Kwanzaa Day 7: Imani

On the seventh day the black candle is lit, then the farthest left red, the farthest right green, the next red candle, the next green, the final red and then the final green candle. This represents the 7th principle of Kwanzaa - Imani (ee-MAH-nee): Faith

This is the 7th, and final, day of Kwanzaa. Today we celebrate IMANI (Faith). Today we renew our BELIEF in God, our people, our teachers and our leaders, and the virtue and victory of our struggle IMANI!
 
 

Kwanzaa Day 6: Kuumba

Kuumba/Creativity

Today let us think about what we can do to leave our community more beneficial and beautiful than we inherited it. What creative contributions can we make, individually and collectivity, to fulfill this valuable principle, KUUMBA?

Kwanzaa Day 5: Nia

On this the fifth day of Kwanzaa, we are asked to ponder NIA, that is, Purpose. Think what it is you were put here for? (For surely you were not made for naught.) How shall you make your mark? What is it that you'll strive for, that will help, not only you, but your family, and above all our community?

Kwanzaa Day 4: Ujamaa

Ujamaa -- it's all about the suporting business by us with the green ($$) "Cooperative Economics".

Let us strengthen our resolve to build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.

Do you support black businesses (online or in your neighborhood)?  Are there black businesses in your neighborhood?  What do you think caused this huge decline of black businesses in black neighborhoods?

Kwanzaa Day 3: Ujima

UJIMA (oo-JEE-mah)/Collective Work and Responsibility

Have you ever had to do team work and found yourself doing all of the work?  Or were you the person who shoved all the work onto someone else?  I like to term those situations the case of A TEAM OF ONE.  The finished product of the project will either be:

1.  The person who did all of the work, did a hell of a job BUT no one else learned anything.  You know you have a case of A TEAM OF ONE when the team at the front of the class has only one person answering all of the questions.  --OR--
2.  The person completes the project but a part of it suffers because they alone couldn't handle all of the work alone.  It is team work, right?! 

The case of A TEAM OF ONE is not only prevalent in school work but also in our community.  Our community is that project that suffers because we don't work together.  Our community's problem is OUR problem.  It's issues do not only affect one person but it affects us all directly and indirectly.

It is important to remember that yes, we are INDIVIDUALS, and we must celebrate our individuality. But we are also a PEOPLE.  A people with not only the power but the RESPONSIBILTY to change our neighborhoods, our communities, and our nations.

I think Mama Joe from Soul Food sums up the definition of Ujima best: One finger won't make an impact, but you ball all those fingers into a fist, and you can strike a mighty blow. Now, this family has got to be that fist.

still chasing honey . . .

Kwanzaa Day 2: Kujichagulia

Kujichagulia/Self-Determination

Let us affirm our determination to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.

What has the media attempted to define us as? How do we define ourselves?  Are these definitions (media vs. how we see ourselves) different? If, so why?

Merry Kwanzaa!

The name Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning first fruits of the harvest.  The celebration of Kwanzaa is a means for black people to affirm their commitment to themselves, their families, their communities, and the black struggle for equality. 


Today is the first of seven days in which we promote character-building principles: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.

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

What is Umoja's relevance for today's black community?

Great Reads: My First Conk

My First Conk
By Malcolm X
from The Autobiography of Malcom X, 1964

Shorty soon decided that my hair was finally long enough to be conked1. He had promised to school me in how to beat the barbershops' three- and four-dollar price by making up congolene, and then conking ourselves.

I took the little list of ingredients he had printed out for me, and went to a grocery store, where I got a can of Red Devil lye, two eggs, and two mediumsized white potatoes. Then at a drugstore near the poolroom, I asked for a large jar of vaseline, a large bar of soap, a large-toothed comb, and a fine-toothed comb, one of those rubber hoses with a metal spray-head, a rubber apron, and a pair of gloves.

"Going to lay on that first conk?" the drugstore man asked me. I proudly told him, grinning, "Right!"

Honey For The Soul: Sisters, your natural hair is beautiful to me

An open letter to African-American women:

It's about the need to be beautiful, I know.

As goals go, that one is neither extraordinary nor gender-specific. But it's different for women, isn't it? A man's sense of self worth is seldom endangered by crow's feet. On him people will say they convey ``character.'' On a woman, they convey wear.

And if it's different for women, it's different and then some for women like you, saddled not just with the need to be beautiful, but also with 400 years of racial baggage, 400 years of ginormous Jemimahs, shrill Sapphires, ugly Aunt Esthers and angry Angelas seared into the public mind, 400 years which say you cannot be beautiful if your lips are too proud, or your skin too dark or you don't take that nappy hair God gave you and make it look like the hair he gave somebody else.

Honey For the Soul

You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

- Proverb

Honey for the Soul!

No bees, no honey; no work, no money

- Proverb

Honey for the Soul: Still I Rise

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Peter v. Judas

So my pastor spoke about forgiveness and reconciliation this morning. He alluded to the English idiom The Elephant in the Room. This idea is based on the concept that an elephant in a room would be impossible to overlook; thus, people in the room who pretend the elephant is not there might be concerning themselves with relatively small and even irrelevant matters, compared to the looming big one. So there is an OBVIOUS problem that is being ignored.

We have all had that awkward silence when we are in a room with someone we had an issue with. What I love about my Pastor is that he makes the Bible simple and we can relate it to our real life situations. My Pastor spoke about addressing the elephant in the room. This sermon really hit home for me. Throughout my adult life I had 3 close friendships which turned sour. And it wasn't until the 3rd happening (when I became much wiser) that I decided to do something about it -- I addressed the situation. I consider myself to be nonconfrontational. I don't like entertaining drama because I'm crazy. I am too ghetto and crazy to have drama. Serious. But as a mature adult I am learning how to deal with life. Friends are always going to have some type of disagreement. We gonna fight but true friends can come back and move forward. I have learned to listen to the other side, accept fault, and move on.

Insanely Pampered Hollywood . . .

DOGS! DOGS! DOGS!

Did you get that Insanely Pampered Hollywood Dogs.

Hell to the naw. I remember my girl in law school telling me how much America's treatment of animals especially dogs are insane. She told me about how in Jamaica a dog ain't ---- (fill in the blank). I am sympathetic to dogs, I don't believe that they should starve or be trained to fight. But if it ever comes between a dog and a homeless man in Little Haiti, it's going to be the homeless dude. But this shit on E is ridiculous and excessive.

Stepping Out!

So I've decided to go out on a limb and invite facebook friends to become a part of the site. I must admit I was very hesitant. I went through 55 pages of friends and at the very end I was like -- all these folk don't need to know my business. I was about to just exit and forget about it. But I have learned to be brave and to do what my heart and mind think is right.

I know only a few people who I admire because they are so honest. Brutally honest. Transparent. I wish that one day I can be like that. I must say that just because someone is not honest and open with everyone does not mean that they are FAKE. I'm definitely not saying that! But what I am saying is that creating this blog has forced me to confront some issues I deal with on my own, in my head, late at night, in my bed, alone. It's very therapeutic.