Habari gani, everyone?
I’ve observed Kwanzaa for the past several years and found it to be a truly enriching exercise. Over time I’ve become more and more focused on the importance of community, and the Seven Principles (or Nguzo Saba) are useful lenses to gain a new perspective with. I don’t have a kinara (those stands that hold the seven candles) or construct a display on an altar or anything, but as the year ends I have come to use this as a reflection exercise on what’s come before and, you know, get my mind right for the year to come.
For the uninitiated, Kwanzaa is a secondary holiday created nearly 60 years ago by Maulana Karenga as an opportunity for Black Americans to celebrate our shared history, struggle, and deepen the ties to our community. For seven days starting on December 26th, we celebrate one of the Seven Principles and reflect on what it means to us, how we can better embody those principles for our communities. To be honest, it’s not widely celebrated and is mostly known as a joke in pop culture circles, and that’s fine. So much of its presentation is built around truly wild Hotep-style claims, so it’s widely assumed anyone who observes it is completely ankh-pilled.
These days, though, it’s important to think deeply about the communities we’re in and the kinds of values our communities hold dear. In the United States especially, the very notion of communion is under attack. I’ve found that even the folks who are invested in community tend to focus more on keeping undesirables out than shaping their space for the people they’re forming bonds with.
It almost feels like unity is a poisoned concept, these days. But I think it’s the First Principle for a reason! Without cultivating a sense of fellowship in our communities, we often see the barriers to entry in our communities get higher and higher — and then, once it’s sufficiently unwelcoming, attention gets turned to who never should have been a part of the squad in the first place. What we end up with are groups where the main activity becomes gatekeeping, accusations, and constant infighting over which version of the in-group purity test is the official one. And who wants to be in a community like that?
I understand why we’ve become so hostile to folks in our “out” groups, and I understand why most of us are wary about calls to be unified. For too long, calls for unity have been used to justify ignoring real problems suffered by large segments of the community at best — and as an excuse to accept abusive, anti-communal behavior at worst. These days, the only people calling for unity are the ones who need it to hold onto power. Why should we be forced to accept anyone into our spaces when they run afoul of our values?
It’s a good question, and not necessarily one I have a good answer for. But I think, in this day and age, becoming united is absolutely necessary if we’re going to survive these times and their aftermath. We can’t rely on institutions or systems to reverse our course; I truly believe it will only happen through people coming together with a shared purpose and vision. I don’t advocate for people ignoring their personal boundaries to allow bad actors into our groups, but I also think we need to keep a sense of perspective about what sort of disagreements can be worked through in good faith and what sort we can’t accept. Yes, we all know about Kanye West at this point, but is it worth calling someone out on social media if they post lyrics to The College Dropout every once in a while?
Everyone has distinct lines they draw for what they can and won’t tolerate, and as we grow in understanding and experience it’s natural for those lines to shift over time. It’s natural — and important — for us to be true to our morality, and honor the places it leads us to.
But if we get into the mindset of looking for reasons to exclude the people in front of us, that’s all we’ll ever see. Online discourse has eroded the ability of POC communities to give folks the benefit of the doubt, and I’ll personally admit to instinctively freezing if a friend of mine comes up “just asking questions”. I’m exhausted trying to distinguish between a genuine, good-faith request to clear up misunderstanding and a stealthy attempt to receive justification for problematic thinking. It’s made me wary and aloof, and far more likely to see people as unsafe, a fascist in ally’s clothing.
That headspace is no good for building and maintaining communities, though. There will always be reasons someone is “not good enough” to hang with; I’m sure I’ve got a ton of undesirable traits that would make it difficult for me to acclimate to some groups. What I’m trying to do instead is remember our shared humanity and all the messiness that entails. It’s easy to get trapped in a bad paradigm; it doesn’t mean that we’ll always be the same shitty people that paradigm produces, and if we manage to see our way clear of it then it would be nice to have some way back into the communities we’ve damaged.
As part of my work with Unity in 2026, I’ll have to think about what it would take for someone I’ve cut ties with to be welcomed back into my life. What markers of repentance would be acceptable to me, or demonstrate a real desire to repair what had been severed? In our communities, how do we provide a way back for people who have transgressed our values? How do we hold space for forgiveness when it’s earned?
There’s always going to be a tension in communities about how loose the ‘borders’ should be, and I think the answer will depend on each group. But we must pay attention to what keeps our community together, and think about ways to foster those things. Otherwise, we end up with fractured, squabbling groups that are unproductive AND unpleasant.
From the Desk of Jakebe T. Rabbit 
The whole use of labels and tarring people irrevocably with them is a big part of the problem. “Bad actors,” “unsafe,” “fascists,” and myriad others lead people into the easy trap of trying to find a reason not to engage with people by dehumanizing them with these dismissive terms.
I find the word “problematic” problematic because it supposes we can somehow just determine that infallibly. One core principle of Enlightenment thinking is that we can never be 100% sure of anything, and as a result, we always have to be vigilant against our own biases and constantly re-evaluate our own assumptions and positions. The modern equivalent of this seems to be asking yourself, “Am I the asshole?”
The trouble is you have to be ready and willing to accept the answer to that question might be “yes.” Few people really seem able to. Not just unwilling, but psychologically unable to endure admitting error.
Political ideologies have become the new religions. These impossible purity tests have become the new Inquisitions. Social media has become the new holy wars, and cancellation is the new excommunication. We even have schisms, as if the historical parallels weren’t complete enough. And the blinder and more absolute and more unquestioned your faith, the better. We are not just sliding but sprinting back into Middle Ages thinking. It’s repugnant.
Until people in general can start accepting the possibility of being wrong, of engaging in sometimes spirited but always honest debate, and embrace the admittedly imperfect principles by which we achieve understanding and have achieved it as a society for centuries, rather than embracing this monkey-brain lust just to feel righteous and get off on an emotional high, I don’t know how we advance as a society, much less come together.