The Tenth Day of Christmas at SBPDL - Kwanzaa

The 26th of December has a special place in the hearts and minds of disingenuous white liberals everywhere: it is the start of a week-long celebration of innate Blackness and the glory of Black people, Kwanaa!:

Kwanzaa is a weeklong celebration held in the United States honoring universal African heritage and culture, marked by participants lighting a kinara (candle holder).^[1] It is observed from December 26 to January 1 each year, primarily in the United States.

Kwanzaa consists of seven days of celebration, featuring activities such as candle-lighting and libations, and culminating in a feast and gift giving. It was created by Ron Karenga and was first celebrated from December 26, 1966 to January 1, 1967.

Kwanzaa... the event that Black people eagerly await for year-round, where disingenuous white liberals heap praise and joy upon them for the creativity in concocting such an ethnocentric holiday, devoid of white peoples help. Much like when a crusading white pedagogue teaches a Black person the quadratic equation, white people garner a deep sense of pride when Black people celebrate Kwanzaa - all by themselves!

Take this fantastic write-up in the San Francisco Chronicle, a city that has more than 800,000 people and a whopping 6 percent of them are Black, yet the white liberals who populate that metropolis treat the Black people there like Kindergartners who just learned the alphabet.

Here is the official webpge of Kwanaa, and a message from the founder of this monumental festival of Blackness, the incomparable Dr. Maulana Karenga:

As an African American and Pan-African holiday celebrated by millions throughout the world African community, Kwanzaa brings a cultural message which speaks to the best of what it means to be African and human in the fullest sense. Given the profound significance Kwanzaa has for African Americans and indeed, the world African community, it is imperative that an authoritative source and site be made available to give an accurate and expansive account of its origins, concepts, values, symbols and practice.

Moreover, given the continued rapid growth of Kwanzaa and the parallel expanded discussion of it and related issues, an authoritative source which aids in both framing and informing the discussion is likewise of the greatest importance. Therefore, the central interest of this website is to provide information which reveals and reaffirms the integrity, beauty and expansive meaning of the holiday and thus aids in our approaching it with the depth of thought, dignity, and sense of specialness it deserves.

The holiday, then will of necessity, be engaged as an ancient and living cultural tradition which reflects the best of African thought and practice in its reaffirmation of the dignity of the human person in community and culture, the well-being of family and community, the integrity of the environment and our kinship with it, and the rich resource and meaning of a people's culture.

Kwanzaa celebrates the Seven Principles of Blackness, and these include:

• Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
• Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
• Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems, and to solve them together.
• Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
• Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
• Kuumba (Creativity): 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 it.
• Imani (Faith): To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

These are admirable principles and worthy of adulation from all people. Black people should feel pride in these ideals and strive to maintain them. However, a cursory glance at this website would show you that these seven principles of Kwanzaa are forgotten throughout most of the year.

However, an interesting historian - one Ann Coulter - has found some unappealing truths about Kwanzaa that paint a darker picture than the already Black hue of Kwanzaa would care for, as the holiday is nothing but a sham:

President Bush's 2005 Kwanzaa message began with the patently absurd statement: "African-Americans and people around the world reflect on African heritage during Kwanzaa."

I believe more African-Americans spent this season reflecting on the birth of Christ than some phony non-Christian holiday invented a few decades ago by an FBI stooge. Kwanzaa is a holiday for white liberals, not blacks.

It is a fact that Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by a black radical FBI stooge, Ron Karenga, aka Dr. Maulana Karenga. Karenga was a founder of United Slaves, a violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers and a dupe of the FBI.

In what was probably ultimately a foolish gamble, during the madness of the '60s the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the organization, the better. Karenga's United Slaves was perfect. In the annals of the American '60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police...

Kwanzaa itself is a lunatic blend of schmaltzy '60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. Indeed, the seven "principles" of Kwanzaa praise collectivism in every possible arena of life — economics, work, personality, even litter removal. ("Kuumba: Everyone should strive to improve the community and make it more beautiful.") It takes a village to raise a police snitch...

Now the "holiday" concocted by an FBI dupe is honored in a presidential proclamation and public schools across the nation. Bush called Kwanzaa a holiday that promotes "unity" and "faith." Faith in what? Liberals' unbounded capacity to respect any faith but Christianity?

The conservative vixen wrote another column on Kwanzaa here.

The Washington Post saw fit to publish one Michael Eric Dyson, an individual we have yet to chronicle here at SBPDL - but will soon - as he exalted the virtues of Kwanzaa and how it relates to one Mein Obama, Barack Obama:

The political climate affects black rituals too. A lot has been made of the number of posts that black life confronts: post-soul, post-black, post-racial, and post-civil rights. In this era of black posts, pillars fall, whether civil rights leaders whose approach is viewed as passé, or as rituals of black cohesion are viewed by many blacks as quaint and largely irrelevant. A lot of that talk picked up pace with the election of Barack Obama as president, a monumental event that eclipsed black fears in some quarters (racism could no longer keep black folk from the big prizes of American life), exacerbated them in others (because of his success the bulk of blacks who continue to struggle might be forgotten). What's a people - and how is "people" exactly defined in such conditions - to do?

But the holiday's most faithful practitioners proclaim its original intent: bridging black folk across the chasms of land, language, water and religion as they forge solidarity in resisting obstacles and embracing opportunities to their common destiny. As the devotees of Kwanzaa understand, those aspirations have never been of much interest to the mainstream during any period of the nation's history. And the increased fortunes of black folk cause many of them to focus their energy and attention elsewhere. But for its true believers, Kwanzaa is as relevant and necessary now as it's ever been.

Consequently, Kwanzaa is treated - by many Black people - as an absolute joke, unless you are an disingenuous white liberal or an adherent of a religious movement that makes the Hale-Bopp Heaven's Gate cult look sane in comparison.

Black people love a good party - especially a block party - and a week-long celebration in their own honor should be grounds for Bacchanalian revelry. However Kwanzaa isn't celebrated by a majority of Black people:

"The holiday was a way for African Americans to honor their culture, but it was also part of the black power movement of the era. The big boom in Kwanzaa came during its first two decades, according to Keith Mayes, author of "Kwanzaa: Black Power and the Making of the African-American Holiday Tradition."

