I'm confused. I thought the 'electric slide' was about the whitest thing you could do. It sure seems that way at every family wedding I've ever been to. Black people don't line dance, do they?Yeah sure, steal from us and then lie about who you stole it from. Fuckers. This reminds of that scene in Back To The Future, where Michael J. Fox "teaches" Chuck Berry how to play the guitar. Or like people coming here to tell me that there was nothing "black" about the fist-bump. Damn right there's nothing black about the "fist-bump"--we don't invent slang that sounds like it looks. It's called dap, motherfuckers. A pound, if you must. Ya'll got me calling that shit a "fist-bump."
Damn you post-racialism. Damn you to hell. And damn you Stacy. You can forget about that ghetto pass--and that Muslim Sleeping Pill.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I tend to use the full phrase "terrorist fist bump," if only for comedic effect.
A white guy invented the Electric Slide. And apparently, he's kind of a jerk.
The bunny hop (Texas version) is so much better, anyway.
Let me venture into the realm of unsupported, rash, sweeping generalization.
All line-dancing is lame.
Where's my ghetto pass?
Ouch. I thought I was being nice. I didn't think that black people were lame enough to do the Electric Slide. Maybe I just have the wrong idea about 'line dancing.'
Anyways, for my penance, I will get drunk tonight off Cognac, Champagne, Alize, and Grape Soda. Now that's some real Thug Passion.
I'm a lifelong white man, and I never called it a fist-bump, dap, or anything really. Just did it when appropriate.
Why on earth would anyone want to take credit for the Electric Slide? TNC, while you're claiming dances, why don't you go ahead and take the Boot Scootin' Boogie too? Free of charge.
Shani,
It didn't slide, until we slid, baby!!
Stacy,
That's a good start. And of course you know I'm kidding, right? I don't know if my tongue was far enough in cheek
AJ,
They all belong to us. All of them. Everywhere.
Coates
I think Ced the Entertainer sums up your feelings quite well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7sODzCqvvs
OK. You completely misunderstood the Chuck Berry thing in BTTF. Your science fiction cred is hereby in doubt. That, my friend, is science fiction time travel trope #23, used in about infinity-factorial science fiction stories in the fifties then dropped because of overuse and now only found in lame ass SF wanna-be's or, god help me, in Serious Literature (TM). This trope is the "Person A learns something seriously important from Person B (guitar riffs) then travels back into time and teaches it to Person B." It is not meant to indicate that Person A thought it up, it's only meant to cause stoners to go "Wow, man". So in BTTF at no point did McFly create those guitar riffs - Chuck Berry created them. Sure, McFly showed them to Chuck, but McFly learned them, didn't create them. So - paradox. Wow, man...
C'mon, who you talking to? Of course. You must think all us white people are real uptight.
All your boot scoots are belong to us?
Of course I can take a joke, but I always wonder what a first time reader might think. They come to this site and see you going off on Marty McFly for pretending to teach Chuck Berry "Johnny B. Good.' Its enough to make me giggle.
I was watching The Bridge in NYC the other day and heard Ralph McDaniels make reference to people line dancing to "Candy," and it blew my mind; people line danced to Cameo?!? Seriously??
Are you sure about the electric slide? I thought Filipinos invented that. I've never seen so much line dancing as I did at a Filipino wedding. My God.
personally I love some electric slide from time to time... whats wrong with a little line dance every now and again... but what I do find interesting is how We (insert any minority group) are not a monolith or 'THE BORG' when it suits our 'don't pigeon hole me motherfucker' argument but 'We' are all up in arms when some other 'them' is taking credit for something that WE claim as ours. and helles belles I am guilty of it as the next...
Why y'all hating on line dancing? Unison makes EVERYTHING cooler.
(Okay, maybe not goosestepping in unison or suchlike but you know what I meant. ACK! Janet Jackson, save me from my words!!)
Stacey,
It only looks lame when white people do it. You can steal the dance, but you can't steal the groove :)
BTW, it also looks funny when white people attempt a pound.
LOL!
"BTW, it also looks funny when white people attempt a pound."
Yeah, but I think this has more to do with the AGE of the white person involved. Most younger people don't even look at it as a black/white thing. I think that's because of sports.
Down here (Southern OH) it's the Chicken Dance. Trust me, no group takes credit/responsibility for that one.
attention, black people: you can ***have*** line dancing. take it back, please.
thank you
Would it be more white arrogance to blame black people for the Chicken Dance? Sort of the reverse to appropriating, it would be blaming the black community for something we did to ourselves.
In BTTF, Marty didn't teach Chuck those licks, he taught his cousin Marvin, Marvin Berry, who then called up Chuck, presumably at TideWater 4-ten-0-9, and held up the phone so Chuck could hear that new sound he'd been looking for.
Damn you Uncular, you beat me to the trashing of the Chicken Dance
@DougEMI: good point; it's not the fault of black people when dumbass white punks go wigga, but line dancing, omg, it totally seems like black people invented it to make white people look really really really stupid
What a fun thread. Makes me wanna raise the roof.
