Trigger Warning: Mention of rape

Twerking is a high-energy and creative dance. People twerk in battles, dance classes, videos, parties, restaurants, and all places where emotions and crowd circles can form. Songs with rhythmic tempos or words like “bow bow bow” accompany twerking videos of people of all ethnicities. Twerking can be done on other people, on walls, in splits, or through isolating and connecting.

The versatility of the dance is incredible, especially when you consider its variations created by people of African descent. Unfortunately, twerking has been disregarded as an obscene way to attract wandering eyes or show off, dismissing people who twerk as immoral, fast, or attention-seeking. 

This damaging belief is attributed to European colonization implemented to disconnect people of African descent from their culture. 

The known origin of twerking is the Mapouka (the dance of the behind) from Côte d’Ivoire, a West African country. It happened in village and community gatherings, religious ceremonies, and joyous celebrations, like marriages. It was typically women who danced to rhythmic music played by drums. 

Due to the TransAtlantic Slave Theft that took and spread people from African countries, there are countless forms of the dance. In the Caribbean, the infamous dutty (dirty) whine focuses on the rotational movement of the waist. In North America, some variations are ring shouts that transferred from plantations to Black American churches, Josephine Baker’s banana dance, the jitterbug, and bucking by Southern majorettes. 

The term twerk combines the words twist and jerk and was coined in 1993 by New Orleans Rapper DJ Jubilee. 

On a local level, perfecting the move can become a collective celebration in twerking communities, cities, or households, especially when a group has added its own spin. 

Within the body, twerking provides mental and physical health benefits. According to the Cicero Health Department, emotional stress and trauma can reside in a person’s hips. Hip-opening movements are required to release it, and twerking does just that.

Despite the widespread tradition of twerking, it is not widely accepted, even in its birthplace. 

In 2000, Cameroon, a Central African country, banned public twerking. In the BBC News article “Anger at Cameroon dance ban,” Journalist Francis Ngwa-Niba reports that twerking was banned for causing “public immorality”, as people danced with little clothing. However, roaming topless is common in African countries, and even more so before European colonization. So how could dancing in regular attire be considered immoral?

An anonymously interviewed person said, “The governor cannot send troops to bars and nightclubs to stop us from dancing Mapouka. Even if he does, we will still sing and dance Mapouka in our cars and in our houses.” His words are a sign of resistance, of strength, but why do Africans have to be strong and fight to embrace their own culture? Why was it deemed unacceptable in the first place?

In European colonization of African countries, shame became a colonial export. In bell hooks’ book, “Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem”, the cultural critic explains how shaming Africans for their culture was a way of disconnecting them from it. This made it easier to implant European ways of living into them. 

The sexualization of twerking also fetishizes big butts, a trait common among people of African descent, creating bodily shame. 

Whether the enforcer is a local political force or a colonizer, there is a trend of limited acceptance of cultural display.

In North America, twerking has been hypersexualized and demonized as ghetto or inappropriate. These terms are ironic since Black culture is set center stage when a profit can be acquired. 

Does anyone remember when Miley Cyrus twerked at the 2013 Music Television Video Music Awards (MTV VMAs)? Non-Black people are allowed to twerk, but it was her sudden switch-up that is troubling. 

Black female culture was embedded in her hypersexual era. Jordan shoes, grills, and the rappers featured in her songs united with her sexual appearances to bury her child actress, good girl image.

Twerking is seen as a modern, empowering means of sexual liberation, casting people who twerk as confident and “strong” for rebelling against the norm. However, similar to the interviewed Cameroonian person, they are rebelling by force. Black people are strong in displaying their culture because so many judgments and constraints come with it. 

Unfortunately, practices like twerking have been so exploited for profit that you only see it in sexual manners. Putting twerking through this harmful lens associates Black girls and women with sexual confidence, which is a belief that has been manipulated since slavery. 

The Jezebel stereotype, the belief that Black girls and women are inherently sexual temptresses, is used to justify raping them historically and in contemporary times. Equating a dance Black girls and women practice with sex and sex alone is not revolutionary; it reinforces colonial beliefs. Cyrus’s sexual performances also reinforced colonial beliefs. 

Behind-the-scenes producers and managers who employ and amplify Black people, their bodies, and their artistic expressions, like twerking, usually demote them to being sexual, dangerous, or cool. This is then perpetuated by people like Cyrus, who wish to gain popularity, and thus profit, off of this image. All of this minimization denies the wholeness of Black people and their art. 

Twerking is one feature of Black creativity that has stayed alive; in fact, it has thrived. It is an exciting dance celebrating Black resistance and genius.

It is imperative that we, as a collective, desexualize twerking, so Black people of all genders and locations can openly connect with their ancestors and express themselves without worrying about others’ judgments.

We should utilize its popularity and change the public’s perception. Unfortunately, I doubt another style of twerking or a well-regarded person twerking will eliminate the stigma.

I believe it starts with us expanding its use, and centering it as an emotional expression, not just sexual. 

Twerk while you are happy, sad, mad, glad, beautiful, ugly, playful, serious. Major news outlets used to tie breakdancing to gang culture and crime, and now it is an Olympic sport. Restoration is definitely possible.

Educate yourself and others to create real, lasting, and collective liberation. Our hips have always been instruments of joy, no matter what dance we use them in. Just please use them. Next time you feel the urge, shake ya tailfeather with pride.