Why is this so hard to understand?

Black (Dance) History Month doesn't start till next Friday, but we need to get started early, my friends. Have you seen this story? In short, a black dancer was cut from her high school's dance team because "her skin was too dark." Like generations of black dancers denied a place in the American ballet, Camille Sturdivant was told that she couldn't participate because she just wouldn't match.

There's a lot more to the story, and believe me, it only gets worse from there. Though not widely reported, you can read Michael Harriot's take here, from The Root, or make your own search online to see coverage (mostly from African-American media outlets). There is a current lawsuit against both the school and the individual coaches.

First - before we go all "what's wrong with Kansas" on this, I would like to ask that everyone acknowledge that incidents of racism are not other people's/other regions' problems. I thought that too, as a teenager growing up in the American South. I thought that once I shook the red North Carolina dust from my shoes and moved to the great liberal bastion of Massachusetts I could be done with all that. Not so.

Next - I'm not going to waste my time with how vile this incident is. You can find the outrage if you want to. What I would like to address is this: dancers and dance lovers, musicians and music listeners, high cultural mavens and pop culture consumers - you need to recognize that the performing arts in the United States is black. If American dance could take a 23 and Me test, west Africa would be our greatest cultural heritage. If you are a dancer and learned that "ballet is foundation of all dance," you were lied to. If you have ever bumped a hip, isolated a shoulder, danced to an off-beat, or clapped/stomped/tapped out a rhythm, you owe your craft to your African ancestors. If you don't already know this, your ignorance is nothing but a testament to the successful theft of African-American aesthetic by the George Balanchines, Jerome Robbinses, and Jack Coles of American dance. Start educating yourself with Brenda Dixon Gottschild's seminal article, "Stripping the Emperor: The Africanist Presence in American Concert Dance," and then we will discuss.

Why does this matter? Well, does history matter at all? Maybe you believe that knowing the sources of dances is a waste of time, because now the forms "belong to everyone." Truly, the attempt of any culture to stake ownership of a style, genre, or aesthetic is pointless - if the point is to stop anyone else from adopting it. Few cultures have managed that, and certainly not ones who post to YouTube. But moving forward from the present clearly doesn't work either. I don't believe that the racist coaches of the Blue Valley Northwest High School will ever see the error of their ways. Digging in and hiring a PR firm seems to be the number one strategy of racists today. But the rest of us can do better. Acknowledge our debts, honor our history, and wise up to one practical truth: If the audience is going to be focused on whether or not your dancers' skin tones "match" you have way bigger choreographic problems to deal with.

I'm going to be showcasing black dance in the United States again this February. In the meantime, congratulations to Camille for moving on to the University of Missouri Golden Girls dance team.