A dance teacher told me that many people in the Dance Community believe that the Pata Pata was the original line dance. Wouldn't it be funny if that was true.
Although the music for the much-maligned Chicken Dance is Spanish, I believe that dance began in Germany. Go figure.
For every Electric Slide there's about 20 dances that just never caught on enough to go mainstream. I remember in NC in the 80's right alongside the Cabbage Patch there was the Jordache-- but it didn't live long enough to be tortured by my people.
Electric Slide = Sean Connery's "You're the man now, dog"
It's a little more complicated than all that: the Electric Slide was actually invented by Steve Martin, but it's OK, 'cause he was born a poor black child.
Yeah, well, jokes on you... at least according to wikipedia... "DAP" is the Vietnamese word for "beautiful" adopted by black GI's in the war so ya'll maybe didn't invent squat but stole it from Charlie.
Now now, don't fight. There's enough blame to go around for everyone. Line dancing and square dancing developed from both European and African roots, but it doesn't matter. Every culture has some form of group dance where a musician or group of musicians calls out the steps. And while the patterns are different, the basic steps are always the same. The mechanics of getting a bunch of people to dance together without bloodshed are universal.
In other words - If someone hadn't invented line dancing here, we would have just imported it from Asia.
This conversation is starting to remind me of the "Racial Draft" episode of the Dave Chappelle show, only instead of ethnic groups claiming different people as members, we're claiming (or disclaiming) dance moves.
Disco had 3 main influences: Eurotrendy club goers, Gay subculture and Inner City sounds (mostly African-American).
The Electric Slide has to be seen within that context, so if you want to duke it out with the Eurotrendy (trash?) and 1970s gays, be my guest.
(BTW - I once heard a French guy ticked off that Michael Jackson was seen as the father of the moonwalk, as the underlying move was an old Marcel Marceau mime routine. Who cares, really....).
@ like totally down: I hate to be nitpicky, but I'm pretty sure the music for the Chicken Dance is in French. Not only did we sing and dance to it for 12 years at church camp, but we also translated it in French class.
Whoever would like to take credit for the Electric Slide is fine with me, as long as no one blames me for it.
@JRVJ: If Marcel Marceau had beef with Michael for the moonwalk, he should've just said something.
Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress.
I'd like to do away with the dirt-on-my-shoulder dance.
More than 15 years ago Suzanne (she discovered the Jackson Five) Depasse told me loved line dancing to country music. I still loved her but drew the line at accompanying her to her favorite clubs.
Have you noticed a lot of people saying:
That's how I roll..
I hear Tina Fey saying it all the time on 30 rock.
We've been saying that for years!
I always wanted to write an SNL skit describing what must be the monthly African American Slang Propagation Committee Meeting, where members could advance to the podium to give evidence, e.g., "Motion to Retire: At a mall in suburban Minnesota, I overheard two 12 year old white boys call each other 'son'."
"Seconded."
"All in favor say Aye. Ayes have it."
"Damn, we only got 2 years out of that. Dawg went before its time, too. Damn that Randy Jackson."
Of course, SNL doesn't have enough black people to populate such a scene, but still. I can easily picture Andy Samberg as the guy crouching underneath the window sill outside with a notepad.
@Diablevert
Uh, son has been around much longer than 2 years. I'm 29 & I was sayin' it in high school.
Wasn't there just such a sketch on Mad TV? I distinctly remember a group with a chalkboard planning to foist of the term "ebola" on white America as a synonym for "cool."
I thought it was In Living Color, and they were using "ebola" as a substitute for "Da Bomb"
Speaking of, some post-racial words of wisdom from Rodney and Reginald:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/5032/in-living-color-rodney-and-reginald#s-p6-st-i0
Here's why I thought line dancing was a white thing. When I was a kid we had to do it as some youth activity at my church (Mormon - it doesn't get whiter than that). Years later (after I'm no longer a Mormon) I'm listening to The Coup and Boots Riley belts out a line about white people line dancing with their Ford financing or something like that.
It's the Repo Man track.
Fascinating. I, too (until quite recently) was under the impression that line dancing was white.
Now I see. Line dancing is a black tradtion; line dancing lamely is a white one.
Here's some info from my research on the Moonwalk and 'Marcel Marceau/Michael Jackson' axis. Actually, Jackson and Marceau were on good terms. Visit my blog for the full story and see a pic of them on stage together...
Zita Allen points out in her essay ‘From Minstrel Show to Concert Stage’ on the Free to Dance companion series (PBS website) that minstrel performer, Billy Kersands, was feted for a dance called the Virginia Essence. Allen remarks that this dance “sounds reminiscent of Michael Jackson's ‘Moonwalk’.” Kersands was said to move “forward without appearing to move his feet at all, by manipulating his toes and heels rapidly, so that his body is propelled without changing the position of his legs.” In the Moonwalk Jackson appears to literally glide backwards across the floor while moving forwards at the same time.
