Uh-Oh..its Xmas!!!

[BIG REESE LOC1]

Perspectives
Tis the season...
By FinalCall.com News
Updated Dec 23, 2010 - 12:57:34 AM




The television and radio ads have been blaring with gift givers turned into superheroes for offering that perfect present, love birds cooing over the jewelry dangled from an open hand and the excited squeals of children destroying boxes wrapped in shiny paper to get to goodies inside.

The joy of Christmas, the joy of X-mas.

If only truth and reality were aligned with the seductive marketing and consumer driving magic of Madison Avenue ad agencies and corporations gleefully rubbing their hands at expected sales and merchants praying the season to be jolly will mean closing the year with a bang—and making a nice profit.

The official beginning of the shopping season netted retailers nearly $45 billion with Black Friday and weekend after Thanksgiving shopping alone. The money raked in was a little more than what consumers plunked down for purchases last year. But, not to be outdone, on “cyber Monday” millions more shopped and spent online.

Instead of the sound of sleigh bells, it may be more appropriate to have the sound of cash register sales as signs that X-mas is upon us.

The magicians behind the ad curtain and the consumer enticing messages they spread don't show the reality suffered during this time of year where peace on earth and good will toward men is a ready cliché.

This is the season in which crime will increase—an elderly woman will be beaten and her purse snatched, a man will try to rob a liquor store, grocery or gas station, an unsuspecting neighbor or charity will be robbed of Christmas presents—and havoc and indecency will reign at Christmas parties and encounters under the mistletoe.

This is the season where payday lenders and others will offer money for gifts at exorbitant interest rates and even lend money for gifts to people who are jobless.

The homeless and the poor will see a symbolic showing of weekend kindness but their meager existence, hard lives and harsh treatment will return on Monday morning.

This is the season in which love and affection will be lost as disappointment and perceived insult tied to getting or giving the wrong gifts will come to a head.

This is the season in which some poor child will learn there really is no Santa Claus and wrestle with the reality that Mommy and Daddy lied and apparently everyone was in on the game.

Sadly, this the season where a life will be lost to suicide as holiday blues and false depictions of happy, whole families overwhelm some lonely soul. This is the season where someone will drive drunk or ingest a little too much coke or shoot a little too much heroin or smoke a little too much crack or overindulge in their drug of choice and there will be no return from a final high.

This will be a time of year when people suffer and hurt because they follow what they found parents and grandparents and families following—though none knows the root of the traditions and why they are followed.

They won't know the Christmas tree and ornaments and even December 25 are tied to the rites and worship of pagans who were honoring their sun god—not the figure declared to be the son of the One God.

They won't know that gift giving and evergreen trees are tied to the worship of the wicked Babylonian king Nimrod and celebrations of the birth of a murderer and tyrant.

And the figure at the center of X-mas isn't Jesus at all, but a fat, jolly man in a red suit.

“Santa Claus has knocked Jesus out of the top spot and the merchants who don't even believe in Jesus are busy selling you foolishness, making themselves rich and you poor on the basis of a lie and that's why they call it X-mas because you don't know who it is that you are worshipping,” said the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan in a lecture when he imparted knowledge about the true meaning of X-mas. He warned that what has been falsely billed as the birthday of Jesus is really a “commercial feast of foolishness.”

The Minister's teacher, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wrote in “Our Saviour Has Arrived” that “Jesus is garbed up and commercialized on by a world of evil and sin and you like this, my people—you love this now. You defy anyone, even God Himself, to try and remove your love of what is false.”

If you feel compelled to give loved ones gifts this year, give the best gifts ever—try a book or something that will impart knowledge or better yet give of yourself, your time and your spirit. Show and share the love that you feel in sincere expressions, warm hugs, positive conversations while sharing and making the best of memories and leaving lasting pictures in the mind. These pictures and experiences will last far longer and are more valuable than the trinkets tossed and gifts exchanged.

Give a gift to yourself: Pledge to strive to be a better person and to walk better after the example of Jesus and to live the life that he lived. Following the example of a righteous human being is perhaps the best way to celebrate that life and make the world over in his image and after his likeness.

