The Republican National Committee's Stupid Kwanzaa Statement

The Republican National Committee released a statement Friday, commemorating Kwanzaa. There’s just one problem, the entire holiday is a fake and was invented out of thin air by a radical ex-con named Ron Karenga. 

Karenga invented Kwanzaa in 1966 and fashioned the phony holiday as a black alternative to Christmas. Karenga wanted a holiday that was less Eurocentric than Christmas which he considered the commercial exploitation of African Americans. 

There’s absolutely nothing authentic about the seven-day feast. Even the name “Kwanzaa,” which is Swahili for “matunda yakwanza,” has next to no historical connection to African Americans. As noted linguist and scholar at The Manhattan Institute John McWhorter writes, “There may not have been a single Swahili-speaking African brought to these shores amid the slave trade. If there were any, it was very few. The nations where it’s spoken are in East Africa. Black Americans’ ancestors came mostly from West Africa.”

“I created Kwanzaa in the context of the Black Freedom Movement,” Karenga Explained in a 1998 issue of Ebony Magazine. 

In 1978, the Washington Post’s Hollie West wrote more on the formation of Kwanzaa in an interview with Karenga:

“I created Kwanzaa,” laughed Ron Karenga like a teenager who’s just divulged a deeply held, precious secret. “People think it’s African. But it’s not. I wanted to give black people a holiday of their own. So I came up with Kwanzaa. I said it was African because you know black people in this country wouldn’t celebrate it if they knew it was American. Also, I put it around Christmas because I knew that’s when a lot of bloods (blacks) would be partying!”

So why did the Republican National Committee release a statement honoring the celebration of a holiday it’s own founder admits is a fake? Well, for the same reason the city of New York had to release “candle safety” tips for those celebrating Kwanzaa.

The Republican National Committee is stuck between a politically correct rock and a really stupid hard place.