Nana Harriet Tubman possessed not only a hearing heart developed and defined by rightful attentiveness, emphatic understating and appropriate action as requested and required. She also, possessed an amazing mind, a deep thinking, strategic planning mind.
This is the month for celebrating the miracles and wonders we call Black women, that other half of our community which makes us, as a people, whole, these equal and most worthy partners in life, love and struggle to bring good in the world.
There is an emotional, mental and moral sickness eating at the insides of American society and crushing and killing its most vulnerable victims with various forms of systemic violence whether physical, psychological, social or educational. This societal sickness is rooted in and reflective of the ways the ruling race/class feels and thinks about itself and others different and vulnerable and in the palpable and practiced hatred and hostility directed against them.
It is the sacred teaching of our honored foremother, Nana Fannie Lou Hamer, that there are two things we all should care about “never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over. And in revisiting this teaching and our homage to Nana Dr. Carter G. Woodson, we seek to honor this sacred obligation. Again, so we might remember and raise up, pursue and do the good. For he is indeed one of those mighty bridges who taught us where we came from and offered us an unbreakable bridge to carry us
In this month of remembering, raising up and reflecting on our awesome making and movement through history, it is good to remind our ourselves, society and the world of the sacred agency of our people. For this is central and essential to our identity, purpose and direction as persons and a people.
The savage murder and mayhem imposed and inflicted on yet another Black man, a Black person, Tyre Nichols, on his family and community and on Black people as a whole is for each and all of us another great and grievous loss through unrestrained racist police violence.
Every holiday of every hero or heroine we celebrate is, at the same time and in equal measure and meaning, a celebration of our people, indeed a celebration of ourselves. Indeed, whether we believe they are chosen and raised up among us by heaven or history or both, they find their foundation and footing, their mission and meaning in the lived experience, the cultural values and practices and the historical and ongoing struggles of our people.
One of the most critical tasks of our times is to reaffirm, deepen and expand our culture of struggle as a people, with its rich talkings and sacred teachings and its lived and uplifting experiences of “storm riding,” “blooming in the whirlwind,” and daring to “specialize in the wholly impossible” in the midst of the most savage and brutal situations of oppression history had to offer. Indeed, it is as ethically imperative as it is compellingly essential, for it is an anchoring, defining and ongoing project and practice of constantly struggling for African and human good and the well-being of the world.
In the tradition of our ancestors, again and at the beginning of this new year of our people 6263 AFE, we pause and pay rightful homage to the beautiful, strong and unbreakable bridges, past and present, that carried us over.
Heri za Kwanzaa. Happy Kwanzaa to African people everywhere throughout the world African community. And we share these greetings also with all peoples of goodwill and especially with all the oppressed, progressive and struggling peoples of the world.
Kwanzaa was conceived as a special time and space for celebrating, discussing and meditating on the rich and varied ways of being and becoming African in the world.
There is a period during the holiday season dedicated to African Americans; Kwanzaa—defined as “first” in Swahili— is known among all ethnicities. Highlighting African heritage, Kwanzaa carries the salt of a culture unearthed and conditioned, allowing new thoughts of deep reflection on the origins of the collective community.
It is in the early morning when a blanket of quietness covers us and the world and the ocean mist settles softly on our balcony that I begin to offer my tambiko to and for you, as December opens and Kwanzaa comes forth to orient, illuminate and lift up our lives.
As we move once again into the month of December and the season of celebration of the good at the year’s end, Kwanzaa will again assume its rightful role as a distinct, definitive and defining African cultural presence at the table of these times.
The histories and holidays of the oppressed, colonized and enslaved are, of necessity, different from the history and holidays of the oppressor, the colonizer and the enslaver. Likewise, their interpretations of those histories and holidays also differ, for they are lived and learned from different standpoints.