 

[BIG REESE LOC1]

National News
X-MAS Comes with heavy price
By Starla Muhammad -Staff Writer-
Updated Dec 22, 2010 - 10:10:46 AM



(FinalCall.com) - Tis' the season to be broke. The so-called holiday season is once again upon us and despite a deep recession, continuing job losses and families struggling while living paycheck to paycheck, millions of Americans are preparing to deck the halls and empty their wallets, making retailers happy and credit card companies ecstatic.

While the 2010 overall sales for the “official kick off” to the holiday shopping season increased only 0.3 percent from 2009, retailers still raked in an estimated $10.69 billion, according to Chicago-based research firm ShopperTrak.com. Last year's sales totaled $10.66 billion. Sleigh bells and cash registers rang this year during “Black Friday Weekend” which included Thanksgiving Day through Sunday Nov. 28 that saw totals reach approximately $45 billion in sales.

An estimated 212 million shoppers visited stores or shopped online during the weekend, up from 195 million the previous year. “Some studies have shown that families spend about $1,300 on Christmas gifts, and over half of these generous families are still paying the bills months later,” noted one consumer website.

However, how high is the price to be paid for this spending and quite possibly going into debt under the guise of observing and celebrating the birth of Jesus, a divine and noble man, who according to biblical and historical scholars alike, was not even born in December?

And, while bestowing tokens of appreciation on friends and family is indeed a kind gesture, is the undue mental and emotional anxiety of not being able to afford presents, plus excess spending, adding more stress?

As joyous as this time of year is for many, to others, it can be disappointing, melancholy and even depressing. “For many people, the holidays bring on feelings of sadness and anxiety that can be hard to shake,” notes the University of Maryland Medical Center on its website. According to the National Mental Health Association, reasons for feeling blue around the holidays are numerous and include stress, fatigue, over-commercialization of the holiday, unrealistic expectations, financial constraints and the inability to be with family.

So if “the most wonderful time of the year” leaves people financially strapped and suffering from anxiety while celebrating an event that is historically and religiously inaccurate, then as both the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Minister Louis Farrakhan so poignantly asked, “Whose Christmas” is it?

The so-called birthday of Jesus has been turned into a “commercial feast of foolishness,” said Min. Farrakhan. “Santa Claus has knocked Jesus out of the top spot and the merchants who don't even believe in Jesus are busy selling you foolishness, making themselves rich and you poor on the basis of a lie and that's why they call it X-mas because you don't know who it is that you are worshipping,” said Min. Farrakhan in one of his many historic lectures on this subject matter.

Jingle bells, retailers sell

“The Grinch” may be alive and well nationwide as payday lenders prey upon guilt-ridden parents by suggesting they take out loans for extra cash to pay for Christmas gifts. Online marketing campaigns are in full force, bombarding shoppers with ads touting: “With the Christmas season upon us, do you worry about having enough money to cope with the expenses from buying Christmas gifts for children and friends?” “Where can I find a loan for this Christmas to buy presents for my children?” and “Quick loans for the unemployed.” One site even suggests obtaining a loan to “contribute to your favorite Christmas charity,” while yet another boasts, “Clear your Christmas debt with a payday loan.”

However, as those who fall victim to these ploys are drinking eggnog and hanging stockings near the fireplace by the chimney with care, the payday companies are charging interest rates upward to 400 percent on these loans. “We go into hoc for presents as opposed to living below our means and investing the rest,” says George Fraser chairman and CEO of FraserNet Inc., a global leadership network dedicated to the economic and business training, empowerment and development of Black businesses.

“Keeping up with the Joneses,” and succumbing to the intense media driven machines, like television, have intensified the pressure to make unwise financial decisions during Christmas which is a way for us to assuage whatever pain we might be feeling, he adds. “It is very difficult to escape the messages, overt and covert of consuming and buying and here's what you must have,” Mr. Fraser told The Final Call.

“As retailers look ahead to the first few weeks of December, it will be important for them to keep momentum going with savings and incentives that holiday shoppers simply can't pass up,” said Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation in a Nov. 28 press release. For many retailers, Christmas sales can account for as much as 40 to 50 percent of their annual sales and revenue and upwards to 80 percent of their overall profits.

