Online Debate Rages Over White Team's Step Competition Win: ATLANTA – Visit any of the nation's more than 100 historically Black colleges or universities and you'll see clusters of men and women engaged in the rhythmic-clapping and foot-stomping routines known in Black Greek circles as “stepping.”
Now a White Arkansas team's win in an Atlanta step competition has started a fiery debate over the African-inspired tradition and whether the integration of a once-ethnically-exclusive activity constitutes a form of cultural theft.
“What has happened is Black youth culture, what people would call hip hop, sort of made Black culture accessible and appealing to all kinds of people,” said Walter Kimbrough, president of historically Black Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark., and an expert on Black Greek life. “It really now has become an American experience.”
The uproar began when the all-White Zeta Tau Alpha team from the University of Arkansas beat out five other sorority teams Feb. 20 to win the national final in the Sprite Step Off competition. A YouTube video of the performance, inspired by the movie “The Matrix,” generated hundreds of comments.
