Except that the sentiment, that Ford popularized a dance nobody gave a shit about for racist reasons is actually true, and everybody dogpiling on Doctrow screaming Fake News! is deliberately missing the point.
But since the rightwing lost the popular culture war some time around the 60’s, it’s not surprising to see people desperately grasping at straws, and continuing to willfully misconstrue the argument in defense of white “heritage” (of scrambling to keep black culture out of the public eye).
The interesting point to note is that Cory is right and wrong at the same time.
Square dances (as in, four couples arranging themselves in a square and dancing) have been around for a very long time and indeed predate the establishment of the United States. The references to Playford’s English Dancing Master are appropriate. When people immigrated to what eventually became the USA they brought their dances with them and some of them were “square dances”. Depending on where the folks in question went, in some areas these dances became a dominant form and eventually evolved into something that we would recognise as “square dancing” today.
What “Pappy” Shaw invented, with funding from Henry Ford, was basically what is known today as “Modern Western square dance”, as opposed to “traditional square dance”. The difference between the two is that MWSD is standardised and has a huge lobby behind it, while TSD has various regional styles that differ from one another. TSD relies more on fixed choreographies while MWSD is based on impromptu choreography by the caller, drawing on a centrally standardised repertoire of movements. Both forms still exist and are being practiced but MWSD is much more widespread. If you’re doing square dance outside the USA, you’re probably doing MWSD.
It is reasonable to assume that people doing MWSD today don’t think of it as “racist” or a “hoax”. If it was originally intended by Henry Ford to get people off “black” music, it has failed spectacularly as MWSD uses many types of music including genres considered “black”.
ParaPara was a popular line dancing fad in Japan back in the 90s. I regret that I actually learned a few routines thanks to playing entirely too much ParaParaParadise in the arcade.
I really hope not. That would make him just as bad a hypocrite as the people he opposes.
If it was just the headline, that would be one thing. When the article is wrong then I have issue. One is drawing people in, the other is doing bad things to them once they are here.
Except that … we accept that “Ford popularized … for racist reasons”. Nobody here is grasping at straws or wilfully misconstruing any ‘sentiment’ in defense of “white heritage”. The only misconstruing here is Cory’s. And he does it deliberately to provoke a “sentiment”, which precise facts slightly get in the way of (by limiting his hyperbole if stuck to). We know someone else who deals only in hyperbole and in sentiment that does not brook facts getting in the way of. What some are saying is “Cory, we are better than that - please don’t act in ways that could result in an equally valid call of ‘fake news’”. That is all.
Not that it makes up for Henry Ford’s dubious motivations but he also promoted fiddling contests one of which earned Uncle Bunt Stephens a recording session that preserved some very beautiful songs for us to enjoy over 90 years later.
Just add “The promotion of” to the start of the title and you’re all good
Well, yah.
Many of Cory’s headlines and posts can be made factual by just changing the wording a bit here or there.
But then of course they say something rather different than what he actually said:
“Square dancing was a racist hoax…”
“The promotion of square dancing was a racist hoax…”
See the difference?
Heck, if I can just add a few words here or there, maybe rearrange a phrase or three, thereby totally changing the meaning of what was written, I can fix almost ALL of Cory’s “Daily Outrage-a-thon” posts. (-:
I wish! Sadly the type of coordination required is, at least for me, very different. I’ve been doing martial arts since I was 5. Yet while many have tried to teach me to dance, none succeeded.
No, people are repeatedly throwing out the entire article and its premise based on what you said, because white people being told their heritage (that is less than a century old and is artificial) is based on racism get really mad when you point it out.
I mean, I’d like to say it’s not nitpicking reactionaries grasping at a minor mistake in presentation as if that negates the entire content, but it’s obvious that’s exactly what it is, and it’s pathetic.
I don’t see many people throwing out the whole article, and I think you see more than there is. And certainly nobody is doing so based on what I said. (Though I’ll grant you the benefit of the doubt that this may not have been what you meant when you wrote “based on what you said”)
I have not remotely tried to negate the entire thrust of the content and I did in fact write
But I have pointed out that misrepresenting small but significant parts of the story in very knowing and very deliberate ways does not do the thrust of the content much good.
This is the most succinct representation of the broader issue in this post
There is a world of difference between square dancing itself being a racist hoax and its promotion in a particular place and time being motivated by racism.
So stop telling me (us?) I’m racist merely for pointing that out ('cos that’s what it feels like you really want to say).
Let me be clearer. I do not want those racists who cannot accept (“get really mad”) that their “white heritage” is based on racism to be afforded even the smallest opportunity to gainsay the fact that Ford promoted square dancing for racist reasons. (I.e. I also do not want people to throw out the whole article based on the parts in question.)
Cory’s declaration that square dancing itself is a racist hoax, affords them that opportunity. That is what I suspect that many of us protesting about his loose (deliberately sensationalist?) use of language are concerned about. I hope that is clear.
(And in passing, whatever else may be artificial or less than a century old about white heritage, square dancing is much more than a century old as others have pointed out.)
I know right? Either all the long time members here are all reactionary nitpickers, or you might just be picking up on the fact that it isn’t just this one piece, but rather a downward trend of wildly innacurate reporting based on sensational misunderstandings and assumptions with zero fact checking in a certain “unnamed subset” of articles.
Who can know which? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ lol.
People who care about this site can either just keep quiet and walk away, or they can speak up and let it be known that they don’t appreciate sensationalist fake news that is factually wrong. Even just 5min of fact checking before posting would be appreciated. What you view as pathetic, is people caring about this site, many of whom have been a part of our community for years and years.
Personally I’m glad people care and are speaking up and I hope things start going back the other direction.
I think in this case there is a real story there, and it is an interesting one. Too bad we don’t get the real story here, and have to find that elsewhere. When there are enough mistakes or false claims in a piece it undermines any kernel of truth that might have originally been there.
