'Tis The Season For Kwanzaa (Day One: Umoja, Explained) And Your New Year Ahead
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Welcome to The Politocrat. I'm Omar Moore. It is Thursday, December the 26th, 2024. On this edition of The Politocrat, Christmas is over. And what is your new year looking like? Thoughts, observations, and a reflection on the holiday season that we are presently in. Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and whatever day you celebrate coming up

Next. Greetings and salutations to your listener and welcome to this brand new edition of the Politocrat Daily Podcast. I do hope that you had a very good Christmas. If you celebrate Christmas or even if you didn't celebrate Christmas, I hope that you had a good day, a good Wednesday and that you did not eat too much. For those of you who celebrate Christmas with a Christmas dinner, and I do,

Although I don't celebrate Christmas for the reasons that some people celebrate Christmas, but I do say that it's important to be amongst and with people that you care about and love. And so Christmas is for me, the way I view Christmas is spending time with family, spending time with friends, spending time communicating and connecting to people.

that's what the spirit of Christmas is. And also giving, the spirit of giving. Giving is another thing that I associate with Christmas. And I think it's very, very important because, you know, this holiday has become a very commercialized affair and it's quite sickening actually from where I stand. But I do hope, I really do hope, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I hope that you didn't eat too much because I, I did, I, I,

I had to rein myself in because Christmas is an excuse to eat more. And I tend to pride myself on being very...

clinical with what I eat and how I eat and when I eat. And yesterday was a struggle, although I think I may have just gotten across the finish line as far as the food is concerned. Oh my goodness me, so delicious. And there's so many leftovers. You know, that's the beauty of it. If you celebrate, if you have a big Christmas celebration,

That's the great thing about these things. But look, the bottom line is that it's great to have you aboard here on the Politocrat Daily Podcast. And we are in the holiday season, which I'm going to be spending a bit of time on this episode talking about. The holiday season is here. Well, Christmas has passed. It is Boxing Day. If you are someone from the United Kingdom, as I am, then that is something that you observe on this Thursday, the 26th.

every Boxing Day is called come comes of course comes the day after Christmas and so we are into Boxing Day for those of you in the United Kingdom who celebrate that so

Holiday season is with us and that's when people say happy holidays. And I know, I think sometimes you hear the words happy holidays and you think, gosh, that's so bland and so generic. But, and I think that actually, but I do say that the reason why it's said, it's not so much I think to, well, we don't want to step on people's toes. I think it's to all, well, maybe it might be that.

to a degree. But I think it's also to acknowledge the fact that there is more than one holiday, that there are holidays like Hanukkah, like Kwanzaa, which actually begins today. And I wanted to talk about Kwanzaa a bit as well. So happy holidays isn't just, I think, about saying, well, we don't want to say Christmas, because I do both. I say Merry Christmas and I say happy holidays. So

In that way, I convey those things. But, you know, there's a reason why people do say happy holidays, because there's more than one holiday out there. And maybe you celebrate all of those holidays. Maybe you celebrate one. Maybe you don't celebrate any. And all of those postures are okay to take. You know, it's not something that you must be compelled to do. So,

You know, that's the way that goes. But we are in the holiday season. Hanukkah began yesterday on Christmas Day, which I don't know that that happens very often in the Jewish calendar. But this particular year it did. And so Hanukkah began on Christmas Day yesterday, the first day of Hanukkah. I think that's seven days or nine days. I always get confused whether it's seven days or nine days. The menorah.

The candle gets lit, the menorah gets lit. So that day one of that was yesterday in the Jewish faith. And then tomorrow, today would be day two. And as for Kwanzaa, which is an African-American holiday that was developed by Dr. Malanga Karenga back in 1966, a University of California professor.

and a UCLA professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. Kwanzaa begins today. And on the African-American holidays, it's really Kwanzaa means harvest, actually. And there are seven different principles for Kwanzaa. And you don't have to celebrate one. You don't have to celebrate them in order. And you don't even have to celebrate one per day. You can celebrate all of them on the same day if you want to.

There is no hard and fast rule as far as Kwanzaa is concerned as to when you celebrate these. But you really can celebrate these, frankly, all year round. So Kwanzaa is a holiday, as I said, that began in 1966. It was founded and started by Dr. Malanga Karenga.

at the University of California at Los Angeles. And again, these are principles on what's called the Ngubo Saba, the Nguzo or the Ngubo Saza. No, the Nguzo Saba. Gosh gracious me, listen to me on this episode. You can tell I've had too much Christmas turkey and a little bit of wine as to go with that. I mean, I think this holiday season, you do let yourself go just a little bit

And some of us really indulge very heavily. But we do all do that. It's wintertime. We tend to eat more. We tend to drink more. Maybe not alcohol per se, but we definitely tend to eat more.