But he said participation has leveled off. Based on his research, he estimates a half-million to 2 million people in the U.S. celebrate Kwanzaa, out of about 40 million Americans identified by the U.S. Census as black, including those who are multiracial.

Although Kwanzaa started here, it has become a Pan-African holiday. The African American Cultural Center places the number of those who observe Kwanzaa worldwide at 30 million, but even that is a small fraction of the hundreds of millions of people of African descent all over the world."

Some might even argue the kinara is going dim on the glory that was Kwanzaa, and once its magnificent light dims the magic of the holiday will be lost forever.

Let's be honest. Black people already a holiday that unites them forever, for it is the date that officially but to rest Pre-Obama America: January 20, 2008.

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes Kwanzaa, for this pathetic attempt at showing disingenuous white liberals the creative mind of Black people was really a blatant job at coloring outside the lines.

Black people find this celebration disconcerting and feckless, for if they wanted anything to do with Africa in 2009, then they would gladly return to whence they came.

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The Third Day of Christmas at SBPDL: The Holy Triumvirate of Christmas Movies

Christmas is the time of year where family gather together to remember the past, celebrate cherished memories and reminisce upon kin long since gone, but not forgotten.

Black people, though more than 70 percent are born out of wedlock, love Christmas. As we learned in our article on gay marriage, Black people are deeply religious and find the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ one of the most important days in the year.

One of the best ways to foster conversation around the Christmas tree among family is to bring up the last cultural unifier in America: movies. Neither regionalism nor rural area can escape the all-mighty reach of Hollywood and the power of cinema to shape national attitudes and mores is unquestioned.

Christmas makes a perfect backdrop for Hollywood to create magic that the entire family can enjoy, year end and year out. Family films that depict the glories of Christmas in contemporary settings and of Christmas’ long, long ago have the edifying power of binding the generations present in ways that no amount of egg nog can.

Already, we have discussed one film – Holiday Inn – that Black people find despicable, due to one of the most offensive Black-face scenes in Hollywood history. That particular film introduced the world to the glorious song, “White Christmas”, and stars the incomparable Bing Crosby.

However, three Christmas films are constantly found viewed by families around the holiday, as they represent the Holy Triumvirate of Christmas films. And yet, these films – cherished by all who view them – leave Black people in a disquieting sense of alienation from the United States, for they were all made in Pre-Obama America and all have the common denominator of having absolutely no Black people of significance in them.

In fact, when watching these films, one gets the sense that the song White Christmas is redundant and the holiday is not only blanketed in a climate of continuous snow, but a blizzard of whiteness.

Those films that comprise the Holy Triumvirate are “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “A Christmas Story” and “Christmas Vacation”, and all have the similarity of being about white people (and families) celebrating Christmas in unique ways and all in different decades (1940, 1950 and the 1980s respectively) that has the calming effect of reassuring white America that a strong homogeneous nation once existed and its genesis was The Greatest Generation.

Black people view these films with a brooding sense of incredulity, for these films callously disregard Black people and their many contributions to American life.

Take “It’s a Wonderful Life” for example. The lone Black character in the film is a maid/cook of the Bailey’s, the films protagonists and the virtuous saviors of Bedford Falls. How can a family that helps the little people of Bedford Falls have the audacity to have a Black person – a virtual slave – and still be well liked by the town? What’s the film all about?:

It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra and loosely based on the short story "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern.

The film takes place in the fictional town of Bedford Falls shortly after World War II and stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve gains the attention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers) who is sent to help him in his hour of need. Much of the film is told through flashbacks spanning George's entire life and narrated by Franklin and Joseph, unseen Angels who are preparing Clarence for his mission to save George.

Through these flashbacks we see all the people whose lives have been touched by George and the difference he has made to the community in which he lives.”

George Bailey is a fine example of the All-American white guy and to see a movie that is watched yearly by millions of people portray a pale-face in such a glowing manner is too much for Black people to take.

Watching the film is like looking at a portrait or photograph of a long-dead family member you never knew, for the movie shows a United States that no longer exists and yet, “It’s a Wonderful Life” has the eerie ability to pull you into this picturesque town and never let you go. Black people sense this as well, and realize they don’t quite belong in Bedford Falls.

In the second Christmas classic, “A Christmas Story”, the city of Cleveland plays host to the tale of boy in search of the ultimate toy: a Red-Ryder BB Gun and the anticipation of Christmas’ arrival:

“The film is set in the fictional city of Hohman (based on real-life city of Hammond, Indiana). 9-year-old Ralphie Parker wants only one thing for Christmas: "an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock, and this thing which tells time." Between run-ins with his younger brother Randy and having to handle school bully Scut Farkus, and his sidekick Grover Dill, Ralphie does not know how he will ever survive long enough to get the BB gun for Christmas.

The plot revolves around Ralphie's overcoming a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to his owning the precious Red Ryder BB gun: the fear that he will shoot his eye out. In each of the film's three acts, Ralphie makes his case to another individual; each time he is met by the same retort. When Ralphie asks his mother for a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, she says, "No, you'll shoot your eye out." Next, when Ralphie writes a theme about wanting the BB gun for Miss Shields, his teacher at Warren G. Harding Elementary School, Ralphie gets a C+, and Miss Shields writes "P.S. You'll shoot your eye out" on it. Finally, Ralphie asks an obnoxious department store Santa Claus for a Red Ryder BB gun, and Santa responds, "You'll shoot your eye out, kid. Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!", before pushing Ralphie down a long slide with his boot.”

In this film, unlike “It’s a Wonderful Life”, nary a Black person has a speaking part. There is a Black child in Ralphie’s class, but he fails to garner a speaking credit and instead looks on in horror at Flick’s taking up the dreaded Triple-Dog dare and getting his tongue stuck to a flag pole.

“A Christmas Story” is more bleached than even “It’s a Wonderful Life” and worse, TBS plays the film for 24-hours straight on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, which has the undeniably crippling effect of harming young Black people’s self-esteem, for they are but an afterthought in a film that showcases the overwhelming whiteness of American history.

