Is wukking up inherently vulgar?
Every year the same complaints roll in after Kadooment - the vulgarity. The obscenity. The depravity. The indecency. The immodesty. The immorality. The lewdness. The crudeness.
On the surface, Wukking up just seems like an artless vulgar wanton dance form. A slack behavior for a slack people. A dance of the morally bereft searching for meaning in their lumpenproletariat behavior. But is it really vulgarity? Or are you just mentally colonized to see authentic Bajan expressions of dance as “bad”. Do you view the waltz as bad? Or the foxtrot, the tango or the two step? No, because everything from Europe is good and everything from Barbados or the Caribbean is bad. European = high culture and Barbadian = low culture.
In reality wukking up is the way we preserve our culture. This is the way we honour our ancestors. This is the way we keep our traditions alive. This is the way we celebrate ourselves as simple as it sounds. And if we don’t celebrate ourselves, who will?
In this season of emancipation, we should remember that the same way that Crop Over is 300+ years old, we have been dancing, singing and playing music alongside it for the same amount of time. As Bajans, dancing is one of our oldest forms of expression. In 1657 Richard Ligon visited Barbados and wrote about the singing, dancing and music of the enslaved. West Africans brought to Barbados and enslaved brought over their cultural practices including their forms of dancing. Centuries later, this form of dancing continues. Our own unique way of joy, revelry and festivity as we honor our ancestors and celebrate our culture.
So free yourself from mental slavery. Emancipate your minds. Wukking up is the way we dance. The way we express joy. Moving our bodies is a celebration of freedom. To get even deeper, These indigenous expressions are the way that we honour our ancestors and keep our culture alive. This is not new age woke hyperbole. At its core, Crop Over was a blend of west African cultural traditions such as the Yam Festival and the British Harvest Home. The west Africans wanted to continue their cultural practices and found a way to nestle them in the heart of the British Harvest Home festival. Thus, Crop Over was born and our culture became entrenched. Moving our bodies became our birthright, surviving colonization, slavery, emancipation, independence, and now taking us into Republicdom.
So the next time you see people wukkin up and think it’s vulgar, ask yourself - is it truly vulgar or is my mind just in chains? Elevating everything white and foreign and tearing down authentic Black Bajan expression. Is it vulgar or do I just hate myself and my people?
Food for thought.
