Nia (Purpose) the Fifth Principle of Kwanzaa

"To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness." - Karenga

What a few others say about Nia:

The African-American Registry - "The fifth principle of the Nguzo Saba is a dedication to the collective vocation of building, developing, and defending our community, its culture and history. This is done to regain our historical initiative and greatness as a people, and add good and beauty in the world. The hieroglyph Nefer-ancient Egyptian (picture) symbolizes beauty and good. Nia focuses on Black people as heirs and custodians of a great legacy, generational responsibility, and joining together for personal and social purpose."

Star-Telegram (Detroit) - "We celebrate Kwanzaa as a way of paying respect to our ancestors, who we've been able to trace back as far as the 1600s," said Jeff Wardford, chief operating officer of his own company, Taylarmade Consulting. "Although it's a seven-day celebration, we embrace the principles as principles to live by every day," he said.

Ritesofpassage.org - The fifth day of Kwanzaa is a day for reviewing our purpose for living. Each family member should examine his/her ability to put his/her skill or talent to use In the service of the family and community at large. Take time to reflect on your expectations from life: discuss your desires and hopes with family and friends. On this day you should try to determine if this purpose will eventually result in positive achievements for family and community.

All About Kwanzaa - Purpose encourages us to look within ourselves and to set personal goals that are beneficial to the community.

"Purpose" appears to be a common objective of those who celebrate this principle of Kwanzaa. Also reflecting upon the ancestors of the past is also a popular Nia activity.

The only problem I have with this principle is the focus on black people as a "great" people. The constant digging and looking for greatness as a people seems to be an underlying objective of this principle. That focus is at odds with reality. Groping for past greatness when the present shows deep trouble with blacks. We have the breakdown of the family, illegitimacy, drug-abuse, and rampant loss of morality within the black population and tons of other social ills. Looking for greatness won't help us and our immediate problems of today.

Most importantly, what's ignored is the spiritual deprivation of man. Until the black individual comes face to face with his failing before God and his need for salvation, all of the seven principles put together won't help him.

Next, the 6th principle of Kwanzaa, Kuumba (Creativity).

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) The Fourth Principle of Kwanzaa

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)

To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together..

This is Karenga’s original idea of Ujamaa taken from his 1997 book on Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa, a Celebration of Family, Community and Culture.

"The fourth principle is Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) and is essentially a commitment to the practice of shared social wealth and the work necessary to achieve. It grows out of the fundamental communal concept that social wealth belongs to the masses of people who created it and that no one should have such an unequal amount of wealth that it gives him/her the capacity to impose unequal, exploitative or oppressive relations on others" pg. 55.

What others say about what Ujamaa means to them:

From the Chicago Sun-TimesTo build and maintain business enterprises and profit from them together. This principle is the "Made in America" tag. It's supporting neighborhood businesses. It's choosing which salesperson gets your commission for a big purchase like a major appliance or car."

Rites of Passage.org - "Out of the fundamental concepts of "African Communal Living" comes the fourth principle of Kwanzaa. In a community or family, wealth and resources should be shared. On the national level, cooperative economics can help African-Americans take physical control of their own destinies. On this day, ideas should be shared and discussed for cooperative economic efforts to provide for needs as related to housing, education, food, day care, health, transportation and other goods and services."

From the "Afrocentric Experience" website - "On this the fourth and middle day of Kwanzaa, we celebrate Ujamaa, Cooperative Economics. Let us strengthen our resolve to build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together...However, our community exists not only in the "real" world, but in cyberspace too. Here, sites established by Africans, throughout the Diaspora, exchange not only information, but goods and services on a global scale. In the true spirit of Ujamaa, these sites are always eager to publicize each other’s addresses."

Of course, there are many, many other examples of the fourth principle of Kwanzaa, Ujamaa, that can be found. Most understand that this princple was created by Karenga for blacks to build business for blacks and by blacks. And even today, most who celebrate Kwanzaa, share the same purpose and understanding of Karenga that this principle is stressed primarily for black people.

Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) the Third Principle of Kwanzaa

Ujima - To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.

Not a bad principle if one applies that to all people. In fact, as Christians, we are also urged to help those who need help and to help people solve their problems.

What was the creator’s intent of this principle and how do people celebrate it today? Let’s take a peak and see!

In Karenga’s 1997 book on Kwanzaa, A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture, he says the following:

"…the principle of Ujima supports the fundamental assumption that African is not just an identity, but also a destiny and duty, i.e., a responsibility."

So the primary thrust of this "collective work and responsibility" is to help the African brother’s or sister’s. In other words, if one is black, if their skin color is black, then those are whom the black is to help.