“Christmas Vacation” is a film produced by Black people’s least favorite director, John Hughes, and paints a rather boring picture of Mein Obama’s adopted hometown of Chicago for its unbearable and overpowering whiteness. Thankfully, a Black person is given a semi-power of authority, this time in the guise of a police chief at the end of film. Otherwise though, Black people are conspicuously absent from this hilarious Yule-tide comedy, that stars Chevy Chase in all his campy glory:

“The movie begins with Clark taking his family on the search for a perfect Christmas tree. After aggravating nearby motorists, getting stuck under a big rig, and walking in the woods for a long time, Clark finally finds said tree. (He digs the tree out himself because he forgot the saw.) Clark breaks several windows and gets covered in tree sap setting it up, as it barely fits in the yard, let alone the living room.

While shopping for gifts at a downtown Chicago department store, Clark meets a saleswoman named Mary (Nicolette Scorsese). He makes a series of Freudian slips to her on their first encounter, and later fantasizes about her skinny-dipping in his future pool (interrupted by his cousin in law's daughter).

Clark has been working on a project at his firm which he expects will bring in a good Christmas bonus. Clark plans to use the bonus to put in a swimming pool, which he has already laid down a $7,500 deposit on.

As Christmas approaches, the many members of Clark's extended family begin arriving to stay with him. Clark's and Ellen's parents are the first to arrive. This drives him to go set up the lighting on the house with his son Rusty. He covers nearly every inch of the home's exterior and yard with lights (according to Clark himself, a grand total of 25,000 Christmas lights). Clark becomes very frustrated after many attempts to get the lights working. Unknown to him, the electricity wasn't on to begin with. When Ellen heads to the back store room to get something, she clicks a light switch, lighting the house (and causing the power plant to switch to nuclear generators for backup power), and blinding their unfriendly yuppie neighbors. After the lights are up and running, Ellen's cousin-in-law and cousin, Eddie and Catherine, along with their children show up to stay with him for a month, with their dilapidated, rusty RV parked in the driveway the whole time.”

All three films are constantly shown on television around Christmas and all three films reinforce an ugly historical fact to Black people in the United States: like in the film “It’s a Wonderful Life”, Black people get to see a world in which they have no real power in the country and in some cases, how the country operated if they weren't even apart of it or born.

When young Black people watch these films, they are forced to ponder this unfortunate reality, for the Holy Triumvirate of Christmas movies chronicle celluloid worlds where Black people don’t exist in any significant roles.

Black people aren't even mentioned at all in these films, as the white people in all three movies seem blissfully ignorant of their even existence.

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes the Holy Triumvirate of Christmas movies, for all three films are awash in whiteness and lack any color or divine Black presence. These films are part of the imperialistic and racist white America of old, and every Christmas, Black people are forced to remember that nation and white people are once again reminded of the nation that is lost to them forever, yet immortalized in three grand old films.

The films take place a total of 90 years apart and showcase white people in the 20th century and yet, like an old family portrait of family members never met, these films have the unnerving power of acting as a fine eulogy for white America.

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#553. Vigilante Movies

We live in a world where the printed word is fading in popularity. Visual stimulation through the medium of movies and video games has supplanted reading and led to a significant decline in readership throughout the country.

The National Endowment for the Arts has an incredibly somber analysis of the situation available to read here.

Video games generate more than $17 billion a year in sales (68 percent of American households play video games each year), and movies and DVD sales bring in more than $45 billion each year, and yet, remember:

"According to a fascinating, if frightening, report last year by the National Endowment for the Arts, more than 40 percent of Americans under 44 did not read a single book — fiction or nonfiction — over the course of a year."

These movies and video games represent fiction and mere entertainment, an escape from reality. By spending countless hours watching movies and delving into the fictitious world of video games, people create a sense of cognitive dissonance that enables from living in world dominated by unpleasant hate facts about the real world.

Take the popular television show Law and Order and the false world it delivers each week:

"For years, Law & Order, which is filmed in Manhattan, advertised its episodes as being "ripped from the headlines," a claim Wolf and star Jerry Ohrbach still make in interviews. But instead of depicting reality, Wolf's scriptwriters take high-profile crimes committed by blacks, and replace the bad guys with whites, and invent white racist monsters that bear no relation to anything seen in New York during the past 100 years.

And so, while according to NYPD crime reports, over 89 percent of suspects in violent crimes are black or Hispanic, L&O presents a looking-glass world in the grips of a white crime wave."

One popular form of story-telling that has been with us throughout human history is the revenge-tale (from Homer, Ovid, Shakespeare, Dumas, etc.). A character wronged by a villain and then left for dead - who endures what Joseph Campbell called "a heroes journey" - ends up vanquishing his foe at the end of tale, exacting revenge.

These are the stories that stay with us, for they resonate deeply in our minds and hearts, painting an image of evil being defeated so that good cannot only survive, but endure.

Yet, shows like Law and Order, and American cinema depict something strange in movies, as all plots and stories center around a glaring falsehood: Pre-Obama America never ceased to exist and all criminality is performed by evil white people, at the expense of Black people.

In the real world, watching the nightly news brings the grim nature of Black people and their strong propensity to commit criminal acts to the surface, for in the world of entertainment the truth of Black people and crime is but a pernicious myth laying at the bottom of a murky ocean where only hate-fact wielding Nazi's dare swim.

However, despite the myths that permeate the entertainment industry, most people are cognizant of the reality of Black-on-white crime and the need for Whitopia's.

No movie has yet to be filmed that showcase the heinous murders that have taken place in every city where whites and Black people co-exist, that paint the unhappy - yet true - picture of Black-on-white crime.

Yet, hardly a month goes by when a movie isn't introduced that depicts evil white men attempting to subjugate Black people and permanently make them a second-class.

How many times has a movie been made that accurately shows Black people committing a crime against white people, and then shows said white person demanding justice (that is what happens in A Time to Kill, but it is reversed)?

