By Mark David Blum, Esq.

“A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark:
‘You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk dancing’.”
-- Sir Arnold Bax, Farewell my Youth (1943).

Greed and cultural isolation rule the day and control policy at Fayetteville Manlius High School.

Earlier this year, all dances at Fayetteville Manlius High School were cancelled because of the style of dance then popular. Further still, the freshman/sophomore dance set for Feb. 10 also was canceled. “Grinding” drew the ire of faculty and Administration and ultimately, all dancing ground to a halt. Homecoming was cancelled and an entire community’s prudishness was exposed.

Nothing can change a policy faster than a desire for money. A longtime tradition of the High School; a dance marathon for the benefit of Camp Good Days was in jeopardy by this Swayzeeesque policy. Suddenly abandoning its principles, the High School agreed to allow the Dance Marathon to go forward. Money is money and political clout is what it is.

Of course, there are conditions. As always, in the details lies the devil.

According to a flier distributed to FM parents, “Slow and close dancing will continue to be allowed. No dancing bent over (away or forward). No hands on buttocks, chests or genitalia. No lap dancing. No obvious simulation of a sex act.” There also won't be any music videos shown on a movie screen during the dance because, “there seems to be a definite correlation between the music that's played and the way kids behave, so some music won't be played. And the music will all be radio edited."

Considering myself a fairly educated person, I conclude from this flyer that it will be OK for our children to dance pelvis to pelvis, slow and together, in marathon formation. Yet, it is not acceptable for our children to dance pelvis to buttocks.

One can only conclude that Missionary is acceptable but Jungle is not. Which makes the entire point: Predominately White and Affluent, Manlius residents and the puritans who administer their schools will accept white people dancing. They riot, snub, and turn hostile toward urban, ethnic, nay I say “Black” styles of dance.

Ruminate over this issue all you want, two social psychoses are slamming into each other. On one hand, parents do not want to acknowledge their children are maturing and parents struggle to deal with the sexual growth and rising independence of their children. On the other hand, Manlius is enveloped in a culture that is isolated from the mainstream and views anything inconsistent with Elvis and the Beatles as ‘thuggish’, ‘demeaning’, and “unsafe”.

The outcome is a controlled, race-based content government action against the right to free speech and expression. Nothing offends the First Amendment more that the government determining that certain cultural styles are acceptable and others are not. This is content-based censorship of the worst order.

Ultimately we will see who wins out the day: Will the students take control of their own lives and determine their own fate? Will they surrender and succumb to heavy handed government censorship? As a palace of enlightenment, a High School campus is the place to learn and to apply that education.

I call upon the students of FM to dance as they choose and stand firm in the face of government censorship. In the alternative, I call for a general boycott of the dance as a political statement showing government just how much power resides in the hands of those whose lives are impacted most. Let them Boogie Down and Hustle. Watch them Grind and Slide. Most importantly, let them enjoy the rights and liberties and privacies to which every American considers an inalienable right.