Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post provides an excerpt from a discussion thread of a YouTube video about a cheer battle between two North Carolina high schools stomp & shake cheerleading squads. This excerpt documents the negative adjectival use of the word "ghetto" as a descriptor of high school stomp & shake cheerleading and/or the cheerleaders themselves.
A video of the cheer battle that prompted this discussion is also included in this post. A commenter identified the e cheerleading squads in this video as 71st High School (Fayetteville, North Carolina) and West Mecklenburg High School -also known as "West Meck"- (Charlotte, North Carolina). I don't know which squad wore which color uniforms.
The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural and linguistic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the two cheerleading squads that are featured in this video and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publisher of this YouTube video.
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This post is part of pancocojams' ongoing series on Stomp & Shake cheerleaders and documents perceptions of that performance activity among YouTube commenters* in 2016 (the years that these comments were published).
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/06/examples-of-negative-adjective-use-of.html for a companion pancocojams post that provides selected examples of the almost always negative adjectival use of the word "ghetto" to describe Winston-Salem State University's (WSSU)'s cheerleading squads.
Also, click the stomp and shake cheerleading tag to find additional pancocojams posts about this type of cheerleading.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
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GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT STOMP & SHAKE CHEERLEADING
Stomp & shake cheerleading is particularly known among African Americans from middle school through university levels in Virginia and North Carolina. University squads perform these cheers on the sidelines of football or basketball games and during half-time of those games. High school and younger squads perform either standing on the sidelines during football games, or while seated or standing in the bleachers during basketball games. Stomp & shake cheers are performed by two squads who face off prior to the competitive games in a "cheer battle". In addition, stomp & shake cheer are performed during cheer competitions and at non-competitive performance events that aren't associated with any athletic games.
Stomp & Shake cheerleading has vehement supporters who love the creativity, innovation, skill, showmanship, "hardness" and "for realness" (according to Black cultural criteria) of this type of cheerleading. However, stomp & shake cheerleading also has vehement detractors who don't consider it to be "real cheerleading", but a form of fraternity/sorority stepping and/or cheer dancing. Stomp & cheer detractors also routinely negatively label stomp & shake cheerleading and its (almost exclusively) Black female squad members as being "ghetto" - i.e. behaving and/or dressing in ways that are highly inappropriate according to middle class standards, particularly behaving and dressing in sexually provocative ("slutty) ways. "Being ghetto" also may mean to act (or to actually be) "loud" and overly aggressive during the cheer performance and elsewhere.
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SHOWCASE VIDEO: Cheer BATTLE
Latoya Siler Published on Apr 5, 2016
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DISCUSSION THREAD EXCERPTS THAT INCLUDE THE WORD "GHETTO" TO DESCRIBE HIGH SCHOOL STOMP & SHAKE CHEERLEADERS
Pancocojams Editor's Note:
This post quotes a sub-set of the discussion thread in its entirety (as of July 5, 1017 at 10:00 PM).
Some commenters have self-photographs that accompany their comments. All of those commenters are Black. My guess is that most of the other commenters who are quoted in these two sub-sets of this video's discussion thread are African Americans. However, only one of the commenters indicated that she is African American.
I've also assigned numbers to these comments for referencing purposes only.
1. Ehlanya Skinner, October 2016
"This isn't cheerleading what kind of cheers are these ,where is the stunting or tumbling maybe it's a ghetto thing"
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2. Kristina Sales, November 2016
"what u mean by ghetto dont just assume its ghetto bc its black cheerleaders hun😑"
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3. Airyn Able, November 2016
"+Kristina Sales it's not ghetto b.c its black cheerleaders... It's ghetto b.c of what they're doing. This isn't cheerleading, this is stomping and shaking..."
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4. Kristina Sales, November 2016
"True but i never said it was ghetto the girl that said it was ghetto i was responding to her but there only where stomping and shaking your right about that lol"
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5. Airyn Able, November 2016
"Lol true true"
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6. Avery Pierce, November 2016
"There are different types of cheerleading if you didn't know. This is stomp and shake cheerleading and it's not ghetto. Just because you're not familiar with it doesn't mean it's ghetto. And they were at a cheer competition which included stunting and tumbling categories. Some squads are diverse and can do all three, stunt tumble and stomp & shake."
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7. Airyn Able, November 2016
"+Avery Pierce Actually... I AM familiar with it. I have friends who do it and i literally tell them the same thing. it's ratchet asf... and f.y.i ANYONE can stomp and shake. Everyone CAN'T stunt and tumble👀"
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8. Niya Simmer, November 2016
"I bet ur ass voting for Trump"
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9. Airyn Able, November 2016
"+Niya Simmer lmao. Actually I'm not. And FYI... I'm an African American."
