House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was ridiculed on social media after wishing everyone a "happy schwanza," the Daily Wire reported. Friday's speech was likely the last address the 82-year-old California Democrat would give as the leader.
Pelosi wrapped up her remarks by extending the usual all-inclusive holiday greetings. However, she flubbed her line when she got to Kwanzaa, a holiday celebrated in the African-American community that was devised in 1966.
"I yield back the balance of my time and wish everyone a happy, healthy, and safe New Year," Pelosi said. "Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy Shwanza. Happy Hanukkah," she said.
It soon became fodder for many on social media, including the Clown World Twitter account. Clown World often shares examples of leftists being crazy leftists or, in this case, pandering and nonsensical as well.
"WTF is Shwanza?" the account said. Conservative talk radio host Mark Levin also threw in his take. "Truth be told, Pelosi’s an idiot with power," he said.
"Nancy Pelosi Wishes Everyone a ‘Happy Shwanza,'" conservative Daniel Wisniewski tweeted. "Absolutely embarrassing."
Kwanzaa is a festival that is celebrated every Dec. 26 through Jan. 1. It is a secular cultural holiday created by radical civil rights leader Ronald McKinley Everett, known as Maulana Karenga.
Despite the holiday's objectionable origins, it holds a high profile in the public sphere. For starters, Karenga is a convicted criminal who tortured and imprisoned two women and served time in jail for his crimes.
Karenga also founded the United Slaves, a violent activist organization akin to the Black Panthers, according to The Federalist. Even the tenets of the holiday itself are troubling.
The name "Kwanzaa" is based on the Swahili "matunda y kwanza" after the "first fruits harvest" African celebration, but it's created from whole cloth using Marxist principles. Jennifer Kabbany, editor of the College Fix, said the seven pillars of Kwanzaa "reads like a communist manifesto."
The pillars are "unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith." Author Patrick S. Poole pointed out that the pillar of "cooperative economics" is particularly troublesome.
"It is a good thing that today we do not have to grow our food, build our houses and tend to our own lands," Poole said. "Division of labor and specialization has fueled the prosperity and progress in the West that all Africans envy," he claimed.
"And yet it is the express denial of these important economic tools that Kwanzaa lauds," Poole wrote. He also blamed "collective work and responsibility" for poor economic conditions that force "Masai and Zulu tribesmen" to "live in grass huts, wear animal skins and must walk everywhere."
Even as the outgoing House Speaker, Pelosi was dutiful to her left-leaning ideals in attempting to laud such a holiday. Unfortunately for her, she couldn't even spit out the correct name of the festival -- and that is a fitting end to her legacy with the Speaker's gavel.
