There are two major camps pushing for social change in many Anglophone swing dance communities these days. One of them has generally been more effective than the other.
The first of the two camps is the feminist one. It’s the camp fighting against heteronormativity, encouraging the assertion of queer and gender-nonconforming identity, and reclaiming important historical figures who had their sexuality or gender presentation relegated to the closet of time.
The second is the one trying to draw attention to how weird and messed up it is that the community that has cropped up around art that came out of and was forged by the Black American experience has so many white folks participating and running the show that there are white supremacists who have co-opted photographs from modern lindy and blues events claiming that they’re white art forms.
With such strong and just causes, it should be a no-brainer to put the same amount of care and energy into both, right? And to be fair, there are many people in both groups—but it still doesn’t change the fact that one of them has largely been more successful in changing attitudes and making spaces more accessible to their respective communities than the other.
As some reading this may know, the Breakaway recently organized a scholarship to give people from communities currently underrepresented in modern swing dance the opportunity to attend Swingin’ at the Savoy, an annual lindy workshop here in Oakland that celebrates the history of the lindy hop and honours those who came before us. I want to discuss one of the applications we received, because I think it succinctly demonstrates what I’m trying to say; by the time this post gets published, our decisions would have been finalized and sent out, so I feel comfortable talking about it. Because I don’t believe in public shaming, I will also be omitting any possible identifying information.
Before I elaborate, I just want to emphasize that this is my own take on the issue, unendorsed by and completely separate from the Breakaway; this is being published on my personal blog and not the Breakaway’s, after all. Still, my position as a community organizer who identifies as a queer person of colour is precisely why I feel a responsibility to finally discuss in public these opinions I’ve long held behind closed doors.
What most people reading this probably don’t know is that I was the person who took on the task of designing the scholarship process, which encompassed every thing from the application to how we were going to judge. I put a lot of thought behind our demographics questions in particular because I knew that if I wrote them in a specific way, it could be the clearest way to expose bigotry while also ensuring inclusivity. To that point, I decided to ask for pronouns instead of gender and to make answering the question about their race and ethnicity required. I gave them the option to answer “Other” for both questions—thus creating an opportunity for people to answer with something transphobic or racist.
I wanted to believe that everyone in our target audience would pass the test because it was so easy; they’re two basic questions that shouldn’t be difficult to truthfully answer without questioning them. I was thoroughly disappointed to see one person fail: they were completely okay answering “he/him/his” and yet they deliberately chose to answer the race and ethnicity question with “no thanks.”
A simple “prefer not to say” would have been iffy considering the point of the event, but still ultimately neutral enough to let pass. “No thanks,” on the other hand, is exactly the kind of egregiously dismissive and patronizing that should automatically disqualify a candidate.
It’s impossible to be colourblind when it comes to race. Any attempts to address the white elephant in the room without accepting that are doomed to fail before they’ve even begun. Equally doomed are the attempts that have no involvement from people of colour; they don’t have to be part of the core organizing team—though it helps—but there’s simply no way to understand how to best address the needs of the local community without asking the dancers of colour in your life. If your scene is specifically inaccessible to Black folks, talk to Black dancers; every race navigates white society in different ways.
That all sounds pretty abstract, but think about it this way: if your local dance scene is LGBTQ+-friendly, look at the people who pushed hardest for those changes and look at the people that organizers consulted. How many of them identify as queer? How many of them are trans? Do you think efforts to be more inclusive would have been this successful without all of them?
Every local scene is different, and the only way to address inequities is to have conversations with friends whose communities are directly affected by it. (But please, be sure before you ask that they’re willing to give feedback, and be patient if they want to but not at the very moment you’re asking. Providing emotional labour to people who haven’t lived through your experience is exhausting, and not everyone can expend that kind of energy.)
It’s tempting to try solutions that have helped other communities, but each community is unique and something that works in one may not work in another. Despite that, the root of all solutions start in the same place: open-minded discussions and a willingness to accept your subconscious biases when they’re pointed out to you. Don’t invalidate people who make you pay attention and don’t push back out of defensiveness—just listen. It’s not enough to bring all the organizers in your scene onboard with these ideals; you also need to recognize when any of you are failing to stay in your respective lanes.
If you’ve tried to address the racial disparities in your scene by centering these ideas and it looks like the status quo still hasn’t shifted, don’t forget: change takes equal amounts of time, stubborn effort, and being vocal. It also takes a lot of failure before starting to take root.