By Brian Carnell

Sunday, January 2, 2000

Monday, January 3, 2000

Happy Kwanzaa by Paul Mulshine

        Paul Mulshine rips on what he calls "the memory hole" surrounding Kwanzaa. Most Kwanzaa information I've seen repeats the story of its creation by Ron Karenga, the founder of the black nationalist group United Slaves.

       What is typically left out is that US made the Black Panthers look like choir boys, and in fact US waged something of a mini-war on the BPP. As Mulshine recounts, US activists murdered two BPP members in 1969 at UCLA after the Panthers dared to criticize Karenga's choice of who should head the newly created Afro-American Studies Center at UCLA.

       In 1971, Karenga was convicted on three charges related to the torturing of two female members of US and sentenced to serve 1 to 10 years in prison. Ironically after serving his time Karenga apparently had little problem securing another university position, showing up as director of the Black Studies Department at California State University in Long Beach.

        This, rather than the nitpicking comments Mulshine points out about Kwanzaa (similar problems could be cited with Christmas), is the real outrage. Apparently having the right sort of trendy mishmash of Marxist/Black nationalist ideas is a free pass even for convicted torturers into academia.

       (If Mumia Abu Jamal is ever released from prison he will certainly have any number of academic positions to choose from should he care to pursue such a career.

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