You know what's the irony in all this? It's the fact that it's not the black people who said that whities had no rhythm, it's the Europeans who said that black people had "rhythm in their blood". The so called inate sense of rhythm of the "Negro" first appeared in European litterature in
An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853–1855) by Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau is a voluminous work; while originally intended as a work of philosophical enquiry, it is today considered as one of the earliest examples of scientific racism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_the_Inequality_of_the_Human_Races
I personally never read the essay, but I can quote
Cheikh Anta Diop from the
African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality . Diop takes a passage from Gobineau's essay where he writes that "
the Negro sense of rhytm was due to his high emotional apptitude, which is in itself an inferior and primitive manifestation of human nature. And he even compare that tremendous sens of rhythm to the high senses of animals"
So originally, it wasn't meant as a compliment to say that black people had rhytm, but rather to denigrate them. It's the same with the stereotypes regarding penis sizes etc. The put black people in "Human zoos" or on display to prove their theoreis of them being a sub-species, not entirely human with women having exaggerated buttocks and men having disproportionate penises.
It just backfired when many White women found that "myth", the stud stereotype to be very interesting, and when black people's music became more and more popular accross the globe, the having an inate sense of rhytm became a quality.
You can trace all origins of black stereotypes in many essays, thesis and books written by European scholars in the 17th, 18th and even 19th century.
So yes, it's true that many blacks make fun white people because of the way they dance or talk about their so called congenital incapacity to follow rhytm because I've seen it or heard it, but I have been made fun of too and many Africans are laughed at for not being to dance and the European who can casually do African dance or hip hop are praised.
To me it's more a psychological and cultural factor than something having to do with genetics. How young were you when you first heard that white people had no rhytm? Because as soon as you hear this it will stay in your mind no matter what and if you go to a club and see black people dancing or having fun, you will feel insecure. I see all the time. Instead of trying, people are just become self-conscious and are conquered by defeatism
I was just trying to give credit. Oddly enough, I don't like hip-hop much either unless it's really good or off the norm. If you have ever seen America's Best Dance Crew, there was a group called "Jabbawokees" that would just set the stage aflame every time they danced. That's the kind of hip-hop that I can appreciate. I tend to like the classic dances like waltz, tango, foxtrot, all latin, swing and even hustle but I enjoy dancing in every genre. It is the ultimate form of self-expression!
