Observations on Kwanzaa

I have never experienced the mixture of uncomfortableness and absolute pleasure I had this past Sunday, when I crashed a Kwanzaa celebration in the basement of the Maysles theater in Harlem. To be the unexpected white observer of an exclusively black ceremony provided me with enough insights to fill an undergraduate anthropology paper, but I'll go for the basics here.
I had come up to Harlem with my roommate Joe to see Pressure, the first film to detail the lives of Caribbean immigrants in England. It was playing at a wonderful theater located in an old brownstone, with a small screening room and fold-up chairs emphasizing its ad-hoc, "grassroots" nature. This provided a wonderful contrast with the kind of glossy, overpriced, big-budget theaters most Americans are used to seeing movies in.
The movie itself was mostly good - better on its "slice of life" insights into the experiences of blacks in England than when it attempted to lecture us. Afterward we went downstairs to the basement of the theater, where we heard there was to be a Kwanzaa party.
Crowded with people, the dim lights revealing stacks of books, artwork, and dvd cases, we strolled through people dancing to reggae to set up a position near a bar. Everywhere were women and children, all black and all having a good time. Even though we stood out, I certainly did not feel that we weren't welcome. Me and Joe commenced to discuss the movie we had just seen. Just then a middle-aged lady came up to us and thanked us for coming - the party, she explained, was partly for Kwanzaa and partly a benefit for her son, who had been beaten by the police four months ago. As usual, social and cultural issues are never far apart. We were considering leaving at this point (we didnt' want to get home too late) but she urged us to stay for the Kwanzaa celebration proper. Of course, we opted to remain where we were to see what happened.
I was already somewhat giddy, a privileged "outside" observer to a ritual most white folk have only read about (if that). Then the music stopped, and the ceremony began. An old man intoned words in Swahili (I assume) while invoking the names of Karenga, Marcus Garvey, and other legends of African-American activism. Following this a lady, reading from a printed-out sheet, discussed the history and meaning of kwanzaa. Invented in 1966 by a university professor, Kwanzaa derived its name from a Kenyan harvest celebration, and is meant to serve as a unifying ritual common to all-African Americans, facilitating black culture, community, and activism. Religion plays a very small part here (reflective, I feel, in the secular-oriented context of its birth).
As I read this I felt myself tensing up, looking straight at her as she looked (it seems) straight at me. I wanted her to understand that I agreed with the premise of this ritual, that I had the utmost sympathy for her peoples' struggle - but there was no way for her to know this. I nodded my head furiously as she explained Kwanzaa's detailed set of rituals and relics, trying to signify that I both understood and approved. Above all, I did not want my presence to affect her descriptions and analysis of the holiday in any way. At the same time, though, I did feel particularly out of place and almost selfish - here I was, a white man, intruding into a professed "black" religion purely for my own curiosity and pleasure. Surrounding me were those for whom racism and discrimination were truly truly defining features of their world-view, and who bestowed upon Kwanzaa an importance I could never truly comprehend.
Nonetheless, as the candles were extinguished (by hand) and the spirits of African-American history were invoked, such as MLK and Touissant L'Overture, I felt more than ever that I had done the right thing by staying. I had become sensitized to a "religion" most of my friends and family had little knowledge of, and I had even more respect for a people who, in the face of such adversity, had carved out a space where they can maintain their own identities and agency. Finally, as the head of the service invoked Barack Obama and the strains of "its a long time coming" came out of the speakers, I sang along and felt, for the first time, a part of the ceremony. In the end, we are all inseparably one - while it is important to take pride in one or another groups' unique identity, what signifies "progress" to my mind is a world where people emphasize what unites them as opposes to what divides them. At its heart, Kwanzaa is about celebrating social justice in the face of adversity - a message everyone can identify with and share.