Think about revenge movies for a moment - since so few people read anymore - and consider what every classic vigilante movie offers: husband and wife have a charmed life with perfect kids; some form of evil (always a white person) disrupts this equilibrium and inflicts great harm (possibly death) on a family member; distraught husband decides to take matters into his own hands when the justice system fails him.

This could be the plot of so many films, from Death Wish, Death Sentence, The Exterminator, The Punisher, Batman, The Boondock Saints, etc.

In Death Wish, Charles Bronson stars as a liberal whose paradigm is destroyed when white muggers rape his wife and daughter, killing the former and sending the latter into a state of psychological paralysis. He doesn't don a mask and scurry over rooftops in Gotham City, but he does confront muggers and potential murderers by engaging in vigilantism, turning New York City into a safer place in the process.

Bronson's character has a conversation with his son-in-law that is riveting:

Paul Kersey: Nothing to do but cut and run, huh? What else? What about the old American social custom of self-defense? If the police don't defend us, maybe we ought to do it ourselves.

Jack Toby: We're not pioneers anymore, Dad.

Paul Kersey: What are we, Jack?

Jack Toby: What do you mean?

Paul Kersey: I mean, if we're not pioneers, what have we become? What do you call people who, when they're faced with a condition or fear, do nothing about it, they just run and hide?

Jack Toby: Civilized?

Paul Kersey: No.

The vast majority of people killed by Bronson's character in the Death Wish series happen to be white people, thus conflicting with the reality of crime in major cities.

A 2007 Kevin Bacon film, Death Sentence, shows a perfect suburban family ruined by a multi-cultural gang (a Hollywood creation, for all gangs are racially united). Bacon's character realizes the law is inadequate and fights back against those who took away his idyllic life.

Remember, impressionable minds watch movies and our manipulated by what they see on film, and to show the truth of crime in America would create a serious amount of cognitive dissonance that would have far reaching effects on the amount of sports consumed in this country and could flicker some sort of brain activity among the individual indulging in countless hours of SportsCenter on ESPN.

Perhaps Hollywood's most interesting character that has been so poorly executed in three different films is the Marvel comic character, The Punisher:

"The Punisher is a vigilante who considers killing, kidnapping, extortion, coercion, threats of violence and torture to be acceptable crime-fighting tactics. Driven by the deaths of his family, who were killed by the mob when they witnessed a gangland execution in New York City's Central Park, the Punisher wages a one-man war on the mob and all criminals in general by using all manner of weaponry.

His family's killers were the first to be slain. A war veteran, Castle is a master of martial arts, stealth tactics, guerrilla warfare and a wide variety of weapons."

Strangely, Castle's enemies always seem to be Italians or other various white people, mobsters, etc. Never Black people, for you see, in movies, we still live in Pre-Obama America where 90 percent of the population is white.

Consider The Boondock Saints, and the infamous joke that film contains. The righteous brothers in that film decide to be God's agents of eradicating sinners on earth, and engage in a brutal war against - like the Punisher - white people.

Even though these movies, from Death Wish to The Punisher depict a white dude blowing away other white dudes, Black people get uneasy, for many Black people know the truth of crime in America.

These films offer mere escapism for all involved who view them, but Black people are well aware of the undertones of such films as Dirty Harry and Death Wish:

"Most irresponsible was the 1974 release of Death Wish which went on to repeat itself in 1982, 1985, 1987 and 1994. Death Wish featured the diminutive and fading actor Charles Bronson, impressive in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), but now reduced to the depraved Paul Kersey, a white everyman driven to take revenge against street scum when his family is wiped-out.

Playing to such paranoia, which continues to be manipulated by the National Rifle Association, made a raving gun-nut out of the actor Charleston Heston. Over-rated as an actor, Heston never hesitated to mention the Los Angeles Watts Riots of 1965 as chief among his reasons for owning a gun."

Roger Ebert decided to bestow upon Dirty Harry the title of fascist:

"But wait a minute. The movie clearly and unmistakably gives us a character who understands the Bill of Rights, understands his legal responsibility as a police officer, and nevertheless takes retribution into his own hands. Sure, Scorpio is portrayed as the most vicious, perverted, warped monster we can imagine -- but that's part of the same stacked deck. The movie's moral position is fascist. No doubt about it."

Dirty Harry was but a movie, and crime has gotten much worse since 1970, no thanks to the film and fine police work of Officer Callahan in stopping all those real murderers.

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes vigilante movies, for even though Black are never the antagonists in these films, the unpleasant reality of nightly newscasts leaves most Black squeamish. Vigilante movies show normal reactions to melancholy experiences and the natural desire for self-preservation and revenge unfolding in celluloid beauty.

The real-life passivity of white people when confronted with criminality and the Black world that they live in now, is incredibly unnatural. Science can't explain it.

The United States will continue to descend into chaos, caused by massive inner-city crime and black-on-white as well as horrible black-on-black violence.

It is in the movies we will escape to find fictional solutions, and relax in the cheerful words of Travis Bickle:

"Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets."

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#717. Halloween Movies for Kids

In but a few days time, millions of youth will take to the streets to trick or treat for candy from neighbors; fraternities will once again be host to parties that leave little to the imagination; and adults will dress up in fantasy gear to engage in vain attempts to replicate their youth by searching for a new type of candy.

There are people who don’t celebrate Halloween out of religious convictions, largely because Halloween's origins are derived from pagans (more on this in a later post):

"The word Halloween is derived from the term "All Hallows Eve" which occurred on Oct. 31, the end of summer in Northwestern Europe. "All Saints Day," or "All Hallows Day" was the next Day, Nov. 1^st. Therefore, Halloween is the eve of All Saints Day. Apparently, the origins of Halloween can be traced back to ancient Ireland and Scotland around the time of Christ. On Oct. 31^st, the Celts celebrated the end of summer."

As we will soon learn, Halloween is one of the ultimate manifestations of white people and their history, but today is not the date necessary to discuss this, for another topic exists that showcases exactly why Black people find the entire notion of Halloween fatuous and beneath the need to include it in the 365Black celebration.