And so when you've got a Thanksgiving holiday, if you observe that and celebrate it in any way, not in the ways that it's originally intended in this country, in the U.S., but if you have those two holidays and they're women a month of each other, and you know, Thanksgiving and Christmas, I mean, that is an opportunity to really stock up on your hibernation because we do hibernate.

as human beings, just like animals do. Go away for the winter, store all that food, as they do, certain animals do, store food and they, you know, collect that food and eat it during the winter months. And that's what we do as human beings, we replicate that behavior as well. You know, we do, we store food, you know, we buy food and we gobble it up. We do that all year round, but particularly with those two holidays. And so,

You know, that's just one of those things. But let me get back before I digress too far. The Nguzo, N-G-U-Z-O, Saba, S-A-B-A, two words, Nguzo Saba. All those seven principles, that's the seven, that's actually like the candles. Seven of those that get lit, similar to the Jewish faith. And so that is what African-Americans believe.

will be doing, black people will be doing here in the United States and perhaps beyond. It's really a Pan-African holiday and beyond. Beginning today on the 26th, and there are seven principles of the Nguzo Saba. One of them is Umoja, which means unity. And I'll be talking about that principle today. And then you've got the other ones, which are Kuji Chagulia, which means self-determination.

Ujima, which means collective work and responsibility. The fourth one is Ujama, cooperative economics. The fifth is Nia, purpose, N-I-A, Nia, purpose. The sixth principle is Kuumba, K-U-U, K-W-M-B-A, that means creativity. And then the seventh principle of the Nguzo Saba for Kwanzaa is Imani,

faith. That's what Imani means. And so those are the seven principles. And I'll be talking about unity, Umoja. And I'll be talking about that in a few moments time. But I do want to note that today is the 20 year mark for what was one of the most severe and gravest natural disasters ever recorded in human history. And I

I must say, probably the deadliest and one of the deadliest. I can't think of a natural disaster that was more deadly than this in at least 100 years plus. I can't think of one. And on this date in 2004, there was a 9.1 earthquake, 9.1 magnitude earthquake. If you can put your mind around that somehow, 9.1.

And that was an earthquake that struck. And this is just, can you just even think about what that must be? 9.1? That's just hard to even, for me to even put my mind around, quite frankly. There was an earthquake that struck and it was 9.1. And it struck off the western coast of Sumatra, which is...

a place off of Indonesia, an island off of Indonesia in Asia, right? And in the Indian Ocean. And it was a profound situation. It really was. And so many people were killed. So many people were killed in that earthquake. But really, it wasn't so much the earthquake. I should really correct this. The earthquake itself

which struck on this day 20 years ago, 9.1 magnitude, generated a massive tidal wave, a massive wave. And that massive wave literally was the thing that destroyed coastal communities across continents. Seriously, across continents, particularly in Asia. But for thousands and thousands and thousands of miles, people were killed.

by this tsunami wave that just destroyed so many people's lives, destroyed property and changed people's lives forever. Around 230,000 people were killed. And this tsunami that was generated by the earthquake that was 9.1 on the magnitude destroyed so many places.

in multiple countries, whether it was Indonesia itself, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, parts of the African continent, the eastern parts of the African continent. I mean, it is just unreal. And you really couldn't wrap your brain around it then. And I still can't wrap my brain around it now, 20 years later. It was just one of those kinds of things that was so horrifying. There was video footage.

At the time, and yes, there was social media in just around 2004. I mean, it was in its nascent period, although Twitter didn't really get started until 2006. But I remember seeing...

on social media and I don't even remember what social media might have been the YouTuber don't count as social media but I do remember seeing maybe it was later on in retrospect I do remember seeing a video online of these tidal waves I mean maybe social media wasn't quite around yet certainly Twitter wasn't until 2006 but

The kinds of video that was being shown, maybe I didn't see it on social media, maybe I saw it on television. Social media, let me correct myself, wasn't quite generated yet. And so I just couldn't believe it. There were these videos being shown on television, as I remember it, of people.