Indeed, consumers with shopping lists in hand braved all kinds of weather to arrive at stores the day after Thanksgiving. According to many accounts, retailers opened earlier than in past years or were even open round-the clock as an enticement to those wanting to get a jump on “Black Friday” sales. Macy's, a national upscale retailer opened its doors at 4 a.m. at over 800 of their nationwide locations. The day after Black Friday weekend, known as “Cyber-Monday” was the biggest one-day online shopping day in history with consumers spending over $1.3 billion, up 16 percent from last year, say analysts.

And, while evidence shows many are cutting spending due to the weakened economy, the fact remains that people are still spending in many cases, what they do not have.

All I want for X-mas is sanity

Deep psychological wounds that Black people are dealing with because of lack of self-esteem make us look for material ways to satisfy what we feel is lacking during this time of year, observed Mr. Fraser. Noted clinical psychologist and author Dr. Na'im Akbar agrees and said the added stress manifests itself in destructive ways.

Christmas is one of the times of the year where the evidence of addiction to materialism becomes most evident and somehow as a society people are pathologically addicted to material ways of communicating what is felt and what we care about, said the acclaimed lecturer. “It's almost like we have to get a fix, it's almost like having to get a drug and the drug becomes being able to shop, being able to get gifts,” Dr. Akbar said in an interview with The Final Call. The stress to get that fix taken care of, he continued, is at its peak during this particular season.

There are psychological repercussions from the over-consumption and over-indulgence in the commercial aspects of Christmas, notes Dr. Akbar. “It's a compulsive or driven kind of thing, it isn't dealt with rationally so people will go out and spend more money than they have or will be getting anytime soon.”

As a result, people engage in behaviors that are completely irrational and self-destructive like continuing to put themselves in debt, said Dr. Akbar. “If there is something that stands in the way of this self-destructive behavior, we start feeling that we are not as good as other people; we begin to doubt our very integrity, which leads to depression,” he notes.

The added strain of the downward economy can lead some to engage in acts that under “normal” circumstances, one might avoid. On Dec. 16, Oaklandpress.com reported a woman was arrested and is facing criminal charges for robbing a K-Mart to get gifts for her children. “During an interview, the woman admitted that she was having financial problems and stole the items to give to her children as Christmas presents,” reported the article.

People have to understand that money does not equal love, said Dr. Julianne Malveaux, economist and president of Bennett College for Women in a Final Call interview. Spending hundreds or thousands of dollars now and then in February when a bill is due, not being able to pay it is a consequence for not sticking with a budget, she explained.

People have bought into the self-indulgent commercialized aspect of Christmas so in some cases, basic common sense takes a backseat, says Dr. Akbar. “This is a period of frenetic activity, a time when people are trying to juggle work, an increase in social obligations, shopping, decorating, wrapping, entertaining and staying on budget and all this leads to a rise in both physical and emotional stress,” says medicalnewstoday.com.

No Virginia, there is no Santa Claus

In a 2005 online commentary written by Jerold Aust, entitled “Why Some Christians Don't Celebrate Christmas,” he writes: “Most people never stop to ask themselves what the major symbols of Christmas—Santa Claus, reindeer, decorated trees, holly, mistletoe and the like—have to do with the birth of the Savior of mankind.” Mr. Aust, a Christian, goes on to say, “The fact is, and you can verify this in any number of books and encyclopedias that all these trappings came from ancient pagan festivals.”

Religious and secular scholars of various races and ethnicities are echoing the sentiment and facts brought to light decades ago by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad regarding the origins and truth of Christmas. Meanwhile, money hungry merchants continue tapping into the psyche of unsuspecting consumers who mean well, but continue perpetuating the Christmas myth of “Jolly Ole' Saint Nick.”

In his book, “Our Saviour Has Arrived,” Mr. Muhammad writes: “Jesus is garbed up and commercialized on by a world of evil and sin and you like this, my people—you love this now. You defy anyone, even God Himself, to try and remove your love of what is false.”