Now let’s see how the general public celebrates this day of Ujima:

From an article in the Chicago Sun-Times:

"Ujima (Collective work and responsibility): The expectation is that everyone contributes and everyone has an opportunity for a job. We saw this play out in Illinois' minimum wage referendum and Chicago's "big box" debate. The nation is diminished because we have failed to deal responsibly with universal health care and school funding.

From an article in a Bowling Green newspaper:

"Today is the third day of Kwanzaa, Ujima, which means collective work and responsibility, a day Starks said reinforces the "it takes a village" mentality people should take when viewing their role in their community."

While not religious, Kwanzaa is a cultural holiday that has become religious, Hardin said. "It is hard to separate religion from where we are as a people," Hardin said. "We are a religious people."

I found that article particularly interesting because while not claiming to be a religious celebration, this celebrant does consider it religious. Please click on the above links to read the entire articles.

From an article on the Stamford Times:

STAMFORD — "Ujima" is the Swahili word used to describe the celebration of collective works and responsibility on the third day of Kwanzaa when the obligations to the past, present and future are recalled along with the roles individuals play in their communities and the larger world, according to one Kwanzaa history.

African cultural identity and "connectedness" along with the Nguzo Saba principals are key Kwanzaa themes along with an emphasis on the unity of black families, according to the center.

Although Karenga says in his Kwanzaa writings that the principles are for world-wide use, the message that many blacks are getting is that it is created just for the black family.

New Direction of this Blog

This site I had originally began as a discussion pad for my website, "The Truth About Kwanzaa." But as I started writing, I realized that there is much more to write about -- so many various different topics!

I am writer, a divorcee, a mother of five kids, a college educated computer techy who loves her high tech toys, a ridiculously crazy San Diego Charger's fan, a black conservative independent, and evangelical Christian. Plenty of things to write about in this city, the state, the nation and the world!

Okay, I'm getting all excited about this blogging business and I if I get too crazy with it, I'll trust those of you out there to drop a line and let me know!

Meanwhile, this is the Kwanzaa season and for now, my writings will mostly be about it. After Kwanzaa, I will be moving on!

Carlotta M.

About Me

Taking a little break on this heavy, heavy writing about Kwanzaa. I have to remember sometimes not to be SO serious, always. And all the time I’ve spent talking about Kwanzaa, I haven’t let the readers know anything about me. Every now and then I'll take breaks such as this one and share a little more about myself each time.

So a little bit for today.

I’ve been divorced since 1993, mother of five children. I’m a fifty-somthing right now with my eldest being 27 and my youngest 16. Three boys and two girls.

I had to take a break from my writing on this blog to do my “mommy thang” as I shared with one of the posters. My 16 year old starts on his varsity basketball team and I went to watch him play. I enjoy watching my children in their activities – but especially basketball. I played basketball as a young woman at Los Angeles Trade and Technical school. I won’t say when but let’s just say – it was a long time ago! I ended up quitting school when I found I was pregnant with the first of a string of babies by my then husband.

I was ecstatic because motherhood was far more important to me than anything else in the world! Ironically, I lost that baby through a miscarriage. I was too devastated to return to school and stayed out and went to work at my first "real" job – customer service at the Los Angeles Times.

I had a troubled marriage from the very beginning. I was young and dumb and married my husband because he was “fine.” Sometimes we young ladies can’t get beyond the looks and nice bodies to really see the substance of a fella’. We both had major faults and although I tried, the marriage failed for reasons too intimate to discuss in this public forum.

But life goes on. Here it is today, December 27, 2006 and I’m reflecting on my kids after seeing my son’s team win their game, and with him scoring a bunch of points. I’ll read about him in tomorrow’s newspaper and websites.

About my pride and joys:
My 27 year old is a student at a bible college. I’m proud of his 3.5 GPA he’s carrying in school.
My 25 year old is a professional basketball player in Europe. He’s a huge young man, 6’9” and he say’s he’s almost 250 now.
My 22 year old daughter just returned from Paris, France on a partial scholarship to study abroad. She’s completing her senior year at a famous HBCU and I’m very proud of her. Especially her ability to speak French!
My 19 year old daughter is a hip hop dancer (NOT the video-vixen kind) and is with a famous dance agency. I love to watch her dance! She’s on a team here in San Diego and I have to say so myself, she’s a great dancer!
And my 16 year old son is the baby, bringing up he rear. A single mom and a 16 year old son – well, you can imagine our struggles! But he’s a good boy and so far he’s staying out of trouble!!!

To keep from embarrassing them, I leave my children’s names out until they give me consent to write about them publicly. This will probably already be embarrassing enough to them.

Oh well!

Guess I’ll get back to Kwanzaa now!