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Chris Spags Founder and Editor

Sprite sponsored a competition called “Step Off,” which pitted teams against one another in the traditionally black medium of “step” (you know, the stomping and clapping thing). One small problem: A white team from the University of Arkansas won. After lustful booing from the black people in attendance, Sprite awarded the 2nd place all-black team the first place prize too. Commence race-baiting…now.

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 to win last weekend’s national final in the Sprite Step Off competition. A YouTube video of their performance, inspired by the movie “The Matrix,” generated hundreds of comments.

“Good Job but let the Black folks have their own thing for once!!!” wrote one commenter posting under the name “titetowers” who said the Zeta Tau Alpha team did well but should not have won.

Online debate rages over white group’s step win [Associated Press]

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