The tidal wave coming in and destroying, and someone was videotaping this, and completely destroying a hotel resort, destroying everything. The water was so high. It was as if you were watching a movie. And I do remember that there are several movies that would come out within the next 10 years that would show this.

these kinds of disasters, you know, it would show this. There was a movie called 2012 that was essentially one of those movies that was a climate change disaster movie and that warned, it was a fictional film, but it warned about what was happening and, you know, the devastation of continents and everything else. And that film featured natural disasters in it that were fictionalized. But, you know, obviously there was

the impact of this very horrific, to put it mildly, very horrific storm, this very horrific tsunami, I should say, I'm sorry. And so that's something that really shocked people and devastated so many lives. You can't at some point even grasp what 230,000 people being killed even looks like. That is almost a quarter of a million people

Due to this one natural disaster, or I should say man-made natural disaster, because let's face it, climate change would have presumably had a lot to do with that tsunami. Although when you do have earthquakes that massive, they do generate tsunamis, especially if the earthquake is centered in the Indian Ocean, which this one was. It was off the village of Sumatra, but it was right in the Indian Ocean.

and the island of Sumatra, rather. So that would have been in the Indian Ocean and bang, you know, that's the thing that can generate such destruction. And we had earlier this month here in San Francisco, we had the tsunami warning. And that was because of an earthquake that struck in the Pacific Ocean that was at 7.1. And that was more than 200 miles north of San Francisco. And so we had that warning.

that thankfully turned out to be nothing serious at all, thank God. But there were people way up in Northern California, way up to the upper reaches of the state of California, in the northern part of it, way above San Francisco, who were really affected. And so this is something that, you know, is just so horrifying when you see these events, so many people.

so many lives destroyed. And you look at these photographs now, 20 years later, and you see all of these places submerged with water. You see the devastation. It's just hard to fathom. It's really hard to fathom little kids being killed, babies being killed, you know? It's just horrifying. So I wanted to take a few moments to really look back and think about and reflect on

those moments and those agonizing days, weeks, months, and longer of suffering that people across many countries faced and experienced during that horrible time 20 years ago today. And of course, in the days and weeks and months after that. I do offer my deepest condolences to

to all of the families who lost loved ones, who lost people of any stripe in that particular tsunami that happened 20 years ago with that earthquake that triggered the tsunami 20 years ago today. And so this is the holiday season. Not everyone is celebrating it for sure. And there's very good reasons for that.

Umoja, unity, that is the first principle of Kwanzaa which begins today and unity in this sense is about unifying and having cohesion in our communities, in our family, in our country and in our group as a group of people and so unity

Umoja is a principle of unity, the principle of Kwanzaa that celebrates unity. That is Umoja, that's what it means.

This day is a day where we focus on maintaining and attaining togetherness in our community, in our families, in our nation, and amongst us as black people. And of course, we are not a monolith. Obviously, we are not a monolith as black people. No group is a monolith. But it is important to

Keep in mind that we must maintain unity and cohesion in our communities. It's very, very important. And I use the importance of that and use the first principle of Kwanzaa, which is Umoja, which means unity, to focus on the need and the importance of black people supporting black businesses. That is something that we need to do.

as a group of people. We need to do that. And I think it's essential that we do that for economic strength, economic power, and a recycling of dollars in our communities. Now, we are certainly not a monolith by any stretch. No group is. I'm thinking and I'm saying that the essential way to look at

unity, I think the best way that I could think of looking at it, aside from the obvious ways, is economics. Being able to have a mindset where we are buying from people who look like us, where we are going to stores where people look like us who own the businesses. And if there aren't any businesses that you see out there in your neighborhood, in your community, brick and mortars that are owned by black people,

Then of course online there are a wealth of black businesses that are out here that you can actually buy from and it's very important I think that we as black people actually do that and do it robustly and do it much more than we might be doing it now.

Everybody finds it very easy without any thinking whatsoever to buy from Amazon. No matter how odious Jeff Bezos is, no matter how deplorable, how awful, how disgusting he is, no matter how much he continues to insult, ridicule and really be oppressive to Amazon workers, we at large still go and shop at Amazon.

We have Amazon Prime accounts. We have Amazon memberships. Or we buy from Amazon just generally. And the vast majority of us do so and do not blink an eyelid at doing so or when we do so. So I really believe that we, particularly as black people, must start to buy black. Now this is not the first time you've heard me say this before.

And this is also not the first time you've ever heard that term, buy black. This is something that you heard about if you're old enough to remember in the 1960s, or even if you're not old enough to remember, you can just simply look at this online. There was a huge movement in the 60s and 70s to buy black. You know, Malcolm X talked about this in the 1960s. Dr. King talked about this in the 1960s.

And even in the 50s, he talked about it with the Montgomery bus boycott, which began essentially on December the 1st, 1955, with the act of defiance by Rosa Parks. So, you know, we're talking now nearly 70 years or just a year shy of that. Next year will be 70 years, seven zero years since that Montgomery bus boycott began. And it lasted for what? Over two years, I think it was, you know, well over two years.

