Nguzo Saba Reflections – Intro

We honor the celebration of Kwanzaa as a tool for community building and discourse, spiritual upliftment, and deconstruction of the way we’ve been taught. We hold the origins of this celebration and its founder with care and an eye on accountability, while also recognizing the context in which this celebration was created. We must also be honest about how this celebration has been used to reinforce the colonial, patriarchal, white supremacist status quo. 

Point blank: the celebration of Kwanzaa was not created with Trans/Queer Black/Indigenous and all folks whose survival has been criminalized in mind. 

The reflections that follow bring together the original Nguzo Saba (7 principles) of Kwanzaa with Black feminist wisdoms from Trans & Queer Black & Indigenous women, femmes, organizers, artists, and thinkers. Each day throughout the celebration of Kwanzaa (December 26 – January 1), You/we are invited to sit with the reflections, resources, and gifts that have been co-curated with your/our liberation in mind. Each reflection contains links to resources, tools, and gifts of affirmation that we hope will support in understanding not only the systems of oppression that seek to annihilate us but also deepen our understanding of our relationship with ourselves and the world around us. 

Some of these reflections maintain their original definitions and some definitions have been reworked and reframed through the lens of “total liberation” that would have us experience these principles with more empathy, expansiveness, joy, and love. With these reflections, we affirm the full breadth of our humanity: our Blackness, our Queerness, our Transness, our relationships, our ambitions, our dreaming, our grief, our trauma, and our sorrow. May these words, resources, and affirmations offer a source of grounding as we move into this new year together.

Our wish is that you are held by these words. 

Our wish is that you find generosity here.

Our wish is that you find a renewed sense of curiosity here. 

We are willing that these words meet you, dear reader, with care.

We are willing that through these reflections, the lived experiences of the poor, working class, Trans, Queer, Black, and Indigenous folks, and all whose survival is criminalized are uplifted.

Asé.