 

[BIG REESE LOC1]

(FinalCall.com) - It's Christmas, but where's Jesus? When did they kick Him out of His own birthday party, and how did St. Nick, Kris Kringle, and the Grinch who stole Christmas get invitations? And why are many Blacks still dreaming of a white Christmas? When we look into the history of America's holiest day we may find some answers. And as usual for White American traditions we'll start in Europe.

Where Did Christmas Start?

Since recorded time almost every agricultural society engaged in some sort of festive end of the year celebration. In Europe, the shortest day of the year, or winter solstice, was the cosmic event that drew the most revelers to the town square, but most everywhere else these activities were related to the period of abundance following the yearly harvest.

During the Middle Ages, Europe's rulers tried to infuse a religious component—the birth of Christ—into those highly raucous and sexualized winter celebrations. They hoped this would serve to transition the peasantry from paganism to Christianity, even though they knew that the birthday of Jesus was actually three months earlier in the year. They also knew that the figure they most admired was Nimrod, the ruler who lived to undermine the civilization of Moses, and it was Nimrod who was born on December 25th. Nimrod is described as “the prototype of rebellion against the Almighty.” He married his own mother, and after his death she spread the tale that his spirit caused a full-grown evergreen tree to spring up overnight from a dead tree stump. She claimed that on each anniversary of his birth, Nimrod would visit the tree and leave gifts on it. This is the real origin of the Christmas tree. And this scheming European clergy, who were secret admirers of Nimrod and his ways, conflated the saintly Jesus with the devilish Nimrod, and inspired the gluttonous celebrations we now call Christmas.

Saint Nicholas, Jesus, & Racism

Saint Nicholas occupied several peculiar positions in Christian culture including being the patron saint of school children, shipping, and pawn brokers, among other titles. Born in the fourth century in what is now Turkey, his legend would later find its way into America as Santa Claus—a mispronunciation of Saint Nicholas. We can see how they connected him to Jesus by an odd legend that gave him power to raise the dead. According to the story an innkeeper killed three boys and cut up their bodies, intending to sell their remains as pickled pork. Nicholas happened upon the scene, supernaturally sensed the crime and reassembled the bodies and brought them back to life. It was this macabre tradition that may have given him life-restoring parity with Jesus in European minds.

Racism was interwoven in this Christmas folklore through another disturbing tale. Nicholas' function in the church was to judge the goodness or evil of the children in his domain. He would quiz them on their church lessons, rewarding them with candy and gifts, or chastising them with sticks or pieces of coal. He was accompanied by a sidekick named “Black Pete,” described by one scholar as a “hairy, chained, horned, blackened, devilish monster ... clutching a gaping sack in his hairy claws.” Black Pete's job was to glare at the children while Nicholas drilled them on their lessons. The menacing monster with African features would every now and again flash his enormous canines and leap toward the frightened children, threatening to beat them with his rod. Nicholas warned the bad children that this “Black Pete” would stuff the little transgressors into his sack only to be released at the next Christmas.

This punitive image of St. Nick softened over time in Europe and to this day they still hold events around the image of “Black Pete” with White actors in blackened faces wearing brightly-colored clown suits (see photo). It is probably “Black Pete” who is the inspiration for the popular Dr. Seuss tale “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.”

The practice of giving gifts in the name of Saint Nicholas was frowned upon by the father of the Protestant church Martin Luther who then introduced Christkindlein—a messenger of Christ—as the gift-bringer. Again, through mispronunciation, Christkindlein came to be known as Kris Kringle, a name which is now used interchangeably with Santa.

Coming to America

Though “Black Pete” didn't make the trans-Atlantic crossing to the “New World” with our chained African forbears, “Santa Claus” reached America in Dutch form along with other unseemly pagan customs. The Massachusetts Puritan Cotton Mather bitterly complained that this imported Christmas tradition mocked rather than honored Jesus: “[T]he Feast of Christ's Nativity is spent in Reveling, Dicing, Carding, Masking, and in all Licentious Liberty ... by Mad Mirth, by long Eating, by hard Drinking, by lewd Gaming, by rude Reveling...” Often these European immigrants blackened their faces or disguised themselves as animals or even cross-dressed, presumably to maintain anonymity for much ruder acts, and similar accounts of the early Christmases abound including one cleric who decried the transvestitism, the “Uncleanness and Debauchery,” as well as the rampant sexual orgies or “chambering.” Indeed, there was an annual increase in the number of births in the months of September and October. It got so bad that the Puritans actually outlawed Christmas in their settlement in 1659 and fined those who celebrated in any way. The holiday was reinstated in 1681 but not before it was roundly condemned as blasphemous and far-removed from the way of Jesus.

