Last night, former Dallas Cowboys football superstar Dancing with the Starsrunning back Emmitt Smith and his professional dance partner Cheryl Burke won ABC television’s wildly popular contest Dancing with the Stars.

Moments after Emmitt’s win last night, the ABC message board was filled with racist tripe claiming the reason Emmitt won was because he is Black not because he was the better dancer.

What that racist mentality fails to accept is Emmitt is not a dancer and if you watched him on the show for the entire season you saw him incrementally and dramatically improve each week.

Emmitt’s nemesis in the finals was Mario Lopez and his professional dancing partner Karina Smirnoff. Dancing with the Stars Mario, an obviously trained and highly experienced dancer, moved much better on stage than Emmitt, but his previous training provided him an unfair advantage and the voting public knew that and felt that and made their displeasure known in their final vote totals.

No man moves his hips like Mario Lopez without previous professional training! Those who fail to understand the television show are playing the Racism card. It is a popularity contest first and a dance contest second. Emmitt is a likable guy and he didn’t talk back to the judges or break the rules. He did his job. He had a seriousness of purpose that others admired and aspired to imitate.

Mario may have wrapped up the young teen female vote, but Emmitt always had the male vote as well as the vote of those who wanted to see an aging star athlete make a comeback in an unfamiliar arena he had not previously mastered and then beat down a younger, brasher, talent just as he did to win the all-time NFL rushing record on the way to three Super Bowl wins. It was Emmitt’s grace under fire that won him the day and his dance partner Cheryl BurkeCheryl Burke also deserves tremendous credit for the win. Cheryl is an excellent choreographer. She dances with spirit and joy. She is a great coach and a greater inspiration.

Last season Cheryl also won Dancing with the Stars with the young, semi-star, Drew Lachey. Since there is no such thing as a coincidence, one must know the common thread between the two wins was not the disparate ages, body types, and dancing talents of Drew Lachey and Emmitt Smith — the warp and the woof of the wins was sewn into whole cloth by Cheryl Burke. It was Cheryl’s genius that was malleable enough to discover the strengths in her dancing partners and then bring out the best in them in rehearsal and performance.

We cannot, and must not, underestimate the fact that when Cheryl Burke touches you, she makes you better.

Congratulations to Emmitt Smith and Cheryl Burke and I hope the false accusation of their “politically correct” win dies out along with the unnecessary catcalls of racism winning the day and ruining the dance.

15 Comments

  1. I thought Emmitt was great–after playing RB in the NFL all those years, I’m amazed he can still be so light on his feet. His improvement over the course of the season was remarkable, and Cheryl brought the best out in him.
    My favorite part of his performance in the finale was doing his version of the MC Hammer dance. I’m jealous that I can’t pull that off. It’s very similar to an e-card my company made for Thanksgiving. I think Emmitt’s version is better, but not by much.

  2. Hi scottie, and welcome to Urban Semiotic!
    Your company link teeters on the fine line between Spam and fun — I let it ride since it is on point, it is pretty cute and it does relate to the topic at hand and you included your company email address and I can see you’re coming in on a company IP address.
    Emmitt has tremendous grace when he dances that is quite enchanting. He moves so smoothly. He glides across the floor. You can feel he is getting down both the mechanics and having a good time.
    It is obvious Cheryl is an amazing and unique talent and Emmitt should’ve given her much more credit than he did last night on the show.
    In some ways I’m shocked the show allowed her to win twice in a row. I’m sure that doesn’t settle well with the other pro dancers, but I’m glad ABC let her ride. Cheryl deserved the win. She brought Emmitt (and Drew before him) up to speed with incredible precision and passion.
    I didn’t like Emmitt’s Hammer dance, but I didn’t like Mario’s break-dancing, either. I thought they could’ve done so much more with their freestyle opportunities.

  3. Hi David-
    I was not too crazy about Mario dancing in this contest because he had a lot of experience dancing growing up, especially when he was on the series, “Saved By The Bell”. But with Emmitt, you could see that he was improving and working hard as the weeks go by. I think that is what a contest is about. You show what you can do by improving each time you do a routine.
    I was pretty sure Mario would win only because he is a better dancer, compared to Emmitt. So this time I felt the contest was fair.
    -janna

  4. Dave!
    Your Avatar is missing again! Are you logged in to WordPress.com?
    Yes, WordPress.com has been really inaccessible most of the day. It just kills comments. That’s part of the deal, though. You suffer with the best of them for the price of admission.
    😀
    Race is the main line of demarcation in America, I fear, and it does none of us any good. I agree with you on that, Dave. Is it possible to overcome color? Are eyes and their inspection and appreciation of differences in tones and hues so important to be so dividing?
    OJ is a sociopath. There was a trail of blood from the bodies he killed to the sink in his home. And yet, he walked. He walked because he had the right color for the jury to acquit him. I hope those jury members burn in a special place for their service to injustice to the dead.

  5. Janna Marie!
    I agree with you that Mario was, by far, the better dancer. He didn’t improve much because he was already so good while Emmitt, on the other hand, started off fine and improved remarkably each and every week.
    Emmitt was a joy to watch. Mario was a train wreck in action.
    Do you think Mario and his dancing partner Karina have True Love — or is he done with her now the competition is over?

  6. Yes, that’s true. Emmitt was a joy to watch. He has such charisma.
    I think Mario and Karina’s love fest is pathetic. Now that they are not dancing anymore, Mario will be off on his way. You can see in the show that he has no interest in her.
    -janna

  7. Ah! Juicy!
    So, Janna, do you think it was all part of Mario’s master plan to get Karina, his dance partner, to fall in love with to help him succeed?

  9. Come back here! Who cares about Survivor when there’s dancing to do?
    😀
    I think Mario made Karina fall in love with him to get her total dedication. That’s his personality type. Now that the competition is over, he’s over her. Bruno, one of the judges, did say Mario danced “with a battery in his pants.”

  12. From the Hollywood Reporter:

    “Dancing With the Stars” and ABC came up big Tuesday, waltzing their way to the nightly win on the penultimate night of competition between Mario Lopez and Emmitt Smith. Meanwhile, CBS had a slow start with medical drama “3 Lbs.” in the 10 p.m. hour.
    More than 26.8 million people tuned in to the penultimate episode of “Dancing” from 8-9:30 p.m. and scored a 7.5 rating and 20 share in the adults 18-49 demographic, according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen Media Research.

    Now that’s a big hit show!
    http://tinyurl.com/yj8s5b

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