The Foul Train

My name is Raynesha and I'm here to say, I'm a retard in motion so get outta my way! (*cue scritch scratchin' wikka wikka noises and a hot beat!) Get ready to pop it and rock it, 'cause you gotta break it to make it!* And thus begins another episode of TV's newest Soul Train rip-off: Dance 360! Hosted by the ever-annoying Kel Mitchell, the other half of the now defuct TV show Keenan and Kel. And how Keenan got to be a cast member of Saturday Night Live is beyond my realm of imagination. But I digress. Dance 360 is the show where you BRING IT! I'm not sure what "it" is yet, but I think "it's" a combination of the following things: [1] The surplus wardrobe from the 1985 film Fast Forward, [2] A mild (to extreme) case of retardation and [3] Plenty of At-ti-tude! Hay! Ho!

First though, before I get too deep into this blog entry, lemme say a few positive things about this show: The music is kickin'! On the rare occasion I can sit through an entire episode, I do (usually) like the music. Good beats. And, the show cracks me UP! It's not necessarily the dancing, though sometimes that's pretty lame too. And speaking of lame, you may be asking yourself "But what do the people get who bring it?" Well, the winners get $360 and an X-Box.

But, it's the PEOPLE that are fuckin' hilarious, 'cause you KNOW these kids think this all began with You Got Served. Au contraire, mon frere! Rent the movie Breakin' or if you really like cheese with a dance beat, rent Girls Just Want To Have Fun. Back to the kids. White kids with faux "street cred'" abound in the audience. My favorites are pictured in panel 2, 3 and 5 in the image above. The chick in the 2nd panel, whose name is probably something like "Darlene" or "Tiffany," apparently got her outfit at JLo's Discount Digs and had this to say: "I'm gonna kick it, like it's HOT!," then proceeded to add some wibbly wobbly shoulder action. AWETHOME! Then, probably muttered under her breath, "don't tell my parents I'm here." Then, of course, there's panels 3 and 5, which pretty much sum up the majority of people on the show that make me laugh the most. The faces. The posturing. The faux attitude. It all combines for hilarity. If nothing else, tune in for, what we used to call them "back in the day": wiggers. UrbanDictionary.com defines a wigger as: "A White Kid pretending to act like hes Black, s/he has appalling spelling and grammar skills and usually finds it hard to speak proper english."

And while we're on the issue of "ebonics," I gotta share these two items I found online while looking for some insight into the world of ebonics. The first panel is the grand prize winner in the 1998 Athena awards, a graphic design contest held every year. The creators of this award-winning design are Austin Kelley Advertising. The design was created for Atlanta's Black Professionals, in order to convey "...credibility and freedom"

The second panel shows an actual children's book written on the subject of ebonics. After reading some explanations for why ebonics exist, I had to stop, for fear my head would explode. I am so over the knee-jerk reaction of using slavery as an excuse for every goddamn thing that comes along that black people don't like. Slavery was abolished in the 1800's. Yeah, I know it wasn't immediate, my point is it's HISTORY. What does it have to do with me today? Nothing. All those people who owned slaves are DEAD. Sure the attitudes may not be, but it's like anything else, you gotta weed out the ignorant assholes and embrace the cool people. If you don't you're just going to make yourself and everyone around you miserable.

*Tagline from the movie Breakin'. You can see clips from the show at their website: dance360.net