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10. Jonna Roberson, November 2016
"haaa"
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11. Destiny Harris, December 2016
"Ehlanya Skinner thats so rude🤔"
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12. Samflower, December 2016
"It is totally ratchet! I don't get why they call themselves cheerleaders...AT ALL! There is no uniform (ratchet reason #1), all I see are girls flinging weave around (ratchet reason #2) and stomping and clapping! Where is the cheer part? I'm not saying they have to do all-star cheerleading type of stunting and tumbling like Smoed or Cheer Extreme but seriously? What is so special about this? What they are shouting doesn't even sound audible, just grunts and slapping (ratchet reason #3)! They need to create their own genre for this mess and NOT calling it cheerleading!"
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13. Airyn Able, December 2017
"+Samflower exactly!!"
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14. Xavea Crump, December 2017
"It is not easy at all to do stomp and shake 🤔"
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15. Airyn Able, December 2017
"Xavea Crump I'm sure it's a lot easier than learning how to stunt and tumble... JS"
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16. Xavea Crump, December 2016
"You honestly cant say that one part is harder than the other. It depends on the person for some cheerleaders who are used to traditional cheer it's harder to have the rythm to stomp and shake and vis versa with stunting and tumbling. I consider stunting a skill it takes time to develop and the same goes for stomp and shake. One cheer like the ones they are performing can take weeks to perfect. If you haven't done it then please don't judge how easy or hard it might be."
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17. Airyn Able, December 2017
"Xavea Crump that's exactly why I am commenting... I'm someone speaking from experience of both styles. People can learn choreography in a day, even if it isn't perfect. However, No one can learn a standing full, or a running double, or double up in a day..."
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18. Dwayneca Baldwin, December 2017
"Ehlanya Skinner it's stomp and shake style cheers made popular by hbcu don't let the stomps fool ya we can tumble me stunt as well as any all star squad it's just that our cheers are way more exciting with more movement and gets the crowd hype verses more traditional styles"
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"hbcu" = Historically Black Colleges & Universities
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19. Kendall Bedford, February 2017
"High stepping is what i believe they call it. Correct me if im wrong"
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10. Hannah Kemp, March 2017
"It's not ghetto is called stomp and shake cheering stupid."
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11. Hannah Kemp, March 2017
"And it's a fu&&in* cheer battle retard theyre supposed to be in each other face"
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*This word was fully spelled out in this comment.
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12. 3dasia patterson, April 2017
"first there was a tumbling portion this is just a battle portion. And and don't dare talk about my squad check yourself if you want to see our stunts and tumbles check out stunt and tamble portion. understand that this is not a white school poor funding not everyone can afford mats like white school. So so they have this portion so that all schools are able to participate. there are different division if you know all-star like me understand there is multiple levels. in all-star competition level 1there is no tumbling and no stunts so shut it down. best believe we know how to stunt. don't speak on something that you know little about. good day. o and no one called it cheerleading we said stomp n shake. And what are we doing stomping and shaking dumb asses."
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13. 4dasia patterson, April 2017
"I and we actually have multiple uniforms this is just our battle uniform. follow us Instagram West meck cheerleaders. k bye"
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14. Hannah Kemp, May 2017
"its stomp and shake cheer because i do that type of cheer thank you"
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15. BëllëNome7xChanson, May 2017
"Samflower its not what you call ratchet just cuz you so used to 1) uniform 2) just cuz they black dont Mean all them got WEAVE tf do be a insular jackass 3) it is a different style of cheering hun , you aint used to all this , dont call it ratchet.
Do your research on cheering everybody do cheering completely different. It aint Easy being strong and fierce and all together. dont be closed minded. there are diff. types of cheerleading just like there are diff. types of dances"
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16. Flower Child, June 2017
"Samflower Actually some of them do have cheer uniforms. Check out Dudley High School, POB (Phillip O Bryant) cheerleaders, or NC A&T Aggie cheerleaders. Its called using your diaphragm while cheering. I've been a cheerleader for 4 years. Although we don't cheer nor sound like them, our coach tell us to use our "manly" or "deep" voices it helps make a louder sound. When other cheerleaders cheer, they sound like squeaky rats, and it's hard to tell what they're saying."
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17. Flower Child, June 1017
"Samflower and by the way honey, I can tell you're a preppy little white cheerleader who doesn't know anything about rhythm but listen, everyone does things differently. I bet your team can't even hold a beat. Some of those things you've said shouldn't have been announced. It's very rude and disrespectful."
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