The office was last cleaned on

10/03/99 09:12:18 PM

The pit is successful in ways that S-training, cultural diversity seminars, sensitivity training, The Rainbow Coalition, and Affirmative Action programs are not. In the pit, people of all races come together to interact physically and intellectually. In the pit, all men and women are truly created equal. But I can't front and try to deny the fact that the situation becomes complicated when brothas enter the pit for the first time. See...back when slam dancing first started, Americans-With-Afros were at the roller-rink listening to P-Funk, Cameo, Rick James, and other stuff that white folks have recently begun to discover. If they weren't roller skating, they were beating somebody down with an empty bottle of curl activator for stepping on their new shoes. Thanks to bands like Fishbone, Living Color, and 24-7 Spyz, more and more black people were introduced to adrenaline music. When they first went to shows, however, they didn't know what to expect. All of a sudden, motherfuckers with green mohawks started running at them and the first thought was, "Oh shit! These white boyz are tryin' to get busy!" Being rather unfamiliar with the situation, you can't blame them for self-preserving instincts, which were to start swinging. When you think about it, brothas during the early days of the pit remind me of the Civil Rights Movement in reverse. A lot of white dudes had to get beat down before brothas realized that slamdancing was all about unity instead of violence. I was relieved when Public Enemy recorded songs with Anthrax and Sonic Youth because black folks got to see the mosh pit on MTV, instead of finding out the hard way. They finally accepted slamdancing as a fact when Ice-T took Body Count on the road with Lollapolooza and Onyx busted out with Slam!