We have discussed how Black people love movies in numerous posts, for movies offer one of the purist forms of escapism from the doldrums of life that one can encounter. Yet, many movies are highly offensive to Black people (Good Hair being one), and one genre of holiday film leaves Black people fuming: Halloween movies.

Pre-Obama America has never been more glamorized than when Oct. 31 is celebrated in celluloid, for the major films about Halloween produced by Hollywood exist in an entirely alternate universe where Black people scarcely exist, save for a token Black in a minor, minor and completely uncredited role.

Why is this? Well, SBPDL will elaborate on this in a later post, but the reason is simple: the United States once resembled a Whitopia from sea to shining sea, and now, these same people are being forced into hiding on 21st century reservations that have golf courses, almost no crime and plenty of gracious home owners dispensing candy to children who live in these bubbles, or Whitopia's.

However, Halloween films offer a unique view of America that not even Norman Rockwell could immortalize in one of his paintings, for few children who have experienced the glory that is Halloween have been able to articulate the feeling of anticipation and dread that exists for this holiday.

For, Halloween is about friendship, community and family, but beneath the flashy candy exterior lays the reality of Halloween in its Pagan roots: the celebration of those dead. You see, Halloween is essentially a date where the young of the Western World learn about mortality, for one day they too will perish.

We have learned that Black people have little reverence for the dead, and for this reason Halloween must be day that befuddles them greatly (some would argue that Black people have little respect for the living as well).

It is in Halloween movies that the former land of Pre-Obama America is canonized, and it is in these films that white people can view all that is lost and that Black people can see how real communities are organized.

Take for instance The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a story by Washington Irving that tells the tale of a post-American Revolutionary War town, where white people are building a community and a nation:

"The story is set circa 1790 in the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town, New York, in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow. It tells the story of Ichabod Crane, a lean, lanky, and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut, who competes with Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt, the town rowdy, for the hand of 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and sole child of a wealthy farmer, Baltus Van Tassel.

As Crane leaves a party he attended at the Van Tassel home on an autumn night, he is pursued by the Headless Horseman, who is supposedly the ghost of a Hessian trooper who had his head shot off by a stray cannonball during "some nameless battle" of the American Revolutionary War, and who "rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head"."

It is in a story like this, and the cartoon movie version that children can see for themselves just who the founders of the United States were and where Black people can view Pre-Obama America in her infancy.

A land of hope and change it was, where the English had been defeated, and communities were being built with a watchful eye to a collective future of prosperity.

It was Charles Schulz who wrote the timeless comic strip, The Peanuts, and who gave the world that perpetual loser with the awe-shucks attitude, Charlie Brown. But his Halloween special, "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown":

"With autumn already in full swing, the Peanuts gang prepare for Halloween festivities. Meanwhile, Linus writes a letter to The Great Pumpkin; to Charlie Brown's disbelief, Snoopy's laughter, Patty's assurance that the Great Pumpkin is a fake, and even to Lucy's violent threat to make Linus stop. Linus laments in the letter that "more people believe in Santa Claus than in you [The Great Pumpkin]". Linus decides to spend his Halloween in the pumpkin patch, waiting for the Great Pumpkin to arrive...

When 4:00 AM rolls around on November 1, Lucy gets out of her bed to check on Linus. Seeing that Linus' bed is empty, she goes out to the pumpkin patch only to find Linus lying on the ground, shivering and covered in his blanket. Showing how much she cares for Linus (despite thinking that the Great Pumpkin is nonsense), Lucy walks him home to his room and takes his shoes off, and Linus passes out in his own bed as Lucy puts the covers on him before storming out of his room.

Later on that day, Charlie Brown and Linus are at the rock wall, talking about last night's events. When Charlie Brown tries to console Linus saying, "I've done a lot of stupid things in my life, too.", Linus blows a fuse and angrily vows to Charlie Brown that the Great Pumpkin will come next year, and his ranting continues as the credits roll."

It is myths that people build identification with their past, solidify cohesion in their present and thus, have a foundation for a future. Sleepy Hollow and the The Great Pumpkin, both represent Halloween in vastly different ways, but have a sound correlation: children need enduring myths that bind them together, and from fertile minds have sprung wonderful stories that promote Halloween to white people, yet strangely leave out Black people.

Recent stories only punctuate the importance of Halloween to the cannon of Western Man, and the nearly complete Black-out of Black people from these celebrations of the macabre. Ray Bradbury gives us a haunting tale of The Halloween Tree, a story that teaches children respect for the dead, and that Halloween is far more than just a date to collect free candy:

"A group of eight boys set out to go trick-or-treating on Halloween, only to discover that a ninth friend, Pipkin, has been whisked away on a journey that could determine whether he lives or dies. Through the help of a mysterious character named Moundshroud, they pursue their friend across time and space through ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman cultures, Celtic Druidism, Notre Dame Cathedral in Medieval Paris, and The Day of the Dead in Mexico.

Along the way, they learn the origins of the holiday that they celebrate, and the role that the fear of death has played in shaping civilization. The Halloween Tree itself, with its many branches laden with jack-o'-lanterns, serves as a metaphor for the historical confluence of these traditions."

The movie version of this tale is a story that oddly glorifies a Whitopia, and follows the five friends, one of whom is on his deathbed:

"This kids travel to Halloweens past learning why they are dressed as they are- first to Egypt, to learn of the day of the dead, and the significance of mummification. Next they witness old rituals carried out by Celtic Druids, learning the origin and myths of witches. They travel next to an unfinished Notre Dame (which they finish in a matter of minutes with Moundshroud's magic), to learn of the Cathedral's use of gargoyles and demons to ward off evil spirits. The at last arrive in Mexico, where the significance of skeletons is revealed, and where Halloween is celebrated as a means of overcoming one's fear of death. It is in an old tomb in Mexico that they catch up to Pip finally, too late to save him.

Moundshroud tell the children they didn't make it in time and Pip is now his property, symbolized by his pumpkin. The children, eager to have their friend back, bargain a year from each of their lives, in exchange for Pip's- Moundshroud accept the deal, and they are teleported home. The children rush to Pip's house once more, to see if the entire ordeal was in fact real, and are delighted to see their friend back from the hospital. He recounts the journey as a dream he experienced during surgery."

