What is more dangerous than an eloquent man with good intentions captured by evil ideas and desperate motives?
Only the ignorance that spawned the ideas in the first place.

Paul H. Goldsmith
Summer 1984

The Seven Principles of Foolishness
Written: December 14, 2004

Would you like to take something special with you from the holiday season?

How about a thought, an idea, a concept to help warm one’s heart?

How about a Christmas story?

Well then! Here goes…

The other day -- Sunday, December 12, to be exact -- my sister and I decided to walk from our brother’s house near the Amherst Village Green, to the center of town itself. It was nearing five in the evening, and we had been looking forward to joining other Amherst residents in the traditional “Christmas Tree Lighting Celebration”. Having both grown up in the town, we recalled the many times we had visited as kids, holding small candles, drinking hot chocolate, singing Christmas songs, awaiting the arrival of Santa Claus, and gazing at the tree as it was set alight with color.

We embarked on the short walk, the cold air reminding us of those old times, and warning us of the winter yet to come. But as we approached the crowd surrounding the tree and the riser at the tree’s base, I observed that no one was holding candles. It was then that my sister mentioned something that struck me as odd.

“Didn’t you see the notice in the paper? They asked that people not bring candles, because they’re a hazard.”

The sarcasm in her voice was notable, and appreciated. Immediately, I felt uneasy. The announcement in the paper was the kind of weak, neurotic and politically correct nonsense I had seen invade so many other formerly simple ceremonies. How many kids, and how much property, were hurt or injured because of the tiny candles used for this brief event?

My bemusement and speculation were short-lived, for in a moment, a fellow resident, “moderate” Republican in the state legislature, and a fixture at the Christmas Tree Lighting Celebration took to the microphone. My sister and I watched as he welcomed everyone to what he then called the “Tree Lighting Celebration”.

Again, something about it put me off. It seemed strange. I noticed immediately that he had excluded the mention of “Christmas” in the title of the event. Peter knew better than to make a mistake. He had to have known he was avoiding the word; at least, that was my strong suspicion.

My sister and I looked at each other. She had noticed as well.

Not holding candles, standing in the cold among the multitude, we then heard the carolers on the riser begin singing “Come All Ye Faithful”, and we joined in. But when the song was over, Peter once more took to the microphone.

“And now, will you please welcome Mrs. Findlay, the music teacher at Clark School, for her ninth year at the Tree Lighting Celebration, and her students from the first grade, as they sing, ‘The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa’.”

There seemed to be a pause in my thought process as I assimilated what he’d just said. The second song at what used to be called the “Christmas Tree Lighting Celebration”, the song being sung by first graders, taught to them by their music teacher, was… A Kwanzaa song?!

“Okay!” said my sister. “I’m all set. I’m outta here.”

We turned away in disgust and frustration. It wasn’t that we were upset that the town officials and volunteers who had helped put together the “Tree Lighting” celebration had wanted to be inclusive, to cover a few more bases for the holidays, it was that the entire atmosphere had been one of simplistic political correctness, of egalitarian, narrow-minded pandering by people who didn’t even know what they were doing.

How many people there, I wondered, were aware of the heritage of Kwanzaa when they taught it to the kids? How many knew its background, and the background of its creator? How many were aware that it was not even a religious holiday, was not even a real holiday at all, but rather a totally fabricated event created by a former felon in 1966?

The “holiday” of Kwanzaa was invented by one Dr. Mualuna Karenga, AKA Ron Everett, a former “social activist” who helped form the radical organization United Slaves (US) in the 1960’s. Engaged in a power struggle with the Black Panthers, Everett kidnapped and tortured two women to garner information from them. He was subsequently arrested, and found guilty on two counts of felonious assault and one count of false imprisonment for the beating and torture of Deborah Jones and Gail Davis. Everett was sentenced to serve one to ten years in prison, beginning in 1971.

Upon his release, he suddenly, and thus far inexplicably, was welcomed by the University of California, Long Beach. He became a professor of Black Studies, and ran the department. The school has yet to cite his qualifications for the job.

Perhaps all of these facts are unimportant to the people of the “Tree Lighting Celebration” and the staff at the Clark School. Perhaps they see the “overall good” the man has done by creating the holiday overshadowing, or redeeming his past.

Unfortunately, the so-called holiday is nothing of the sort. It is a socio-political construct with blatant racial overtones created by a criminal for the express purpose of racial separation and economic war.

Karenga’s “Kwanzaa” is supposedly a celebration of the east-African fruit harvest, the “holiday” derived from elements of African tradition. As such, it is often lauded by innocent and high-minded teachers as a way to introduce kids to cultural diversity and racial inclusiveness. The only trouble is that Kwanzaa is a lot more than a celebration of a traditional African harvest. What Karenga sought to do with his fiction was establish a pseudo-religious holiday based on race, and infused with political ideology. His is a modern political manifesto to be taught to the kids, not a link to ancient times and ancient traditions.

At the core of Kwanzaa are the “Seven Principles” about which the first graders sang. Those principles are:

1. umoja - unity
2. kujichagulia - self-determination
3. ujima - collective work and responsibility
4. ujamaa - cooperative economics
5. nia - purpose
6. kuumba - creativity
7. imani - faith

Karenga himself has said that the philosophy underlying Kwanzaa is distinguishable from Marxism only in its added embrace of racial hatred and certain aspects of Chinese and Cuban socialism. Certainly the “Seven Principles” reflect this claim. Ought one to be justifiably concerned that six year-old children are being taught the laudable attributes of the supposed “African tradition” of collective economics and collective work and responsibility? Ought one also be concerned when he knows that these “Principles” were cobbled together by a felon who has been intent on spreading his philosophy, not spreading good will among his fellow men?

Evidently, the need for teachers in tax-payer funded schools to acclimatize children to “social awareness” precludes them from actually teaching students right and wrong. It also seems to prevent them from even investigating the fact that one cannot have a “collective” anything without the presence of the individual first. There is no “collective” action or responsibility, no “collective” economics, because every “group” action can be reduced to that of an individual within the group, a man making his own decision for his own reasons.

Collectivism is not necessarily a traditional tenet of east Africans, the people around whom Karenga based his fictitious socio-economic political “holiday” of Kwanzaa. It is an enslaving philosophy that has brought nothing but poverty, death and pestilence to those who have had it imposed on them.

It is not something to teach to first graders, and it is certainly not something to espouse during a post-modern “Tree Lighting Celebration” conducted by people who ought to know better.

That’s my story. Happy holidays. Enjoy that warm feeling of the season.

It think that feeling is called frustration.