Quote:
Originally Posted by ladygreek
The only history or meanings I recognize are the ones in our offical tools. Shoot, other folx collected elephants way before Deltas did. And yes I lived "stepping" being derived from dance steps, marching bands, drum and bugle corps, etc., and other precision step avenues. So yes, we may have put a spin on them, but we did not create them, not were they that unique.
So please enlighten me and tell me the deep meaning behind it, as well as calls, hand signs, and crossing jackets--to the point that we are offended at others doing these things. Somehow I missed that in my 38 years as a continually active Delta.
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Believe it or not, there is a whole lot that we do as African Americans that connect us to our African heritage without us even knowing it...it's in our blood. I'm learning this more and more with each passing year that I spend married to my Ghanian husband. I also read a lot about the traditions and culture of African tribal groups...there is just so much that we do that are a reflection of Africa and I think a lot of what we do (as Black people, not only as Black greeks), we don't even know why we do this or that but some things were in fact passed down to us by our ancestors, only the stories behind them were cut off at some point and not passed down. For example, the whole idea of call and response, whether we're chanting and representing our neighborhoods, singing, or doing an NPHC call, that tradition has a history. Another example is that there are many NPHC members who will argue that the art of stepping wasn't formally taught to us, that our brothers and sisters had never actually seen African gumboot performances, but somehow we ended up creating something (pulling from various influences and artforms) that greatly resembled what our African brothers were already doing. In fact, this talk of African gumboot performances and our connection to them is only a very recent phenomenon, a conversation that most of us weren't even having when I was an undergrad in the early 90's, stepping my little heart out.
