In a recent Smirnoff Ice commercial, a couple of white guys show up at an otherwise all-black party, upsetting the host. As the camera zooms in on the intruders, we see why. There, in a group of black people who can obviously dance, the two are doing the cabbage patch. And they're not even doing it well.

The commercial's message is basically this: White people are not blessed with rhythm.

But that isn't always so. Meet Lauren Whalen the only white girl in the Nubian Multicultural Dance group. She talks an awful lot like Cher in "Clueless," but she dances more like Janet Jackson.

Most of the 20 other dancers in the group are black and a few are Hispanic. But Lauren says the white factor isn't much of a factor at all.

"Once you join a new group...you already have something in common with the other people in it," she says. "It usually shocks black girls that I can dance, so maybe I've taught them something about white people. But I feel comfortable with them and I think they're comfortable with me."

All that really matters in Nubian Multicultural Dance (NMD) is that all of the girls love dancing.

"I'm really just helping them put the 'M' in NMD ."

-- by Carson Barrow