And boycotting Montgomery buses and these businesses. And Dr. King has written about this. He wrote about this, of course, in his book, Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community, which is his best book. And I urge you to read that book. I think that's the other thing I would say.

And he lays out a blueprint in that book about how, you know, we need to be supporting black businesses, support businesses that respect us, support our own businesses that black people have. And he said this in speeches as well, that black people have money and millions, billions of dollars worth of money. In fact, he said this, I think in the speech, the final speech he gave before his life was cut short so horribly in 1968, the day before on April the 3rd, 1968.

He gave this speech at the temple mount, the temple, Mason temple, I should say. And he spoke about this.

And he talked about the need to patronize black businesses and to get and stop buying from Coca-Cola, stop buying Coca-Cola and seal test and all this and Wonder Bread and get not, you know, get away from buying that stuff, boycott that stuff, stop buying from there. You know, these companies make billions of dollars. He talked about the importance of buying, you're using your buying power as a black person or as a black community at large, unifying that power.

unity, Umoja, into buying from people who look like you do. Buying black and harvesting your money and bringing your money into your own community. The black dollar, the dollar that black people spend, does not stay in the black community for more than around four minutes. We are spending our money in communities of people who do not look like us and the vast majority of the time do not respect us.

And you go to other communities and the dollar that gets recycled in their communities is there for weeks, sometimes even a month before it passes out of that community. In other words, that

You continue to buy in the community that you are a part of, that you live in, that if you're an Asian person or a white person, you're buying in the community of people who looks like you and that money continues to cycle and stay in that community because people are doing that, contributing to that, contributing to that, contributing to that. And that dollar does not leave for weeks, if not months sometimes. Whereas in our communities...

We spend with each other, but that money does not go, it does not stick to us because we then turn around and spend that money in another community that doesn't look like ours does.

So that's the importance of unity. And Dr. King talked about this in a number of different forums, fora, in, as I said, his last speech that he ever gave. And he goes into it as well in the book, Where Do We Go From Here, Chaos or Community? And of course, within three weeks from now, just about three weeks from now, Dr. King's holiday on January the 20th, which I'll be talking about then on that day.

I will not be talking about anything else. I can guarantee you that on January 20th. You will not be hearing from me about anything else except for Dr. King's day, his birthday, of course, which is on January 15th, but his day of celebration, his birthday celebration, which is a national holiday, is...

is on the 20th of January. And of course, I'll be talking about this some more and going into some of the things that he talked about in that book, which I really do urge you to read. It's called Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community. It's a fantastic blueprint, brilliant book from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And so that's where I would put the idea of unity, dear listener, this idea of economic unity.

amongst black people. I think that is so critical and crucial that it helps us preserve an infrastructure for our businesses, for economic autonomy, for economic strength and economic value. It shows that we value ourselves. We value our dollar. We value whatever money it is, whether it's a dollar, whatever the currency is, we value our currency. We value ourselves. We, um,

Do that and we actually put ourselves in a position to strengthen ourselves economically and make ourselves a much more economically strong and viable group of people with the businesses that we actually patronize. If we buy from black businesses, then of course what happens is the business quality and the economic largesse gets stronger.

And then we can begin to build on a platform and do more things. And with businesses economically, you know, a lot of black businesses are usually single owner, sole ownership, sole proprietories. So meaning that they're really owned by one person or really staffed by one person, or I should say more clearly, only one person is doing all the business. You know, there aren't any employees usually. There aren't any other people on the venture. It's usually just the one person.

And that's the vast majority of black owned businesses. It is important that we support each other and continue to contribute to black owned businesses. Here's where you can start, dear listener. There is an app called Black Wall Street, Black Wall Street. And if you go to that app, you will be able to take those steps to patronize black businesses and grow.

It's something that I strongly urge you to do. The app is called Black Wall Street, and that is one that I certainly recommend for you. I highly recommend it, and I definitely hope that you take a look at that app. Why? Well, because you will see that there are many, many businesses that you can absolutely consult that

are black owned and black operated and they are businesses that will absolutely cater to all kinds of things that you may well need and want. So Black Wall Street is the app and it is dedicated to black businesses and it's just phenomenal. I mean, I think that this is an app that just does a whole lot of great things. You know, it's...

An app that I think you will find to be very helpful and very much... Actually, you know, I'm looking at it now. Or I'm scrolling through it. I thought I had it here. But that may not be the app. So I am sorry to actually take you down a rabbit hole. Because apparently that app is... I don't see that app anymore. So pardon me. It is definitely an app that was available before.

But for some reason, I'm having trouble locating it. So that is not good. So what I'm going to do here is take a look and see where I am going wrong. I'm going to take a quick break here and get back to you with the details on the app that I was talking about but cannot find. How embarrassing is that? I'll be right back. Welcome back. So I have...