Others have claimed that Jackson took it from Charlie Chaplin, while a report on the death of Marcel Marceau, the mime artist, by John Lichfield, claims that Jackson "based his moonwalk routine on Marceau's sketch of a man walking against the wind" sketch. ['Silence falls on Marcel Marceau, master of the mime', Independent, 24/9/07)
The Moonwalk is also said to be a development of the Camel Walk, a dance move popular in the 1920s among flappers. However, in this instance the step was executed by couples and seems to have been based on the movement of a camel on the sand... The Camel Walk evolved into anpther move in the 1960s, made famous by James Brown, one of Jackson's greatest sources of inspiration. You can watch Brown doing the Camel Walk - among others - here:
http://tackyraccoons.com/2007/09/01/do-the-camel-walk/
You can also see a remarkable version of the Moonwalk by Black tap dancer, Bill Bailey, in this clip from 1955:
http://www.maniacworld.com/original-moonwalk.html
The Moonwalk was certainly known among black break dancers of Brooklyn, Harlem, the Bronx and Queen’s, New York. A less slick version of the move Jackson perfected can be seen on the video to the song 'Street Dance' (1983) by the black trio, Break Machine. Jackson is said to have been taught the move by television’s Soul Train dancers ‘Caspar’ and Jeffrey Daniel.
Phew! Hope that is of interest!
The 'Slide' was invented by a white guy? I always thought of it as a black thing gone out of fashion that white people picked up (or killed).
Course, maybe that's cause I went to a school that was about 50% black. I can still remember middle school dances with our black-power Home Ec teacher leading us during the Electric Slide. Ah, Coatesville... (the name of my home town, not my nickname for this blog)
I don't know where Michael Jackson cribbed the Moonwalk from. But what I do know is that by the time he rocked it in Motown 25 (which 25 years later sounds quaint) we'd already been doing it a couple of years in Detroit.
As for the electric slide...known in Detroit as the hustle? We've got more flavors than Baskin Robbins. And I say that as the 1992 National Association of Black Journalists Electric Slide Champ. (even though i snuck in....)
If you really want to screw with white people's heads, just remind them that Africa was the birth place of civilization, and Jesus was black.
All I have to say is check out the closing credits of the movie "The Best Man," and you will see a whole host of black folk doing the slide. And they are doing the slide to Cameo's song "Candy."
@ Judith Coyle: Thanx for the linkage. The Hardest Working Man in Show Business was one of a kind.
@ Andrea: If you really want to screw with white people's heads, just remind them that there were and are more white slaves than black slaves. Read Dr.Thomas Sowell's "Black Rednecks and White Liberals." Very enlightening.
There are only three races of humans: Negro, Asian, and Caucasian, and a lot of us are a mix. No shoulder chips here. =)
Whoa. You folks publish P.J.O'Rourke? I hereby retract all my previous sarcastic comments in deference to the God of Awesome.
On behalf of my Dutch compatriots, I am willing to bear total responsibility on this forum for Holland being the birthplace of the Chicken Dance, and the Smurf Song.
The writer of the Smurf Song, who may also be the godfather of the Chicken Dance, is definitely not black, I assure you.(This should get your spirits up in a big way, TNC).
The Electric Slide, however, did not originate from these shores. And never made the big jump our way, either, so I have really no idea what you are all talking about. Some kind of arcane dance, I did get that. Post something on YouTube, anyone? Ta-Nehisi, a home-made clip for the uninitiated?
Damn, does this mean us white folk are going to have to pay each time we use it from now on? Can you say "cultural reparations"?
I remember learning the Hustle/Electric slide at Freshman Orientation in college in 1975, so it was pretty well entrenched in (Inland Empire California) white culture by then. Didn't see another line dance till I came out a few years later. Most of the gay dance clubs had line dance lessons on some night during the week. Served the same purpose as it did at Orientation, now that I think of it: an ice breaker for the shy ones (me), and a chance for folks without dates (also usually me) to get up and dance.
The (white) guy who says he invented the Electric Slide and wants everyone to pay him for the privilege of dancing it at weddings stole it from a black guy, of course. The Electric Slide was invented, like so many other things, by George Washington Carver.
If the Electric Slide really is the same thing as the Hustle (which makes sense now that you mention it), it has been entirely mainstream for everyone since the 70s. Pop culture wasn't nearly as segregated back then, as I recall.
As for the Chicken Dance, I've heard most European countries claim it at one time or another. But I've only ever met one African American woman who admitted to doing it, and she's married to a white guy. Do black people ever Chicken Dance when there are no white people around?
Hee Haw was a direct descendant of Soul Train?
@MC - i believe the Chicken Dance can only be danced if white people are present.
as a biracial black woman, i must sheepishly admit to liking the weird absurdity of the Chicken Dance, especially when danced in the middle of a corn field during a summer in Ann Arbor Township after drinking a whole bucket of beer. clearly, it was the alcohol that made me do it. and the white people.