I have watched stepping for years, a staple of black fraternities and black sororities. On February 20th there was a competition, the Sprite Step Off sponsored by Coca Cola. Zeta Tau Alpha won the competition after the judging and won $100,000 in scholarships. Subsequently Sprite claimed that they made a “scoring discrepancy” and that AKA actually had won so they were upping the scholarships for AKA to the same as ZTA and declaring both the winners. The statement was:
"After the National Finals Competition this past weekend in Atlanta wrapped, we got together to do our post-competition review and found a scoring discrepancy in the sorority results. After looking at it and looking at it AGAIN, we determined there isn’t a definitive resolution."
"Sprite is all about preserving the honesty and integrity of this competition. Because the scoring discrepancy can’t be resolved and due to the really tight margin between the first and second place sorors, we feel that the only right thing to do is to name both Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Tau Chapter & Zeta Tau Alpha, Epsilon Chapter, co-first place winners of the Sprite Step Off."
"With these revised results, we’re gonna increase Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Tau Chapter’s scholarship prize to $100K, consistent with what Zeta Tau Alpha also got for their first prize winnings."
That was probably the most disingenuous statement I have ever heard. This seems like a classic case of reverse racism. Let’s call a spade a spade. First of all I think it is great to have ZTA leave what may be considered their comfort zone and compete so well and win. Just like it is and has been demoralizing to minorities when they have been denied victory for simply who they are, an incident like this can have the same repercussions on these young ladies in the short term. In the long term however, it kills the spirit of people sharing each other’s experiences and excelling in other people’s culture. As Americans we should be free to delve into or accept any culture we want to embrace and be judged by the same metrics.
After watching the competition I think it was obvious that Zeta Tau Alpha, the white sorority won outright. After watching both videos below, what do you think? Who won? CLICK HERE to leave your comment.
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