Christmas and Plantation Slavery

The Plantation South had its own reasons for promoting the Christmas mythology. In order to combat abolitionist rabblerousing slave owners with the help of Northern newspapers promoted an idyllic garden vision of happy slaves enjoying a festive Christmas season. Traditionally, Christmas fell at a time when the end of harvesting idled the workers. The brutality of the overseers temporarily receded and the enslaved Africans came to regard these times as their only respite from the cruelty of plantation life.

They created their own distinctive traditions known by various names including “John Canoeing,” “John Koonering,” or other similar terms. The festivities included singing, dancing, feasting, and dressing up in the White man's cast-off clothes. The annual merrymaking served planters' interests who promoted heavy drinking and partying as a pacifying hedge against the always imminent escapes and insurrections. One Georgia slaveowner wrote: “I have seen the jollity & mirth of the black population during the Christmas holidays. Never have I seen any class of people who appeared to enjoy more than do these negroes...”

Selling Out Christmas Yet Again

Just as the early Christian leaders bargained with the truth of the birth of Christ, the burgeoning merchant class in America positioned themselves to make Christmas a bonanza of consumerism and boundless profits, and so Santa Claus was commandeered to be their portly pitchman. Beginning around 1880, advertisers began to encourage the purchase of manufactured rather than homemade gifts. Wrapping paper and Christmas cards were introduced and Christmas bonuses and “Christmas Club” bank accounts promoted the holiday as the season of boundless spending. As The Hon. Elijah Muhammad wrote: “The merchants' pockets are made fat for Christmas—the tobacco factories, the beer and whisky traffic, and wine ... There is no holy worship on that day for [Jesus].” The fact that the biggest profiteers on Christ's birthday are Jewish—in whose synagogues the name of Jesus cannot even be uttered—seems to concern no one. Jewish mega-marketers like Gimbels, Macys, Neiman Marcus, Sears, and many others all do their profitable best on this holiest day of the Christian year.

This Wall Street version of “Christmas spirit” has led to a growing Black Christian rejection of this profanation of Jesus' life. They watch every year as His gifts to humanity are bargained away in favor of the image of a morbidly obese White North Polean idol whose jollity is driven solely by credit card debt. Celebrations like Kwanzaa, with its seven principles that are truly worthy of the name—Unity, Self-Determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, Purpose, Creativity, and Faith—are gradually infusing more substantive meaning into end-of-the-year Black celebration culture. Certainly, Christmas as it is practiced in America is a strange European tradition that has gone out of its way to exclude the Saviour Himself, while generating a massive amount of Black consumer debt, and managing to add a few racist insults on the way. Is this anything that an awakened Black family ought to be involved in? Read the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's teachings of Christmas (pages 173-81) in Our Saviour Has Arrived.

 

[BIG REESE LOC1]

I know its ALOT to read, but this is the GATHERING OF MINDS forum, so the post that say, "I aint readin all that shit" save your simple minded ass answers for the Open Forum, there are actual intelligent conversations and viewpoints in here....

 

[Mike Manson]

I ain't readin all that shit!

 

[BIG REESE LOC1]

I ain't readin all that shit!

LOL

 

[The Duke of Earl]

i enjoy xmas for the food and family , i dont care about santa claus n buying gifts im took broke to buy gifts

 

[WHITE DEVIL]

Good reads.

Now the Nation view is that Jesus was divine, correct?

Doesnt the mainstream Sunnah tradition place him on the same level or below Muhammed? As simply a normal man who was a prophet? Or is this incorrect?

 

[WHITE DEVIL]

Damn just answered my own question with google.

UTFSE