Friendship, loyalty and respect for the dead are glamorized in this story and the movie offers a touching denouement that is a metaphor for all the people who have sacrificed before us, to ensure that we would have the right to live. The need to always remember those who came before us on October 31 has never been more beautifully displayed than in this film.

And yet, Black people are not to be seen.

Disney put out a film in 1993 that has become a hit - Hocus Pocus - for this film acts a simple lesson in the Salem Witch Trials and connects it to contemporary Salem, a Whitopia if there ever was one:

"The movie opens in 1693 in Salem, Massachusetts where three witch sisters — Winifred, Sarah, and Mary Sanderson — lure a young girl named Emily to their house in the woods, where they prepare to suck out the girl's lifeforce. Her brother, Thackery Binx, attempts to rescue her, but he is caught by the witches and forced to watch as they drain Emily's lifeforce, killing her in the process. As the witches are about to do the same to Binx, he angrily calls Winifred a hag, declaring that there is not enough children in the world to make her beautiful. This prompts a livid Winifred and her sisters to instead turn him into an immortal black cat capable of speech, punishing him for the insult by forcing him "not to die, but to live forever with his guilt".

Not long after this occurs, the witches are caught by the town elders — including Binx's grieving father — and are sentenced to death for their use of witchcraft. The Sanderson sisters are hanged by the Salem townsfolk, but not before Winifred's spellbook casts a curse which would raise the three of them from the dead if and when a virgin lit the Black-Flamed Candle in the witches' home. Unable to return to his family, Binx dedicated his immortal life to guarding the Sanderson home so this curse could not come to light.

Three hundred years later, in 1993, a teenage boy from Los Angeles named Max moves to Salem with his parents and younger sister Dani. Max falls for a girl named Allison who has good knowledge of the history of the Sanderson sisters. On Halloween, Max, Dani and Allison visit the old house of the witches which has since become a museum, and Max lights the Black-Flamed Candle, which summons powerful magic to raise the three witches from the dead."

Scenes of children trick or treating blissfully through the streets of Salem, families gathering to celebrate Halloween and the deep bond a brother has for his younger sister is shown in this film that once again - oddly - leaves out Black people.


Other films have been made that fit in with this piece, but the ones mentioned have one shocking similarity that is glaringly obvious: they all have a paucity of Black people and omit them completely from Halloween in Pre-Obama America.

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes Halloween movies for kids, for you would have a better chance of seeing The Great Pumpkin then seeing a Black person in any of these films. Halloween has nothing to do with 365Black, for when you get past the candy aspect of the holiday, a much deeper narrative unfolds that has its origins in Europe and grew profoundly in Pre-Obama America.

Black people worry that white people might one day look with great reverence on their ancestors again, and that Halloween (and these movies) will remind them of all that has been lost, and more importantly, all that will be worth fighting to restore.

For it is in Halloween that kids learn that "death be not proud, though some have called thee." Instead, it is a date to celebrate, and in these movies, children have a template to understand that a nationwide Whitopia once existed where a shattered Union now rests wearily.

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#719. McDonald's Celebrating Halloween

There is a time and place that is now but an epoch of history, forever enshrined in the history books as an era of oppression, persecution and cultural hegemony fostered upon venerable Black people who were mere unwitting subjects to this endless parade of supremacy: Pre-Obama America.

Enshrined in the images of the 1950s, this America of yesteryear was 90 percent white (1964) and in dire need of an injection of diversity, so a new people were imported to interact with the Black minority that was trying to assimilate themselves.

It is safe to state that the new term introduced to the vernacular in this country – Whitopia – would have been severely out of place in Pre-Obama America, for the nation as a whole was a Whitopia. Yes, the United States was once a Whitopia from sea to shining sea and this foolishness had to come to an end.

In this world of yore, a date existed on the calendar that all children looked forward too, for October 31 offered the opportunity for kids to collect free candy by going door to door in their neighborhoods.

This adventure into the Whitopia was an exercise in what Robert Putnam would eventually deride as now extinct due to the diversity we now have, which had to replace the evil oppression of the past:

“At the same time, though, Putnam's work adds to a growing body of research indicating that more diverse populations seem to extend themselves less on behalf of collective needs and goals.”

Halloween is a holiday for communities and can only be celebrated in areas of the country that are safe for children to travel in packs. Trust has to exist from household to household, so that doors can be opened and treats dispensed to costume-adorned children, whom could harbor tricks if the offerings aren’t satisfactory.

Once, a company found it imperative to work hand in hand with Whitopia’s across the increasingly Balkanizing United States to ensure that the families who frequented the restaurant would feel an attachment to the community, and continue to indulge in the food served under the Golden Arches.

Yes, we are talking about McDonald’s, a company that has served billions the world over, but got its start in the Whitopia that once was America:

“The present corporation dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois on April 15, 1955, the ninth McDonald's restaurant overall. Kroc later purchased the McDonald brothers' equity in the company and led its worldwide expansion and the company became listed on the public stock markets in 1965. Kroc was also noted for aggressive business practices, compelling the McDonald brothers to leave the fast food industry.

The McDonald brothers and Kroc feuded over control of the business, as documented in both Kroc's autobiography and in the McDonald brothers' autobiography. The site of the McDonald brothers' original restaurant is now a monument.

With the expansion of McDonald's into many international markets, the company has become a symbol of globalization and the spread of the American way of life. Its prominence has also made it a frequent topic of public debates about obesity, corporate ethics and consumer responsibility.”

Yes, McDonald’s does accurately depict the “American way of life” or at least the path it is now traversing, for like Frosts “two roads diverging”, the United States decided to embark on a future removed from a universal “Whitopia” and opted for geographically scattered “Whitopia's” amidst a rising tide of color.

