, but Kalenga’s assault conviction was pretty serious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maulana_Karenga
He’s probably one of those douchestains who thinks Jews can’t be “white”, either.
Nobody tell him Father’s Day was made-up.
… this idiot does realize that ALL American Civil holidays were made up relatively recently yes? And that people didn’t celebrate Christmas before the 4th century AD? Right? Anyone?
… Buehler?
And let’s not forget, Christmas was actually banned in the state of Massachusetts by the Puritans–and it wasn’t officially un-banned until 1870, when it became a federal holiday. Clearly the War on Christmas is a Christian value.
Wait whaaaaat? He thinks that liberals want black Americans to not celebrate Christmas? There may be some oppression-essentialist assholes who believe that but they hate the kind of liberals who actually have any effect whatsoever on anything, and most liberals pretty much love Christmas for everybody. It’s a Super Happy Day. Hardly anybody actually hates it although they might think it’s too commercialized (I agree, up to a point) or too decadent (I don’t.) Why would anybody specifically want *black* people to not celebrate Christmas?
I have heard some comments about some stuff (including use of Swahili names for babies, and possibly Kwanzaa) related to Black Pride was taken from a different part of Africa than the black Americans of slave ancestry came from, and might or might not be considered appropriative by Africans, but it is not even remotely my problem and I basically don’t care.
One thing is that it can be INCREDIBLY hard to create holidays and make them feel right. This can apply even to things that were once traditional (such as Twelfth Night). Kwanzaa was possibly easier, due to the presence of sufficient drama (due to the struggles against racism) and the presence of Kalenga as a leader figure, so it might be hard even now for people of a different culture with a winter holiday that goes back a lot longer than 2000 years (Saturnalia, et. al) might be a bit confused. I’m frankly a little suprised that Kwanzaa actually managed to stick for millions.
Does he believe in the Anglo Myth? Because Christmas trees come from Germany. In Continental Europe. (As well as some of the better cookies.)
Counterpoints to some of his arguments.
1) Actually, there is a Kwanzaa town. The documentary about it should come out in 2013.
2) Genocide Day is a national holiday. A celebration of murder, plague, and some of the best early bioweapons. Why do you think America has a store of Ebola and Smallpox anyway? We love our bioweapons.
4) Actually liberals passed a law recently to give people THREE holidays in December. Most people use them for Christmas, New Years, and sell one to the people in Russia where there is a shortage of holidays. The other months of course people are still limited to one holiday.
3,5,6) These are so bad, they defeat themselves. Seriously I can’t make a counter-argument because they are so thoroughly smashed already.