Wednesday, July 22, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
In the
PINES
By T. Lee Brown
Cakewalk
I loved cakewalks as a
kid. Local people in our area
of small farms and ranches
in Lane County would bake
cakes. It was a chance to
show off decorating skills or
get a favorite recipe out into
the community.
Cakes stood proudly in
the church9s youth chapel or
the elementary school9s gym
during holidays and school
carnivals. Tickets were sold.
Each contestant walked
around a circle of numbered
chairs while music played.
When the music stopped,
you9d freeze and sit in the
nearest chair. A number was
pulled from a hat, raffle-style.
If you were sitting in the
right chair? You won a cake.
Though I rarely won, I abso-
lutely loved the game.
Thus I was bummed to
hear that some folks consider
the word <cakewalk= racist.
Some are calling for <that
takes the cake= and <piece
of cake= to be removed
from the vocabulary, too. I
took a break from seasonal
Sisters Country matters such
as getting children to rake
pine needles and watering
our COVID Victory Garden
(which has been victori-
ous only for the aphids) to
follow up.
Searching anonymously
through Ecosia.org, I clicked
through on the top link. Here
a conservative blogger com-
plained about CNN publish-
ing a list of racially dubi-
ous terms. They mocked the
news station for considering
the term <master bedroom=
potentially offensive when
it has is no etymological
link to slavery. (Etymology
is the study of word origins,
an activity considered thrill-
ing to nerdy people such as
writers, who probably need
to take up another hobby.
Baking cakes, let9s say.)
Cakewalk was not so
benign. Before it became a
staid and simple church game,
it was a dance performed by
Black slaves for their White
owners in the American
South, sometimes with a
slice of cake as a reward.
Oh. Even the sarcastic
right-wing blogger admitted
they9d learned something
from this one.
Thus began what I
figured would be a quick
bit of research. I9d con-
firm that CNN and Snarky
McBloggerton were correct;
I9d grieve the innocent cake-
walks of my youth; I9d excise
the term from my vocabulary.
What I uncovered was
more nuanced, which is an
elitist way of saying <too
complicated for my little
pea-brain.= Starting around
1850, slaves lampooned the
formal ballroom promenades
of White plantation owners,
incorporating African dance
steps. Somehow this became
a contest, with Whites <invit-
ing= slaves to participate and
then judging their moves.
Making artful fun of
someone who could have
you or your loved ones
whipped or killed sounds
nerve-wracking and complex
to me, but the word cakewalk
came to mean <easy= after
Emancipation 4 because
Black Americans now per-
formed it at their leisure.
A dance called the cake-
walk achieved popularity via
minstrel shows 4 first Black
shows, then Whites wearing
blackface makeup, and then,
in a dizzying mis en abyme,
Black Americans perform-
ing the dance while wearing
blackface makeup.
Minstrel
shows?
Blackface? No contest:
Retire all those cake words
immediately. Right?
Not so fast. On Yehoodi.
com 4 hardly a bastion
$3.6M for water fixes in Warm Springs
SALEM (AP) 4 As the
Warm Springs reservation
goes without safe drinking
water into the fourth week,
Oregon state lawmakers have
approved millions in emer-
gency funding for repairs.
The Confederated Tribes
of Warm Springs issued a
boil water notice June 25
after drinking water system
failures left some residents
with no running water at all,
Oregon Public Broadcasting
reported.
The reservation has issued
more than a dozen such
notices in the last year alone.
Oregon9s emergency board
unanimously on Tuesday
approved $3.58 million from
state reserves to start address-
ing the issue.
The aid request originated
with Rep. Daniel Bonham,
R-The Dalles, whose district
encompasses the reservation.
<Today9s action by the
Legislature9s Emergency
Board doesn9t magically
fix the water crisis within
the Confederated Tribes of
the Warm Springs but that
shouldn9t diminish the impor-
tant work of today,= Bonham
said in a statement.
Last year, he successfully
pushed to earmark $7.8 mil-
lion in state lottery bonds for
reservation water projects.
Last week, the promise of
that money disappeared, the
Bend Bulletin reported.
The next day, Warm
Springs9 utility manager
Travis Wells sent Bonham a
list of critical projects needed
to ensure clean water and to
bring the reservation into
compliance with the federal
Safe Drinking Water Act.
Orders from the
Environmental Protection
Agency have threatened the
tribes with costly fines since
October.
Thousands of public
records obtained by Oregon
Public Broadcasting since
2018 show that tribal, state
and federal officials have been
aware for years of the risks
failing water systems pose
to human and environmental
health in Warm Springs.
Summ er Cleaning!
of White supremacy 4 I
learned that to American
social dance fans, the cake-
walk is important. I browsed
posts like <Why White
dancers need to honor the
Black roots of Lindy Hop=
and watched a video of Rik
<Rikomatic= Panganiban,
whose father immigrated to
the U.S. from the Philippines,
and Manu <Spuds= Smith, a
Black American man, dis-
cussing issues of sexism
and racism in their majority-
White swing dance scene.
Panganiban posted cake-
walk footage from 1903, not-
ing, <There is some subtle
cultural referencing going
on here, being both a satire
of the affected manners of
White high culture and an
expression of Black pride and
joy by the performers. For
a people enslaved, enacting
a cakewalk right in the face
of their oppressors might be
understood as a prideful mid-
dle finger.=
<For now, whenever you
hear the expression that
8takes the cake9 or something
is a 8cakewalk9 remember
13
how brilliant Black slaves
employed the cakewalk as a
subtle but powerful anti-rac-
ist tactic,= he suggested.
Intrigued, I got in touch
with Panganiban. <I don9t
have strong feelings on
whether or not the terms
8cakewalk9 or 8taking the
cake9 should be retired from
contemporary usage&= he
told me via email. <I do feel
that the cakewalk is an impor-
tant grandparent of lindy hop,
and should be taught about
and understood.=
Rikomatic believes danc-
ers shouldn9t perform cake-
walks anymore, <since they
are tangled up in several lay-
ers of racist stereotypes and
oppression. Certainly not a
non-Black dancer. The only
exception would be for illus-
trating the history of dance,
within a sensitively presented
context.=
Fair enough. But what if
taking the cake didn9t origi-
nate in African American
slavery 4 or in America at
all? Tune into our next epi-
sode of <In the Pines= to find
out.
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