by Lisa Patton: Yvette's former college roommate and friend of 20+ years; lives in San Francisco, originally from Chicago; self-employed for 10 years; loves black music from Prince to Wynton, Shirley Horn to Mary J. Blige. I'm also treasurer of Julia Morgan School for Girls (www.juliamorganschool.org) in Oakland--and Yvette's daughters' favorite Cali auntie!
Kwanzaa for me is a time to assess what I’ve accomplished this year and where I want to go next. When I think about it in the collective (black) sense is where I have issues. How do we measure "collective work and responsibility"? How do we measure any of the principles?
When I observed Kwanzaa, I loved the concepts but felt that nothing of consequence was accomplished other than a small contribution to black merchants and reconnecting to the people I cared about. I never felt the cultural pride that the holiday is supposed to reflect.
I think that Kwanzaa is a nice idea but we need an action plan in order to see some tangible progress. I feel we have never really had the conversation about where we want to go as black folk and how do we get there. Everyone has their own ideas about progress – is there a unified way to get there? Should there be?
What I do know is that I have accomplished some things on my 2005 and life agenda, but some things need to be added, others need to be worked on further and others need to be eliminated. Kwanzaa is a good starting point for discussing where we are and want to go as a people but also needs to be able to adjusted and refined as circumstances change.
Posted by perry032 at December 29, 2005 06:33 PM | TrackBackI look forward to reading more on your ideas about where you want to go and how to get there. I'll be by your side to get there.
Posted by: Mieke at December 31, 2005 03:52 PM