🎷 Social Swing Manifesto: Dance with Purpose, Live with Respect

At Social Swing, we believe that swing is not just a rhythm, and Lindy Hop is not just a dance. They are living expressions of a deep history of resilience, community, joy, and freedom. Born in Harlem during segregation, these musical and dance movements were much more than entertainment — they were spaces for collective healing, radical inclusion, and cultural resistance.

That’s why, as a community that honors the legacy of legends like Frankie Manning, Norma Miller, and Chick Webb, we are guided by the very same principles they stood for on the floors of the Savoy Ballroom:

  • 🎶 Freedom of expression without imposition or prejudice
  • 💛 Shared joy as a means of human connection
  • ✊ Diversity and integration as foundations, not goals
  • 🎭 Improvisation and creativity as tools of equality
  • 👥 Mutual respect and care as non-negotiables in social dance
  • 🕊️ Ethical coherence on and off the dance floor

❗ About behavior within our community

Social Swing is an open but not neutral community.

We do not condone silence in the face of behaviors that perpetuate injustice, discrimination, verbal or sexual aggression, or any kind of hate speech — direct or disguised.

Therefore, if any member of our community is called out for serious behavior or allegations and chooses not to take a public, objective, critical, and respectful stance, we feel compelled not to promote their presence, actions, or collaborations until they have taken responsibility and spoken out clearly and maturely.

📣 Our stance is clear:

  • We stand for a safe, inclusive, joyful, and critically engaged community
  • We reject impunity disguised as neutrality
  • We demand ethical coherence from those who represent Social Swing publicly or visibly
  • We promote swing culture with historical awareness, knowing that dance can also be a political act — one that builds bridges, not walls

💬 In short:

We dance out of respect. We dance with purpose. We dance for the community.

And it only makes sense to keep dancing if we do so in a coherent, responsible, and just way with the people around us.