Ch. 16: Breakdancing and Breakthroughs
The second time my blackness earned me a standing ovation at my predominantly white high school
Author’s note: this is the 16th chapter in the satirical memoir “Dungeons ’n’ Durags: One Black Nerd’s Epic Quest of Self-discovery, Racial Identity, and Crisis of Faith in Trump’s America.” If you’re all caught up, you can skip the “Previously on” intro. If you want to catch up before reading, start here.
Previously, on Dungeons ’n’ Durags…
My name is Ron. I’m a black man who has lived my entire adult life in a white world.
Up until November 2016, that was fine. Then the 2016 presidential election threw me for a loop. Friends I thought I knew were saying shit I never dreamed they believed. I had to speak out.
The once nice, apolitical, Christian, “white safe” Ron had become the proverbial “angry black man,” calling white people on their privilege, fellow Christians on their hypocrisy, and causing a ruckus.
Miraculously an angel dressed as Sam Jackson’s character Jules from “Pulp Fiction” has come to help me “be more black.” (It’s quite possible he’s actually a devil. The jury is still out on that.)
There are many reasons that might explain how my life ended up as “white” as it did. The images on TV that flooded the airwaves definitely had an impact. But perhaps the single most significant milestone in my young life that drove me down the path to becoming a real-life “Carlton Banks,” was my time at South Pasadena High School.
Last week I shared how my blackness earned my very first standing ovation from my predominantly white high school. Today I will share the second time my blackness earned me a standing ovation at my predominantly white high school. It was an event that quite literally changed the direction of my whole life.
Did you ever see the John Hughes teen comedy about the black kid from “da hood” that goes to a predominantly white school and becomes the equivalent of the “black Ferris Bueller”? No? Oh, that’s right. John Hughes didn’t cast black people in his movies.
What I’m remembering, again, is my own childhood. And no, I wasn’t referring to myself as the black kid from da hood. I was referring to one Chris Spencer.
Chris is a successful comedian, award-winning writer, executive TV producer, comedy show host, and now music video director. His Instagram feed is chock full of snaps rubbin’ elbows, playing golf, and hanging out with the veritable royalty of black Hollywood.
But back in the mid-’80s, he was the wise-crackin’, dashing, and infinitely charming junior from Inglewood, CA, newly transplanted to the wide-white world of South Pasadena. And his presence was instantly felt.
It’s hard to really capture the essence that was (even still is) Chris. When I described him as a black Ferris, I wasn’t joking. Everyone loved this dude: the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads — they all adored Chris. The best way I can describe him is, think Eddie Murphy in “Beverly Hills Cop,” except instead of a police force, it was a high school, and I was sort of like his black Billy Rosewood.
Chris was a laugh a minute. And he was one of those dudes that was just as comfortable hanging with his homeboys from Inglewood as he was with the preps from South Pas.
As luck would have it, his Jamaican mother was old friends with my Jamaican stepdad. That meant that I got a chance to hang out with him during lunches from time to time. (In retrospect, I have to believe he was told by his mom to let the poor, goofy, nerdy kid hang with him. I can think of no other reason he’d give me the time of day). And the first lesson he taught me was this:
Dude. If you’re gonna hang with me, you gotta put away your backpack. Put that shit in your locker.
I LOVED my backpack. My favorite part of the yearly back-to-school shopping experience was picking a new backpack. Putting it away in my locker was hard. I know how Dany must have felt in Season 4 of Game of Thrones when she locked up her two dragons after they killed that kid. That’s how I felt putting my backpack in my locker during lunch. But, it was a price worth paying to hang out with Chris.
Hanging with Chris taught me so much. I studied his suaveness. His way of charming literally everyone, from students to faculty. There is perhaps no stronger aphrodisiac in a white school than a tall, charming, good lookin’, funny black kid with a killer smile and joke for every occasion. I learned up-close what a ladies’ man looked like. (Note: learning it and pulling it off are two completely different things.)
Slowly but surely, the nerd-like husk that was my backpack, oversized corduroys, and buster brown shoes, shed and transformed into Izod shirts, Members Only sports jackets, and penny loafers (sans socks, of course). But the real breakthrough, the event that is probably the single most profound turning point in my young life, was the talent show that school year.
The one black stereotype I actually did live up to
Despite my affinity for elf culture and Star Wars lore, I did have one thing going for me — I could dance. (I know. It’s somewhat cliché and even ironic that in a book about breaking black stereotypes, it was the #1 black stereotype that shaped my future.)
Dancing has always played a role in breaking me out of my shell and endearing me to friends. From breakdancing in high school, to club dancing in college, to swing dancing and Lindy Hop in my late 20s and early 30s).
If you recall, break dancing was that dance craze that blew up in the ’80s and remarkably still has staying power. Not too long ago I saw a documentary about the top breakdancers in the world. While it’s cool seeing how the dance has held its own over the past three decades, the popularity of it is nothing like it was back in the early to mid ’80s.