Now, McDonald’s marketing strategy is officially targeted at those who notoriously don’t pass on seconds - Black people - for Sprite and McDonald’s are a staple in Black peoples diet and the corporate giants behind these products believe that a mere 13 percent of population is enough of the market share to warrant 365Black:

“At McDonald's^®, we believe that African-American culture and achievement should be celebrated 365 days a year — not just during Black History Month. That's the idea behind 365Black.com. It's a place where you can learn more about education, employment, career advancement and entrepreneurship opportunities, and meet real people whose lives have been touched by McDonald's."

With McDonald unveiling its 365Black campaign, it is clear that this corporate heavyweight no longer finds the contributions of those who inhabit Whitopia’s important, save for the occasional purchase of a value meal. Interestingly, this campaign might be paying off, for the same people who hate losing in the lottery our finding the calorie jackpot in the form of the $1 menu at McDonald’s:

“McDonald's Corp. on Thursday reported a 6% rise in third-quarter profit as new products and promotions helped fuel growth across all of its global markets.

Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald's /quotes/comstock/13*!mcd/quotes/nls/mcd (MCD 59.24, -0.19, -0.32%) earned $1.26 billion, or $1.15 a share, on the period up from $1.19 billion, or $1.05 a share, in the same quarter a year ago.”

The decision to market McDonald’s to Black people only in the United States has had one tremendously negative effect on a certain holiday: Halloween.

Once, McDonald’s marketing campaigns worked overtime to reflect the majority of the nation it wished to see frequent the many franchises that dotted the landscape, but that was in a time when the Whitopia’s of today was America of yesterday.

Most incredibly, McDonald’s had a long history of dedicating the month of October to Halloween, and catering it’s Happy Meal product to children through the innovative strategy of offering its kids meal in a candy-collecting, Halloween theme pail:

“In October 1986, America was introduced to three Halloween pails: McGoblin, McBoo, and McPunk'n. The buckets were presumably intended to be taken trick-or-treating and used to collect candy, but they are far too small for that. The buckets say they are safe for children ages 1 and over, but they're hardly useful to children over the age of 4. In my experience, the pumpkin pails hold roughly one street's worth of candy, assuming the street has at least 40 houses and none of them belong to dickheads with no Halloween spirit.

"But once you start kindergarten, a bucket's worth of candy just isn't enough. You realize that there's a whole town's worth of free candy out there for the taking and you make your mother take you all over the neighborhood until you have enough chocolate to last you until Easter. Or maybe you don't... but I did."

Not only did McDonald’s offer Halloween pails for young people, it offered a candy-collecting device for parents to use so that they didn’t have to purchase another said device, thanks to the fine folks at McDonald’s who were interested in community-building for other people, instead of the 365Black demographic, which oddly denies even the existence of 64 percent of United States citizens. (Once, McDonald's placated the majority as this website shows, prior to McDonald’s abandoning marketing to the Whitopia)

Interestingly, the Halloween pails that McDonald’s once issued haven’t been offered under the Golden Arches since 2001, and are nowhere to be found in the new marketing strategy that is 365Black, for Halloween can only work in neighborhoods where trust exists, community reigns and kids can have the freedom to roam without fear.

SBPDL is unsure why, given the criteria listed above, that McDonald's ditched the Halloween effort in the age of 365Black...

McDonald’s strategy to go 365Black has once again proven the adage, “Once you go Black, you never go Back,” for Halloween firmly rests in children's minds all year around. The marketing decision to position McDonald’s as an urban eatery, replete with the canonization of Black people year-round, has had the adverse effect of destroying the Halloween-centric Happy Meal.

Though McDonald’s profits might up in the short term, tailoring its marketing campaign to 13 percent of the United States truly has a short-sighted value proposition for potential investors.

Once, McDonald’s marketing gurus found Halloween an important enough Holiday to invest heavily into, but going 365Black has been a business decision that is strangely at odds with this holiday…

Stuff Black People Don’t Like includes McDonald’s celebrating Halloween, for if in the age of 365Black – well, to put it blunt, if Halloween were worth commending, it would be doing so. It is not, and for good reason. McDonald’s past Halloween marketing plans and product roll out (Happy Meal merchandise) were tied directly to an outdated line of thinking: placating Whitopia’s.

All that matters now is celebrating 365Black, and McDonald's is doing just that. Halloween, oddly, doesn’t fit the bill, for that is a Pre-Obama America celebration of a time that no longer exists, and a holiday that has nothing to do with 365Black.

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#541. The University of Mississippi Traditions

(Play this song, while you read this entry)

It wasn't that long ago that Heisman Trophy winning (white guy) running back Paul Hornung had this to say about his alma mater Notre Dame and Black people:

"In 1963, at the height of his career as the Green Bay Packers' Golden Boy, Hornung was suspended by the National Football League for gambling on pro football games.

Forty years later, Hornung has suffered another lapse of judgment that can cost his alma mater, Notre Dame, dearly.

During a radio interview in Detroit on Tuesday night, Hornung, frustrated by a losing season at Notre Dame, said that the university needed to lower its academic standards so more black athletes could play there."

Black people might get upset with this comment, since it relies on the usage of Hate Facts, but it doesn't make what Hornung said any less true:

"Paul Hornung knows that Notre Dame has a lot of black players, but he also knows that his alma mater has limited itself to taking black players whose academic records predict an ability to do Notre Dame work. Notre Dame work is a lot tougher than Miami work. According to the average SAT scores of players -- black and white -- Miami is recruiting players -- black and white -- who are below average students. Notre Dame is recruiting black players who are better than average students. Hornung would like to see Notre Dame be a little less picky because he knows that would result in better players -- black and white -- and more wins."

At the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss here on out), another politically incorrect truth haunts the campus like Scrooge's three ghosts and this phantom isn't likely to leave anytime soon: the school's Southern roots:

"In a day when Southerners denigrate their heritage, try to lose their Southern accent, and act embarrassed at our customs, I was proud to see that some semblance of Southern heritage still remains on the campus of Ole Miss.

No question, the political correctness gestapo has done their damage at the University, but I was still touched to see the Confederate monument at the center of campus. The sports programs still calls themselves the Ole Miss Rebels, as seen in the accompanying photo of Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. And the band still plays the old Southern favorite, Dixie."

