Selling Love

Abstract

Chapter 5, “Selling Love,” examines the postracial ideology that undergirds Zumba Fitness’s brand. Although tropicalized Latinness is an integral part of the Zumba Fitness brand, it does not surface in the trope of love. Instead, the trope of love flattens racial difference. Postracialism recognizes racial difference on a superficial level but posits that systemic racism is over. Zumba Fitness’s trope of love centers the brand’s focus on multicultural tolerance and commodity activism. The chapter describes postracialism and how it operates in Zumba Fitness through songs like “Spread Love,” which encourages acceptance across racial and ethnic lines without acknowledging or addressing systemic inequality. It also analyzes Zumbathons, or events that individual instructors organize to raise funds for charity, as one way that postracialism and neoliberalism conjoin in the Zumba Fitness brand. The chapter includes Zumba instructors’ varying views about whether Zumba Fitness actually promotes racial tolerance.