Hello World!!!

I am feeling a little melancholy, but since I’m paying for this Web site, I guess I need to post…even when I don’t feel like it.

So here’s the topic of discussion for this post…Last week in the A, there was a media storm surrounding the Jonesboro High School dance team. Apparently, the team was disabanded after the girls performed a salacious dance routine at a basketball game last month. The girls, wearing tiny shorts and thigh high stockings, eventually ended up pulling some of the male students from the audience and performed in front of them as they sat in chairs. I cannot imagine being a teacher there and not feeling embarassed…

But here’s the thing…before some of y’all accuse me of being a hypocrite, I was on my high school drill team, and we relished wearing our short shorts and flouncy skirts on Fridays before the football games where we performed during halftime. And while we performed several drills that were not sexual, on occasion, we mixed some dancing into our routines. And we did get a little sexy sometimes…in fact, I made it a point to never invite my parents (namely my father) to a single game to see me perform…he would have NOT been pleased, and he might have forbidden me to be on the drill team had he known what was up. (Think the movie “Footloose!” Ha, ha) I was on the drill team for three years, and if my memory is correct, during my final year on the team,  the captain of our drill team was a girl who aspired to be a stripper…at least that was the rumor….so you can guess what some of our routines looked like…

So did I ever feel embarassed about some of our more suggestive dance routines…somewhat…I certainly never wanted anyone from my church to see me perform…but I did feel a strange sense of power in moving my body that way. Maybe the media contributed to the issue…I don’t know…but there is something about being a teenage girl that makes you want to test the limits of the power you have in shakin’ whatcha mama gave ya…Now should that be on display for the whole student body to see?…that’s another issue…

So if the media is a contributing factor in influencing young women to be overly sexualized in their dancing and other forms of expression, can we really blame them since that type of expression is seen as lucrative and powerful in other arenas? Remember Destiny’s Child “Cater 2 U” performance? That choreography included gyrating, chairs and men as well, and there was no uproar about that…

A fellow blogger and friend discusses her angst her with Beyonce, Booty-Shaking and Child Raising on her blog, enjoyceinglife.blogspot.com. Check out it…good insights there…

Anyway, I remember what is was like to to wanna shake whatcha mama gave ya for everyone to see…Truth be told, I still enjoy that on occasion, but I also realize that allowing our girls to be overly sexualized is very detrimental and can lead to women believing that much of their power is in their bodies rather than in their minds and spirits…

What do you think? (The video of the Jonesboro High School dance team routine is at the head of this post. By the way, you can hear Beyonce in the background.)

Any thoughts?

P.S. I am a Beyonce fan by the way….:)

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