Originally Posted by A'isha Azar

My point was many Americans know real dancing when they see it. Actually many, many Egyptian dancers come to the States and we have many followers of Egyptian and Turkish dance here. We have been having world class festivals here for at least 30 years that I know of with big names such as Nagwa Fouad, Nadia Hamdi, Nadia Gamal, Mouna Said, Randa, Fifi, etc.
I understood your point. We have an incredibly large population of dancers in the States and many of us do respect the authentic dances and the dancers from over there far more than we do the BDSS, as well as having many American dancers who perform authentic dance.

Unfortunately, we also have a LOT of people who are reticent to come out and say what is on their minds. Just one recent example among many is from when the BDSS last showed up in my city. I was later talking to a woman from out of State who went to the show and said something like, "Don't you just love them?". My response was ...."Well, no, I don't".
She hung on the phone for a few seconds saying nothing and then said, "You know, the crowd was just so enthusiastic and I just thought I was missing something, so I just went along. But now that you say it, I really didn't like them either." Just another example that many people feel they have to follow the crowd rather than say what they really think. It IS easy to be misled about about how Americans think and feel about them when this kind of thing goes on.