Argumentative Essay On Twerking

In US culture today, citizens are constantly coming up with new ideas to disrupt society and raise the eyebrows of older generations, at least for a few months while it’s the new trend. The term has been around for over twenty years; recently there have been more than a few scandals involving celebrities and twerking have made the word bigger than ever, especially in the millennium age. Twerking plays a role in current society by mirroring African Aesthetics in our communities and also allowing participants to partake in a more sexualized hip thrusting. “Twerking” is a social dance usually involving a female dancing to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving hip thrust movements and a low, squatting stance. The music

Twerking is not a new sensation, but the media portrays it to be. By the late 1990’s, hip-hop had been declared as the mainstream of American music. Both Destiny’s Child and other musicians recorded and released songs about twerking. In August 2013, American recording artist Miley Cyrus, caused controversy following a sexually provocative performance during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, in which she twerked during her performance with Robin Thicke. This was one of the most controversial performances on television in the year 2013, as she made it hard for the veiwers to forget. Critics accused her of cultural appropriation, but Miley states she had “hoped to make history” with that performance. "What 's amazing is… people are still talking about it," Cyrus said in an interview with MTV News. "They 're thinking about it more than I thought about it when I did it. Like, I didn 't even think about it cause it was just me being me". Cryus knew she would make history, but probably did not expect the criticism about negatively demonstrating culture appropriation. On stage as well as in her music video, she had black women as her backing singers dancing in a sexual manner. Racism plays back into this performance, embodying black women to be sexual objects. Twerking has been on the rise ever since the media made it a sensation, steadily picking up speed

The dances actually first was seen as what we American’s call “twerking” in Africa. If we move over to a different culture besides the Western one, we see that the origin is in West Africa. This form of dance unites tribes and communities together, usually in celebration. Many tribes in Africa partake in this type of movement, calling it the Mapouka. Twerking, which incorporates many of the same movements including the emphasis on the hips and buttocks, is an evolution of our ancient traditions. Although in West Africa the dance had been looked down upon and described as an infectious disease by officials. Mapouka dancers were being chased away by officials in many neighboring countries like Togo and Niger. Most American’s do not know any of this, or even where twerking originated. To the general public, twerking started in the early 90s, New Orleans was home “bounce” music, a form of hip hop that relied heavily on call-and-response chanting. When white females integrate twerking into their dances they are essentially stealing black culture. Black women have a history of being more harshly judged than white women for display of sexuality. This puts racist stereotypes back into play about black people being a lower social status and degrading the population, even still today in 2015. Black women are seen as embodying sex because of these racist stereotypes.