Why White People Can't Dance.

I have faith in the internet. I have faith that I can ask the internet anything I need to know and get the answer. And because of that faith, I feel I can ask the internet: Why can't white people dance?

I know, I know, how cliche can I get? But really, I need to know. Because it's widely true. When you go out to a club, at least any club I've ever been to, you're guaranteed to witness the following:

1. White ladies on the dance floor, wiggling their arms around--usually over their heads--and gyrating their shoulders off beat from their hips while their bodies sway back and forth in an attempt to gain momentum to swing their hair around in a sexy manner. They are generally doing this with other white ladies who also can't dance or with black men.

2. Black men with that rhythm and groove that is smoother than a baby's ass, dancing with white ladies who can't dance but with the assistance of said black men can produce a semblance of dance--a sort of almost deep, primal mating ritual.

3. Black ladies who can dance--and who know they can dance--who laugh, roll their eyes, or get annoyed at the white ladies who can't dance taking up the dance floor. Sometimes they will take pity and guide the rhythm-less white ladies into dance-phoria.

Where are the white men, you ask?

4. At the bar, with popped collars or loosened ties, staring at the dance floor with envy and apprehension.

Yes, I'm generalizing. Obviously there are exceptions to these rules, but, Christ, not many. Roll with me on this one.

Wikipedia can't help me here. So I turned to Google and came across this essay, Why, I Say, White People Can't Dance (And, Yes, It has to Do with Race/Culture/Rhythm, Appreciation, & Respect). The essay gets a little convoluted toward the end, but the author starts out strong by pointing out that dancing is a language whose words are movement and grammar is rhythm. In general, white people have learned a different language than black people and therefore express themselves in the language of dance differently.

I have to say, that's a pretty good explanation. I'm having one hell of a time trying to find any other, and trust me, I'm looking. Another really fantastic point made is that the preconceived notions that we have about our bodies really define how we translate our movements into rhythm and dance.

Think about it: white culture is largely conservative. Any Native culture--be it African, Native American, or Australian Aboriginal--is foreign to white European Americans. Breasts bared? No way! Rites of passage that involve sex in front of the elders? Absolutely not! Peyote around the smoke circle while the drums beat? Forgetaboutit!

We seem to have started out ashamed of our bodies in this country. We banned "provocative" dance moves at points in time, made sex a sin, and considered anything less than "proper etiquette" to be barbaric. White people owned black slaves in this country and therefore, any way the slaves acted was considered below the white people and not proper. Therefore, why in the world would white folk want to learn to move their bodies in the same beautiful, unabashed, creative way that black folk did?

Sure, this is mostly my speculation, but I think it makes sense. There's no scientific reasoning why white people can't dance. Not all white people can't dance. Not all black people can, for that matter. It's just a wide generalization which is based in truth, so it has to come from somewhere. I say it comes from hundreds of years of conservative snobbery.

It's a culture thing. Think Will versus Carlton. Rhythmical dance doesn't fit into a Tiffany's 5x7.