Movies like “Breakin’” and “Beat Street” were blockbuster juggernauts. They were like the West Coast/East Coast battle of the breakdancing movies. And in this retired breakdancer’s opinion, “Breakin’” was very cartoonish and the dancing, while not bad, paled in comparison to what you got from “Beat Street.” (And I kinda had the hots for the character of Kelly in “Breakin.’” And in case you’re wondering,’ no I didn’t have a thing for Rae Dawn Chong in “Beat Street.” But, I actually did have a thing for her in “Soul Man.” Which, in retrospect, given the themes and controversy of that movie, is tragically ironic.)
And despite my nerdy exterior, I could breakdance. Sorta. Chris was a pretty good pop-locker, so we decided to perform together for the school talent show (for me, this was like that scene in the Bradly Cooper/Lady GaGa version of “A Star is Born” where Bradley invites GaGa’s character to sing with him on stage for the first time).
Chris and I made up a loose routine that we threw together in his family room. We would do a mime routine of a baseball game. He’d throw me the “ball” by passing a wave to me (as in the pop-locking move where you move your arms in such a way that they look like rubber). I’d pretend to hit it, then moonwalk around the bases (I hope I don’t need to describe the Moonwalk.)
The talent show would take place during the Friday morning assembly. One by one, the routines went down. Not including my own, all but one were totally forgettable. (I hope no one from my alma mater in one of those is reading this now. If so, sorry). Anyway, the only other act I remember was the dual drummers. They were pretty amazing. I was kind of nervous.
Chris and I were up next. For outfits, I got green doctor scrubs from my stepdad, jeans, white gloves, and shades.
The MC approached the mic.
“And now, for our final act, we have Chris Spencer and Ron Dawson as ‘Freak and Zoid.’ Let’s hear it for them.”
Do you remember your high school dance days? Nerdy kids sitting on the bleachers ogling over the cute cheerleaders and jocks leaning against the wall, checking out the dance floor like cheetahs on the prowl? And there would be those popular songs that whenever they came on, everyone would excitedly rush the dance floor — jocks, nerds, babes, and all! Well, in the fall of 1983, at South Pasadena High School, that song for us was “Freak-a-Zoid” by Midnight Star. Whenever that song came on everyone would go crazy—the white kids, the Asian kids, the Hispanic kids, the half dozen or so of us black kids. We all went wild. (I jest. There were more black kids than that. I’m sure. I think.)
So there was Chris and me, backstage of the assembly. Waiting for our cue. Then the lights came down. The audience quieted. And from the ceiling speakers you could hear…
Freak-a-zoid robots, please report. Freak-a-zoid robots, please report to the dance floor.
At the sound of that song coming on, the crowd erupted in a thunderous roar. Then Chris pop-locked onto the stage and I Moonwalked. And oh…my…god. Everyone lost their collective shit. They immediately rose to their feet.`
I did every breakdance trick I knew in the book (it was a very short book, I might say). And the piece-de-resistance was when I spun on my back. I must have done at least, oh, I don’t know, two or three revolutions. The crowd lost even more shit.
By the time the song and our act ended, we stood and bowed on stage to applause that must have lasted 5 minutes. (It is entirely possible that my ADHD brain is remembering this whole affair a tad more exuberantly than it actually happened. But, they stood for what seemed like a long freaking time.)
No one would ever look at me the same again. In the immortal words of another Dawson, Jack Dawson to be exact — I was “King of the World”.
And that, my friends, was the second time my blackness earned me a standing ovation at my white high school.
Reality Check is a Beyatch!
There’s nothing like getting a standing ovation for doing a breakdance routine in a predominantly white high school to give a young black youth an inflated sense of ego and confidence in what truly was only mediocre breakdancing ability (I could never even do a helicopter). That became abundantly clear later that afternoon at my wrestling match.
When my wrestling team traveled to an inner-city tournament later that day, I was ready to bring on my A-game during the breaks between matches. I was Freak (or was I Zoid? I forget). Anyway, a bunch of us all went out to the quad at the high school where the tourney was held, boomboxes and cardboard mats in hand. I was ready for some serious b-boy battling.
It’s the same for every breakdance dance-off. A bunch of kids gathers in a circle as one by one, tough-looking dudes in parachute pants, Fila sweat jackets, and kango’s take turns to show their stuff. That is where reality gave me a real kick in the ass.
While the ability to do 2 or 3 revolutions spinning on my back at my high school was enough to garner a standing ovation, once I went out against b-boys from, um, shall we say, a more culturally diverse environment (
My abilities paled in comparison (no pun intended) to the dudes I saw at the wrestling tournament. Coin drops. Windmills. Head spins. These cats were the real deal. I was just a squirrel trying to get a nut.
Sam: Now that is some funny shit.What the hell? Why the freak-a-zoid does this ass-wipe always show up at the most inopportune times?
He’s baaaaaaaack!
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