Theo Parrish Urges Dance Music Community To Challenge Police Brutality

Theo Parrish has reached out to the dance community by asking everyone to challenge police brutality. In a recent Facebook post he shared his thoughts and spoke straight from the heart.

Theo Parrish’s call is one that is motivated towards the unification of the dance music world. He touches on the true nature of the dance scene, solidarity.

He highlighted the fact that often the music being enjoyed was created by the very people that are being exploited. He also reflected on the embarrassment he feels regarding “the lack of overt commentary from this art form”.

The recent killings of two black men at the hands of American police have once again stoked the fire of the Black Lives Matter movement in the country. As American headlines normally do, this has become world news.

The general thread of colourism, discrimination, and social injustices towards black people everywhere is highlighted here. And, this has left an indelible impression on people all over the world. Theo Parrish is correct in calling on the dance music community to acknowledge the validity of the fact that black lives do matter and that police brutality needs to end. In South Africa, the oppression, marginalization, and discrimination of black people is alive and well too.

Here in our own home towns, we can also support this movement by letting our fellow black people know that we recognize the injustices and will stand up for and with them.

Read Theo Parrish post below:

“Overwhelmed. I wish I was shocked. Embarrassed at the lack of overt commentary from this art form. An art form rooted in reaction to racism, birthed in struggle, how do you dance to this? Somehow you better. Somehow you better realize when the music you’re dancing to comes from people that have been exploited, the best tribute you can have is setting yourself loose in unity with the exploited. How do you do that when on the same weekend you’re playing, in the same city, a man just like you has quietly, arbitrarily, been silenced by one paid to protect him and the public?

How do you dance when we still swing from trees, when we still are murdered in front of our loved ones, murdered while subdued and harmless? How do you dance when our very image as a people is used to manipulate sympathy for a system of belief that wants you and your children to be dead or in jail? You better. You better learn to listen with your body, you better play from your heart. It was a preference before, now it’s essential. Escapism has always been an adjective used to describe the dance. That’s an outsider’s view. Solidarity is what it really offers…”