The War on Kwanzaa

Right wing nutjob Ann Coulter has blogged on the subject of Kwanzaa. It's pretty amazing.

She begins by making a sweeping assertion:

I believe more African-Americans spent this season reflecting on the birth of Christ than some phony non-Christian holiday invented a few decades ago by an FBI stooge. Kwanzaa is a holiday for white liberals, not blacks.

Now, she may be right about the first statement, and she may be right about the second, but the third? Well, now, that's another matter entirely. But that assertion palls beside the central claim:

In what was probably ultimately a foolish gamble, during the madness of the '60s the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the organization, the better. Karenga's United Slaves was perfect. In the annals of the American '60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police.

Let's see if I've got this right: Ann Coulter is arguing that Kwanzaa is bad because Ron Karenga was a stooge of J.Edgar Hoover. Does she know which side she's on? Her argument, ultimately, boils down to claiming:

(1) Kwanzaa is a fake, pseudo-African and un-Christian celebration
(2) It was established by a fellow who was a stooge for a right-wing loon.
(3) Said stooge led a 'proto-fascist' organization.
(4) The ideology of Kwanzaa cannot be distinguished from 'classical Marxism'.

To call this argument incoherent insults incoherence. She can call Ron Karenga Marxist, or she can call him a white-hating fascist (and, I have to note that the Wikipedia article I link to above does both as well), but she cannot simultaneously say that he supports the establishment of proletarian democracy (Marxism) and black nationalism (which would require that he contend that class differences should be submerged in ethnic solidarity).

An article published in 2004 by someone called Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, is even nuttier. Peterson contends that not only is Karenga anti-Christian, he also hates black people:

It is now clear that Kwanzaa is a phony, wicked holiday created by an ex-con who hates God, Christians, Jews, and blacks – yes blacks. Why else would he try to pull them away from Christianity and indoctrinate them in racialism and socialism?

Not sharing the Rev. Mr. Peterson's views is hating black people? Racialism and socialism are compatible? Right wing nuttiness knows no bounds. I have no brief for Karenga, or indeed for any other black nationalist, but criticism should be rational rather than driven by invective, or, in the case of Coulter who concludes her article with a racist bit of doggerel

{(Sing to "Jingle Bells")

Kwanzaa bells, dashikis sell

Whitey has to pay;

Burning, shooting, oh what fun

On this made-up holiday!}

plain, old-fashioned hatred of black people. Not to mention a complete lack of understanding of what Kwanzaa involves, and the kind of people who are drawn to celebrate it.

I don't happen to be one of them, but I do understand why black Americans -- having to deal with people like Coulter every day -- might want to celebrate community and survival.