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Merry Christmas part 2 - The Louse Who Jacked Kwanzaa

CartoonistWill

on Jan. 11, 2010

Merry belated Christmas strip!
(Or maybe I should say Joyous Black Channukah!)

This was originally supposed to go up on Christmas or the following week, but I've been very behind on the comic strip. I decided to put it up today, despite it being almost half way into January 2010.

The SuperMilo part of my subconscious wanted to make fun of Kwanzaa, but the nice guy cartoonist Will in me wanted to apologize for it. Which is fine because I made the apology funny and half-baked too.

I actually learned a lot about Kwanzaa while doing this strip. I mean, I like getting acquainted with the things I make fun of before hand. Before I looked up Kwanzaa I thought it was a black heritage celebration in which, according to a white school teacher who celebrates Kwanzaa herself, is a day you light candles and worship the spooky blue ghosts of your ancestors. However according to Wikipedia (which is already a questionable source of information), Kwanzaa is about getting together to help support and build up the community. I mean, there's more to it than that, but I was surprised to see that Kwanzaa is about reaching out to those in need. Which is honestly also what Jesus Christ is all about, which SHOULD freaking extend to Christmas and Christianity in general, but sadly Christmas and the faith of many have become watered down. So I can understand why Kwanzaa celebrators do not give gifts, in order to avoid being secularized and water downed by excessive materialism and commercialism.

However there were also some negative things about Kwanzaa that I didn't like, although minuscule and not apart of what Kwanzaa has become for it's few faithful celebrators. And that would be the creator of Kwanzaa, Ron Karenga, claiming that he created Kwanzaa as an alternative to Christmas and Christianity because he believes Jesus to be "psychotic." Although Jesus also had a much higher mission objective, Kwanzaa follow's Jesus foot steps in that it is all about community outreach and etc. Karenga later retracted his statement due to the fact that he realized that his strong bitterness towards a great man known for His self-sacrificing life was alienating Christians everywhere, which was a bad marketing decision since Christians make up a high majority of Americans. Wikipedia claims that less than 2% of Americans today celebrate Kwanzaa. But no matter how many do or do not, any excuse to reach out to those in need is a good one and I've heard that many Christians through the decades have celebrated Kwanzaa in this fashion.

Next Christmas I want to take a hint from the people's Kwanzaa (and not Karenga) and focus my gift giving on giving back to Jesus by doing what He has wanted us to do for Christmas all along, which is what He did while on earth - community outreach, helping those less fortunate, strengthening the bonds of our families and friendships, telling people about why He came, and what not. And I think even those who are not of the Christian faith can agree to most of that.