A young black queen followed her dreams and now she’s facing backlash on the internet for it.

Princess Isis Lang is a musical theater major at The University of Southern California (USC), and also the creator of the school’s first ever majorette team, Cardinal Divas. Her passion and love for dance dates back to when she was a kid and after being a majorette in high school she didn’t want to let her love for dance die out.

So, she took matters into her own hands and created a space for majorettes with the same passion at her predominantly white institution (PWI). Lang applied to have her team recognized as a school organization and while the authorization process took months she didn’t give up hope.

In March of 2022 the Divas were official and ready to showcase their talent for the 2022 – 2023 football season. September 17th was a big day for the ladies as they would make their debut at the USC versus Fresno State football game. Little did Lang and the ladies know that the debut was not only for USC fans but for people all across the world.

Lang took to twitter to post a clip of the Divas in action and received 2.4 million views!

It feels kind of like a miracle,” says Hannah Ethridge, a member of the team. “This is all too good to be true. ”

Sure enough opinions and comments from all over poured in and the debate about HBCU’s versus PWI’s ignited. One user on twitter said, “I don’t have a problem with Black people show casing our culture. I have a problem with it being shared to the YT people, in a few years you gonna see Yt girls throwing stands to Beethoven……”

While Many users asked, “This is great and all but why not just go to an HBCU?”

While the topic may be interesting to get into it’s quite unnecessary. This situation is no different from the National Pan-Hellenic Council (Divine Nine) being established on PWI’s campuses or simply white individuals attending an HBCU and being apart of everyday traditional activities.

According to usc.edu, Blacks/African-Americans make up 5.8% of the population of students. Creating a safe space for black students to be seen and heard is clearly necessary and with USC football program being so big why not allow our people to be apart that whether on or off the field. As Twitter user, @MaryMichelle79 said “culture isn’t restricted to HBCU’s. Culture is for us wherever we go.”

While the hate continued to pour in, so did the positive! Saweetie and Bring It! alumni Dianna Williams retweeted the video and encouraged the girls to continue.

More support from people online continued to pour in and majority of people are actually excited and inspired by Lang’s determination.

As for Lang and the Divas, the show must go on and they Lang says, you’ll see more of the team this season.

You can look forward to seeing us at these home games on the big screen, showing young Black girls that they can do anything that they think to do. We just want to show everybody that we are here to stay and we deserve as much camaraderie as any of these other dance teams at USC and across the country.”

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