Exploiting Our Traditions...

***DISCLAIMER*** Yanno, this post which I was doing a little at a time and was in the midst of scrapping, has became a bit of a satisfactory piece, because I feel like the Corporate Monster that I always speak of showed a little bit of compassion, and finally did something right…#endrant…on with the show, be advised that this is the original posting as well as the “nu-nu” I’ll let u know where the updates comes in….
I like most other NPHC (National Pan-Hellenic Council) Greeks, was excited that Coca-Cola took the lead to give the artform of stepping a national platform and to have the type of stepshow that dreams are made of. Hell, just imagine what your chapter would do with $100,000! Well the Sprite Step Off even was granted an MTV show, and I was thinking that this whole idea was a good thing for Black Greeks. If you looked at the website for the competition, you see members of all of "Divine 9" groups proudly displaying their colors and displaying moves and hand-signs that they have all become known for over the years. But little did I know that Sprite had other plans.

The stage had then become set...90 groups from across the nation participating in regional competitions, and of the 90 groups, 89 were NPHC organizations, all except Zeta Tau Alpha. Now I don’t get into the typical White Greek vs. Black Greek arguments because I was made at an HBCU and if you’re going to go Greek at those types of institutions, the NHPC variety is typically all that is available. So I won’t say that stepping is “our” art form and that’s the reason why I’m upset that ZTA won the sorority portion, but the fact that a good but not great team won the largest step show ever, truly bothered me. But after reading commentary of ZTA’s show, I thought that maybe it was hidden racism that I was suffering from because I could not give these women their props, but my investigation into some of the surrounding circumstances lead me to believe that Coca-Cola was just another corporation who chose to exploit Blacks.

I don’t know who gave MTV the idea, but MTV picked 6 teams (3 guys, 3 girls) after the regional rounds to make a reality show covering the step-off. Now the show from jump was planned to go all the way up until the finals, which instantly gave a red flag in my opinion because how can you plan a show around participants who may not even get that far? This was sign number one that this was going to be fixed. Then the fact that one of the teams that they picked was an all-white group who were the underdogs, taught to step by the AKAs at their school 16 years ago, made their winning all the more sweeter, if they won, but who are we kidding you know they were going to win.
We as a people tend to look at White America’s imitation of our arts as “cute,” so naturally ZTA’s performance got “house” from the crowd in Atlanta. But their prose that they were only there to show that they were capable of being one of the best step-teams in the nation was laughable because they also “dropped it low” in their show, how is that proving you’re a quality step-team as opposed to doing what you’ve seen done before. However, for those of you who haven’t seen the show, go search for it on Youtube, and you will see a crisp, clean, precise show that lacks in stepping originality and creativity in my opinion. The ladies of ZTA were good, but not great, not good enough to win the biggest step-show ever and to win $100,000. The crowd thought it was cute, and the celebrity judges, who were not a total panel of Greeks as done with most step shows, rather a potluck of celebrities, who really have no expertise on the matter. And in the end ZTA won, to which the crowd responded with:



so did they really deserve to win? Should we stop teaching our talents so that we don’t have to get mad when other groups do it better than us? Should Coca-Cola focused more on steppers than showcasing NPHC Greeks when publicizing the Sprite Step-Off? These are all valid questions do not have a black and white answer, but one thing remains clear, Sprite took us for a ride….

***UPDATE FEB 25, 2010*** Coca-Cola has announced today that due to a scoring discrepancy, the Tau Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha (the real winners) would be co-winners and would also receive $100,000, so that’s a good thing. But was there really a discrepancy, or did Coca-Cola mere succumb to the pressure of posters like myself who were less than thrilled. Either way, they got what they wanted, notoriety and money, while NPHC Greeks are steadily watching our beloved artform, just lose more and more of its prestige, thanks to Stomp the Yard, Step it Up, and The Sprite-Step-Off. *Sigh* The exploitation of our culture never stops…

Is it Possible to Have What You Want and What You Need?

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I've been wanting to post to my blog lately, but with the stresses of life, I find myself unable to just find the "me" time to release. Well since my PS3 is DOA and I don't really have the bread to fix it, I guess I'm stuck with a lot of "me" time. I keep trying to ask my friends for advice as far as what I should do with my love life and getting it to where it could make me happy. I guess my homeboy put it best when he said "dude, ure doing well, you have everything a man could ever need with a woman, why are you tripping?" But I really don't want her...that's the issue. Its not that I dont wanna settle down, but when it comes to the woman I wanna spend the rest of my life with, i need her to have everything i want and be everything i need, anything less is uncivilized!