Thread on "Boogaloo": On anniversary of Charleston church killings, white racism has thrived in Trump's America. Today, far-right group "Boogaloo," is responsible for killing 2 cops and an attempted bombing.
Its name is goofy, a joke. Don't laugh. The name is everything. 1/
Its name is goofy, a joke. Don't laugh. The name is everything. 1/
Boogaloo or bugalú was mix of cultures represented in a genre of Latin music and dance which was popular in the United States in the 1960s. James Brown, who made it popular, once described the dance -- wild body movements interrupted by quick halts -- as the hardest he knew. 2/
It was a fusion of black and Caribbean influences, started in NY but quickly making its way worldwide. For those of us a certain age, you'll remember Electric Boogaloo song from Breakin' 2 movie (or may want to forget it).
Here's James Brown in 1964:
3/
Here's James Brown in 1964:
3/
The right wing group took the name as a way to appropriate the promise of the movement; simply, the opposite of diversity represented by its African and Caribbean influences. The terror group wants a race war, to divide the America represented in the music.
4/
4/
But there is another reason. Boogaloo was criticized as being a "jungle" dance -- wild and frenzied, the "untamed" and "criminality" of Africa and African-Americans that racists in the 1960s used to scare whites about black violence and black men. 5/
The "jungle" language also referred to the war in Vietnam. Race equality and the fear of communism were the two movements that a large swath of American politics and society viewed as the end of American values and way of life. 6/
Boogaloo, the group, imagines launching a jungle warfare against the diverse America they so fear. They infiltrate groups like BLM to make it seem that BLM is responsible for violence, hoping to create chaos -- a jungle -- in American society. 7/
We are long past viewing these groups as a bunch of racist bozos. That neither Trump nor Barr can condemn them gives them oxygen, belonging. They are organized and sophisticated, using violence to disrupt the America black and Caribbean teens in NYC in the 1960s danced for. 8/8
