The great square dance conspiracy

[DonCoquixote]

https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/article/13010248/the-great-square-dance-conspiracy

Now, this article may be funny, but in many ways it reflects the same sort of cultural wickedness that makes people frustrated with America. Here we have a nation with many regional dances. some of these are considered "white": polka, waltz, clogging, some are considered "black": Jazz, Swing. Let's not even get into Latin dance, which has a lot more variants than "salsa". But here, he have a lobby to try and make "square dance" the official, national dance.

You see, it is not enough for folk areas of white people to have their regional dances and folk culture, no, a group of people, mostly retirees, have to go ahead and define what it is for everyone, sea to shining sea. As far as Afro-American dances, even though Jazz and Swing as done everywhere on the globe, and are often considered one of America's great contributions to world culture, these folks want to push them aside (BIG surprise.)

Harmless? Well take a look at this article:
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/12/18/how-square-dancing-became-a-weapon-of-white-supremacy-against-an-anti-semitic-jazz-dance-conspiracy/23310607/

You see, just as a bunch of people that our nations culture needed to be more Homogenized, a fellow named Henry Ford, the same guy who spread all these racst tracts Hitler loved so much, thought Jazz was some evil conspiracy by Blacks and Jews to ruin the white race. No, they did not just come up with this over at Bretbart, this was an old meme that had legs long before the folks in Charlottesville chanted "jews will not replace us!"

Going back to the original article, note how the square dances are regimented, no smking or drinking, no variance from offical moves. One offical board gets to literally dictate what is dance, and what can be danced.

Thismight seem minor, but when we snicker and snark at the minor details, we get clobbered on the cultural issues, even when things are aimed at the rest of culture not under the control of a bunch of very isolated and insular people.

[ret5hd]

1. Wife and I stopped at a hotel where there was a square dance "event" of some sort...

We were bored and mildly curious, so we went in to look a while. A woman started chatting with us, telling us about the event etc.

At one point she said "It's better than sex!"

My wife's reply was "Well then, you're doing it wrong."

After polite goodbyes, the woman left us.

[Solomon]

12. Lmao

[Cartoonist]

2. Squares at the Squaredance

[enough]

3. Very interesting, but I hope this doesn't cause a backlash against all square dancing.

In our area there are several square dance callers and bands who play in community halls for multi-generational dance-lovers who mostly tend to be what used to be called hippies. Nothing homogenized about it.

My parents were old-school active lefties who did a lot of square dancing with their pals in the late 1940’s and early 50’s. No way was this associated with racism or anti-semitism. They also loved jazz.

[maveric]

4. It's a very "square" dance indeed.

[DonCoquixote]

13. this is nto agaisntall square dancers

but if there are enough to enforce this in 22 states, and a call for a friigin constitutional statement, it means thigns have gotten out of hand.

[askyagerz]

5. Did they make y'all squaredance in school?

Very traumatic for a little kid lol

[Shrike47]

6. Yes and I enjoyed it. Don't do it now, but could.

[cyberswede]

7. Same

We had a unit every year from K-6 & got really good at it - very complicated steps & calls, etc. Yeehaw!

[Brother Buzz]

8. Brubeck's Unsquare Dance gets my vote

Blues, country and western, and Jazz all mooshed together with a wild 7/4 timing; you can't get more homogenized than that.

[Mosby]

9. love it!

[yonder]

11. pretty cool, thanks

Slightly off-topic here: Oddball musical time signatures are fun for listening but difficult to play or dance to, IMO. Many Eastern European folk tunes use "crooked" timing. One way to keep 7/4 time straight is to think "ta-co, ta-co, burr-i-to, ta-co, ta-co, burr-i-to" and so on. It works here.

Brubeck was brilliant.

[Adrahil]

10. Lots of Square Dancing where I grew up.

But last I heard, almost all the groups died out... literally. No kids were joining.

My sister says they are never at the county fair anymore, while there used to a be a competition with a dozen clubs competing.