Storytellin'

Today a Black Woman Fought the World and Won... 

I aint telling no story... I'm Storytellin'

Everyone jokes about the fact that most Black folks (70%) don't know how to swim. Mostly they attribute it to some shallow trope about Black women and their hair. This story, as most stories concerning the plight of Black folks, is more problematic than that.

Truth be told... 50 years ago...  Simone Manuel wouldn't have been allowed to put her toe (Google Dorothy Dandridge  and the drained pool) in a public swimming pool, let alone swim a lap alongside White swimmers from this country (or anyone else's).

Prior to the 70s there were laws and ordinances that kept Black bodies out of  swimming pools... White swimming pools... 

Because Black folk are dangerous...

Because we were said to be nasty...

Because White folks were taught that we carried grave diseases...

Because sharing a swimming pool or a bathroom or a water fountain or a seat on the bus or a school house or a lunch counter with Black people was beyond taboo...

After those laws and ordinances from the early 20th century were struck down cities largely defunded public pools and White folks moved to country clubs and segregated their pool via membership fees, social status and the such...Guess White-flight wasn't just applied to the desegregation of the public school system. (I digress)

In his book, Between the World  and Me, Ta-nehisi Coates explores the importance of the Black body and our (Black people's) consistent battle to maintain/reclaim autonomy, protect ourselves,  and our children from the world's ever present attempts to defile our bodies. Our (Black) bodies are exceptionally beautiful, bountiful, and policed in every aspect. This constant policing of our body has impaired our (Black people's) abilities to be...

So, in an effort to protect our bodies generation after generation after generation of Black families stayed out of White folks pools (schools/busses/lunch counters/neighborhoods/banks/racism is bigger than swimming pools).

We stayed away for our own good, but this isolation from swimming has still managed to do its damage to our bodies. The 21st Century was no less problematic. In 2010, 6 Black teenagers drowned because none of them had been taught to swim.  This tragic event sparked nationwide concern and sophomoric suggestions that if Black parents loved their children, they would teach them to swim.

So we did just that. We sent our babies to the pool...Told them that they would be welcomed...But 5 years later, in McKinney, TX a well publicized incident where a White police officer pulled his gun on a group of Black kids attending a pool party and proceeded to physically assault a teenage girl and sit on her, reminded us that White Pools weren't made for Black Bodies.


BUT Today...in spite of it all...

Despite as Coates so eloquently wrote, "The entire narrative of this country [that] argues against the truth of who [WE] are."... 

This woman...Strong...Beautiful...And BLACK...not only got in the pool, but she learned to swim, and she went on to be the best in the world...

Resilience?...No...If that ain't magic... I don't know what else it could be...

#BlackGirlMagic #StoryTelling #BetweenTheWorldAndMe