Last Week In Review - December 20th to December 26th

Urban Informed's look at the stories that might not have received enough light from the past 7 days

I wanted to dedicate this review week to highlight the beginning of Kwanzaa which started on December 26th and runs through January 1st.

The celebration of Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by Maulana Karanga and it was designed for African-Americans to celebrate themselves and their history and ancestors. As we know even today, the education of Black contributions in history is not told completely or at all. Kwanzaa is designed to be a recognition of Black contributions to the culture. The popularity of Kwanzaa has grown over the last 20 years. Black communities in Canada are more and more are observing and celebrating as we here share some of the same battles with our Afro-American brothers and sisters.

One of the major parts of Kwanzaa is the Kinara which holds 7 seven candles for seven days (December 26th to January 1st) each representing a specific principle of the week. The seven principles are as follows:

1. Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.

2. Kujichagulia (Self-determination): To define and name ourselves, as well as to create and speak for ourselves.

3. Ujima (Collective work and responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems and to solve them together.

4. Ujamaa (Cooperative economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.

5. Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

6. Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

7. Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

Despite the criticism that some people continue to lay on Kwanzaa you should know that Kwanzaa is not a replacement for any holiday and is not a religion. You can just celebrate Kwanzaa your way by following the seven daily principles. If you need to research more about Kwanzaa, there are multiple resources for you to learn more about the festival of first fruits.