(ThyBlackMan.com) Nothing brings a community together like the struggle for social justice. Being side by side in the trenches for a collective good is something that many people within the black community have done for a very long time. Our communities have often become stronger from the shared struggle that we have historically had to engage in.
Social media has been masterful in its ability to highlight tragedies that the corporate owned media habitually avoids. When it is being used as a positive force for change social media makes it difficult if not impossible to be unaware of systematic injustice everywhere. We see well-organized and intensely strategic organizations being relentless in their multiple sortie-like attacks against the larger enemy. Everyone is working together for a common good.
Or so it seems.
Recently there has emerged a growing number of black youth who use these events to showcase their dancing skills. Yes, while the vast majority of people are protesting, locked in an intense battle against the loudest and most entrenched vestiges of discrimination there is a growing amount of clueless “dancivists” recording themselves busting a move.
This is coonery at its highest and most refined level.
Let’s first dispel a long held myth: all black people do not know how to dance. As much as it hurts to admit we are not all born with some innate DNA level ability to synchronize on the two and the four. Being able to interpret and articulate the transcendence of emotions by using your body is a gift bestowed by the Most High. Some of us have it, and, sadly, some of us don’t.
In its rightful place dance is a beautiful and deeply meaningful form of expression. Historically, and to name a very small few, it has been used by the Zulu’s, the Masai, the Maori people of New Zealand, various tribes and bands of Native Americans throughout the Americas as well as ancient civilizations in Europe. In most cases these dances held great spiritual meaning and were meant to create or herald a certain mood or action.
But we’re not talking about that.
The type of dancing that we’re seeing displayed today, for the most part, carries none of the significance that it once did. At best it is a release of some short lived hormonal aberration or a feeble and disjointed attempt to solicit a short lived hormonally driven response.
The portion of the black community that seems to be the most afflicted with this out of place response is often that portion that is most affected. These communities often don’t have the resources to adopt the type of technology and education skills that will provide a collective good. Sadly they often hold onto an overly romanticized recollection of how things used to be better when (fill in the blank).
The problem with this portion of society is that they’ve convinced themselves that elemental forces have much greater significance than they actually do. Garishly loud make-up, surgically enhanced body parts, cultural appropriation, an emphasis on pleasure, these are all things that point to an almost psychotic need for self-promotion. Excessive dancing has always been a part of this narrative.
And that’s just it. Unnecessary dancing changes the focus of the argument. It moves the attention away from the ideals of the group and places it on the accolades of the individual. What winds up happening is the message gets lost in the confusion of what the movement is really all about.
This special brand of cooning has always been the coward’s way of convincing his ever fearful master that they are going to run away from anything that even appears to look like self-respect and dignity. A coon will never give his master any reason to doubt his or her loyalty. They will stay in their lane.
Therefore when a coon sees a heated confrontation about to occur they break out their dance shoes. Before things get too heated, in their mind, it is necessary to demonstrate a complete disconnect from the very reality that keeps them oppressed. Here come the dance shoes. Why? Because who doesn’t want to escape the harsh realities of life by watching a little soft shoe, or hip thrust?
As polarized as society is there is no time for this kind of diversion. The stakes are too high and the cost of not being actively engaged in dismantling those institutions that hold people from attaining their greatest potential are too great. Black people, as a group, will continue to get outperformed by everyone else in all areas that are productive if positive change does not occur. Much of this change is internal, and therefore a directed and serious approach is necessary.
Dancing and joking around have their place, but not in the throes of battle. If that’s the posture that people want to take it would be best that they do not attempt to attach themselves to a greater movement by way of symbiosis. The last thing a positive, forward moving train of change needs is a caboose full of dancing coons.
Staff Writer; Steven Robinson