Got back on the right track here. You can go to O-B-W-S. That's O-B as in Bravo, W-S dot com and locate...

All of the black businesses, you can go search for them there on that website. That's number one. Number two, there is an app called BLAP, B-L-A-P-P as in Paul. And what that will show you is a number of areas where you can search on that app for black owned businesses. So that is the app. It's called BLAP, B-L-A-P-P as in Paul.

And that is an app of black owned businesses. You can search that app for whatever kind of thing you want and you're looking for. So I would strongly recommend that you download that app.

OBWS, you can go to obws.com as well. If you don't have apps or don't want to be downloading apps, you can go to OB as in Bravo, WS, that's official Black Wall Street for short, but obws.com, obws as in sam.com. And you can look at and search all the businesses, Black-owned businesses there. Those are the two places. And there are lots of others actually, but those are the two places

that I have looked at, certainly looked at the OBWS. They used to have an app, OBWS. I don't know that they do anymore. And if they have, maybe they've changed it to Blap. But

The bottom line is that obws.com is still operational as a website and then there is an app called BLAP, B-L-A-P-P as in Paul. It's about black-owned businesses and you can search those there. That is what Unity is about. That is what Umoja is about. Togetherness and cohesion in communities, whether it's through economics or any other thing. I just happen to pick economics.

We also have to do this with voting, but we are together as black people when it comes to voting. Why? Because black folk vote overwhelmingly the same way, overwhelmingly the same way. We did that in the election last month where we voted for Vice President Kamala Harris. We tend to vote Democratic. Black women are the ones overwhelmingly who vote the right way, in my view.

90 some more, 92% plus voted for Vice President Harris in this past election and 80 or close to 80, 79% or 80% of black men voted

for Vice President Haas as well. So there's unity there, you know, but there's unity that we have in other areas as well. But we need to continue to seek unity and togetherness and any kinds of artificial divisions or real divisions within the black community need to be bridged and, and they need to be those holes and those bridges need to be built. And,

or at least we need to get closer together to each other as people in our mindset around things. Yes, we are not a monolith. And certainly, I think that's obviously very true. But the bottom line is that unity is very, very important. And so that concludes my thoughts about Umoja, the first day of the

Unguzo Saba, the principles of Kwanzaa, the seven principles of Kwanzaa beginning with Umoja, unity. I'll be right back.

So as it turned out, there was very little rain on Christmas Day, at least here in the city of San Francisco. I hope that the weather was good for you on Christmas Day or Hanukkah or whatever you choose to celebrate, observe or not celebrate or observe. The weather is supposed to be fairly good around here again today for the most part. There will be some rain, I think. We'll see.

Wherever you are across the world, I do hope that you are safe and sound and that you're doing well and that you have a terrific Thursday. Whenever you happen to be listening to this particular episode of the Politocrat Daily Podcast, by the way, for those of you who may have listened, if you did listen to yesterday's, I hope you found that to be a refreshing departure from the usual. I know, very, very different episode of the podcast. So if you haven't listened to it, please do.

Christmas Days episode 2024 for the Politocrat Daily Podcast is one that definitely is very, very different from anything that I've done on this podcast so far. You can find me on social media, although I am beginning, you know, for the last few weeks and months, I have reduced my time on social media and it definitely works. And it's good for your mental health as well.

So use social media sparingly, unless, of course, you do it for your line of work and then you have no choice. But definitely use social media less. You know, I think that it's a beneficial thing. But again, it's all within your discretion. The new year is coming. What are your plans? I'll talk about that actually coming up tomorrow rather than today. But you can find me on social media nonetheless.

On bluesky at popcorn, R-E-E-L dot bsky dot social. On threads, threads.net forward slash popcorn, R-E-E-L. On fanbase.app forward slash popcorn, R-E-E-L. Join fanbase today, the social media revolution. Isaac Hayes III invites you to invest with fanbase. Please do so, startengine.com forward slash fanbase.

But Fanbase is going to really, really hit its stride in big ways in 2025. There will be Spark Twitter functionality coming to Fanbase in the first quarter or thereabouts of 2025. Get on board Fanbase today.

You can also find me on Sez, S-E-Z dot U-S forward slash popcorn R-E-E-L. That's S-E-Z dot U-S forward slash popcorn R-E-E-L. And on Spoutable, spoutable.com forward slash popcorn R-E-E-L. This podcast is available on numerous podcasting platforms, including Spotify and Apple, among many others. Thank you very much for listening to this edition of The Politocrat. I'm Omar Moore.