Before we move forward, it is important to remember the ultimate tool that was used to integrate Black people into the United States is sports. Were it not for college football, Black people would have few outlets for chances of impressing the public in America, as the only time they would appear on television would be in nightly newscasts.

Ole Miss is a school in Mississippi - a state that still proudly flies the Confederate flag - that is more than 80 percent white. Located in Oxford, a town that is more than 75 percent white, Ole Miss is the epitome of the Southern school. Nowhere on earth does a school exist that exudes the charm, pageantry, glory and tradition as does Ole Miss (well, maybe Morehouse).

Take for instance The Grove, one of the few places on earth that has a direct line to God, where on fall Saturday's the most beautiful girls on the planet (outside of these girls) gather with under-graduates, alumni and family to celebrate the glory of the South, Ole Miss football and, well, life:

"But in Oxford lies, as promised, the most magical place on all of God's green, football-playing Earth: the Grove. A school of red and white and blue tents swimming in a shaded 10-acre forest of oak trees, floating in an ocean of good will and even better manners.

I didn't know the rules at the Grove, rules like: "Don't bother showing up before 4 a.m." Sure, space is at a premium, but for a 6 p.m. game against Memphis? Who would? Apparently everyone, when you consider the masses who actually do arrive promptly at four."

The problem with this paradise isn't the charm, nor the abundance of beautiful people, but the past, which is very much alive at Ole Miss, despite every effort to destroy it by administrators, past football coaches and the politically correct, in an effort to make the campus more palatable to Black people:

"(Former)Head football coach Tommy Tuberville has asked to abandon the Confederate flag for different reasons. He says that the flag-waving makes it difficult for him to recruit African American and white players.

He and others are afraid that the presence of the flag makes for the appearance of a racist environment to outsiders, one that football recruits might prefer to avoid. In the game after his appeal to stop the waving of the flags, confederate flags appeared in the stand with the same frequency as they had the week before."

You see, Ole Miss can't compete in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) without Black people running the football. We at SBPDL aren't sure why white people wouldn't go to Ole Miss because of the flag, for almost 85 percent of the student body is white and they don't seem to mind the flag nor the South.

In a hilarious book, Meat Market, that details the complete collapse of America and why the Chinese and Russians will one day own all of America, a writer followed around a former Ole Miss coach as he tried to recruit Black people to come to Ole Miss on a budget of $800,000 (for recruiting), a school that has the most beautiful white girls on the planet:

"For all the big-time recruits lured to an SEC school like Ole Miss, there are knockout blonds giving them tours of campus in golf carts, coaches trying to decipher their sketchy academic transcripts and a constant battle against negative recruiting."

So, what has Ole Miss done to make the school more attractive to Black people (as opposed to the white girl, Nikole Churchill, who won Ms. Hampton at a Historically Black College and was attacked by Black people for not being Black)?

They have tried to ban waving the Confederate Flag. They have tried to ban the mascot, Colonel Reb:

"But no. The school mascot is a white-bearded old man wearing a wide-brimmed hat and leaning on a cane. His name is Colonel Reb and he looks like nothing less than the very caricature of an old, white plantation owner. He's offensive and the school wants to get rid of him. Saying the figure is outdated and that it wants a more dynamic image, the administration has already banished Colonel Reb from sporting events and is in the process of choosing a replacement."

Now, they are trying to destroy every last vestige of tradition that made Ole Miss the school of Archie and Eli Manning (should have been Peyton Manning's alma mater too), by getting rid of another tradition:

"The University of Mississippi has shortened one of its fight songs to discourage football fans from chanting "the South will rise again" during part of the tune, which critics say is an offensive reminder of the region's intolerant past.

However, some fans have continued to recite the chant at the end of the song, "From Dixie With Love," despite the change made last week at the chancellor's request. The Ole Miss band performs the medley before and after games."

Sophomore Cortez Moss, director of communications for the ASB, said the organization is trying to explain to students why the phrase is offensive.

"You take back on that slave mentality," said Moss, who is black. "I know the South won't rise again and the South can't rise again."

SBPDL doesn't believe the South will rise again, for that is a quixotic venture in fantasy. However, traditions are important, and if Black people find Ole Miss so reprehensible, they should just refuse to go to Ole Miss and deny that school their presence.

Would the football suffer? Look at the Air Force Academy and Brigham Young University on the football field as evidence of how a team full of whites can compete against nearly all-white schools that field nearly all-Black teams (as Ole Miss routinely operates).

The attempted destruction of Ole Miss and her traditions is but a microcosm of the problems that continue to unfold in America and drive home the macro point of view: Black people can get nearly anything they want in America, if they just protest loud enough and long enough.

There is a corollary to this point that must be stated, for it sits in the back of all right thinking Black peoples minds: the South might not rise again, but the day will come, inevitably, when Disingenuous White Liberals and Crusading White Pedagogues no longer have any power in America. What happens then?

Ole Miss is led by these type of people, as is the entire United States for the most part (Mein Obama is 1/2 DWL, thanks to his mom). College football - SBPDL does enjoy the sport - is the only sport that matters in America and having Black people to play at nearly all-white schools, is all that matters, even if they can't read at levels above the second grade. And at Ole Miss, every brick of the past must be removed so that Black people won't be offended and will play football there.

Stuff Black People Don't Like happily introduces The University of Mississippi traditions into the mix, for all white institutions and traditions must be extirpated in the America we currently live in, for listening to Dixie and shouting "The South Will Rise Again" might scare off the pre-requisite Black players necessary to field a competent team in college football. And yet, a quick glance at the 2009 Rebels shows a football squad with an abundance of Black players, despite the purported evil playing of Dixie that drives them away from Oxford.

Hornung said that Notre Dame needs to lower their academic standards - perhaps to Florida State's level? - to have a chance to compete in college football. Ole Miss must remove all images that are heresy to the new regime in charge of America, or feel the wrath of a campus and football team without Black people.

More importantly, white people joining in singing in unison and understanding they have a unique past that binds them together - its called Pre-Obama America - might be all it takes to rekindle pride and finally throw off the shackles of politically correctness for all eternity.

After all, the Estonians proved all a revolution takes is a little signing...

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