I just can’t help myself. This is the kind of crap MSN is spewing. Funniest thing I’ve ever read. Thank GOD for leaders like Hussein, Oprah, & Magic. Forget the fact that this is a made up, bullshit holiday 3 cuts below Festivus, now it’s 7 days long apparently!?! The comments under the link are awesome too. Enjoy!!!
http://www.theroot.com/views/celebs-who-personify-kwanzaas-7-principles#comments
Celebs Who Personify Kwanzaa’s 7 Principles
By: The Root Staff | Posted: December 21, 2012 at 2:10 PM
From Magic Johnson to Soledad O’Brien, these notables live by the tenets of the African-American holiday.
Founded in 1966 by Maulana Karenga (Alias Ron Everett, I guess a guy named Ron Everett can’t invent a racist holiday. Classy guy, from Wikipedia – In 1971, Karenga/Everett was sentenced to one to ten years in prison on counts of felonious assault and false imprisonment. One of the victims gave testimony of how Karenga/Everett and other men tortured her and another woman. The woman claimed to have been stripped and beaten with an electrical cord. Karenga/Everett’s former wife, Brenda Lorraine Karenga, testified that she sat on the other woman’s stomach while another man forced water into her mouth through a hose.), an Africana-studies scholar, Kwanzaa is a weeklong celebration — lasting from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1 — meant to commemorate the African heritage of black Americans. Each day of the celebration is devoted to one of seven principles. This year The Root decided to take the holiday’s seven principles and pick one or two prominent African Americans who best embody each one.
Below, check out our picks for the most Kwanzaa-fied celebrities.
1. Umoja (Unity): Barack Obama
To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race. Yup, that’s our imperious leader.
Although Obama is seen by his supporters as a unifier, one need only look at the exit polls from the Nov. 6 election to see that the nation is hardly united. But there are times when Obama is called upon as president to unify communities and an entire nation, times when politics and partisanship are completely set aside. After the Newtown, Conn., tragedy, it was his duty to travel to the town to console victims, speak to residents and calm a scared nation.
2. Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): Soledad O’Brien and Oprah Winfrey
To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.
On paper, O’Brien and Winfrey don’t have much in common except a TV-journalism background. But through their work, both of them embody the spirit of Kujichagulia — O’Brien, with her CNN series Black in America, through which she takes on the unenviable task of defining the diverse black experience for a mainstream audience; and Winfrey, with her media empire.
3. Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker
This is the moron that was living on food stamps to prove how tough it was for the poor, poor, welfarers.
To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and to solve them together.
Politicians are supposed to make it their personal mission to maintain their community and make their brothers’ and sisters’ problems their own, but no politician takes it quite as personally as Booker, who, in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, opened his home to people without electricity and personally responded to his constituents on Twitter.
4. Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): Magic Johnson and Tyler Perry
To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.
Johnson and Perry are both famous black businessmen who have gained their renown as entrepreneurs partly because of their commitment to building their businesses in their community and hiring from within. Johnson builds his movie theaters and other franchises in urban areas, creating jobs and opportunities where there were none. And Perry, in Atlanta, has created the largest and most profitable black film studio in the country. (I guess cheating on his wife & getting AIDS isn’t pertinent here)
5. Nia (Purpose): Bill Cosby
To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
The TV and comedy legend often gets a bad rap, particularly from young people, for being a bit of a curmudgeon these days. Cosby’s detractors say he’s hard on the African-American community for what he perceives to be its many shortcomings. But one might say that’s just his Nia talking — his intense desire to “restore his people to their traditional greatness.” When one looks at it that way, his lectures take on new meaning. The only one who belongs on this list.
6. Kuumba (Creativity): Toni Morrison
To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited.
The Pulitzer Prize winner, who released her 10th novel, Home, and received a Medal of Freedom for her contributions to culture this year, might be one of our most creative living artists. Morrison’s art is not visual, but as President Barack Obama said when he gave her the medal in May, “Toni reaches us deeply using a tone that is lyrical, precise, distinct and inclusive. She believes that language ‘arcs toward the place where meaning might lie.’ The rest of us are happy to be following along for the ride.” Obama admits someone is better than him, film at 11.
7. Imani (Faith): Bishop T.D. Jakes and Iyanla Vanzant
To believe with all our hearts in God, our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
That Jakes — one of the most famous African-American evangelists in the country — is the personification of Imani is a no-brainer. His Potter’s House in Dallas boasts 30,000 members. Vanzant’s Imani credentials are perhaps less overt, but her spiritual journey has long been an inspiration to her fans, making her quite the guru. Just watch her show, Iyanla: Fix My Life.
