Black people still can’t swim: Reflections on the McKinney, TX pool incident 3 summers later
The article above touches on a subject I have found myself expounding on this summer. A teammate of mine lives on the tar river and had the squad over to ride on his family’s – LARGE- boat. Of course, I was the only one wearing a life jacket due to my inability to swim. I consider myself a critical conflict thinker so of course when the guys got on me about proving the stereotype of black people not being able to swim I rebutted with some of the same historical happenings referenced in this article. I explained to them how there was a time when we were not allowed in the community pools. There were also occurrences when acid was dumped into the pools while we swam. The title of the article “Black People still cant swim” draws a familiar message similar to the “I can’t breathe” message conjured up after the Eric Garner situation. These adages act to convey the black -second class- experience of not being able to fully participate in society. We cannot unapologetically be ourselves without scrutiny or consequences. Often times the blame falls upon us the marginalized to solve our own problem when I believe racism is white peoples dog. The dog may bite, you didn’t make the dog bite, but it is your responsibility to prevent it from happening again. I understand that racism is not solely interpersonal and the thwarting of such a system requires epistemological global pedagogy, but I would like to know how can we fast track this process when so many lives are at stake?