Black people can’t swim, you say?

Sacramento Bee ^ | August 12, 2016 | Erika D/ Smith

[artichokegrower]

There’s an old joke – or, at least, that’s what some people have the nerve to call it – that goes something like this: Why don’t black people swim? Their bones are too dense to float.

That’s it. That’s the punchline.

[artichokegrower]

Barack Obama's minister for many years Jeremiah Wright had a joke about white people not being able to clap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iETMo5c3Hro

[A_Former_Democrat]

Or in The Jerk, Steve Martin couldn’t either

So I’ve watched most of the swimming and seen like 3 black competitors. I’ve watched the track prelims and seen even more white sprinters

But I would be this author would say “White people can’t run”

[achilles2000]

Typical leftist reasoning...blacks are an insignificant part of the competitive swimming population....can’t swim, don’t swim...it doesn’t matter.

[BenLurkin]

Obsession with skin color has got to stop, Simone. Yours included.

[Oratam]

You’d have to ask Al Campanis.

[Dr. Sivana]

I have two children who are black. They are adopted, and their adoptive mother, my wife was a VERY good swimmer in her high school days. So, she saw it as her Canadian duty to teach the children to skate and swim. While my daughter was fine with it, my son, who naturally athletic and competitive wanted none of it. There are exceptions to every rule but his aversion certainly was not rooted in his environment.

[Fido969]

white people not being able to clap

Some really can't as a musician it drives me crazy.

[Jeff Chandler]

The validity of a generalization is based upon whether it is generally true, not upon whether it is always true.

[madameguinot]

“The validity of a generalization is based upon whether it is generally true, not upon whether it is always true.”

Thank you-that is an excellent way of putting it.

[BenLurkin]

Having grown up in a Rust Belt urban environment I can affirm that ice skating does not come easily to anyone from that background.

[SamAdams76]

Well...white people can’t jump. Nor can they dance. So I guess in the end, it all evens out.

[CaptainK]

There’s the fear of the water, yes, but there’s also the legacy of Jim Crow laws that kept pools segregated in the South. Court-mandated integration only led to the closing of public pools, and the opening of fancy country clubs and private pools that were out of reach of poor black people.

I didn't learn to swim in a public pool. I leaned to swim in a small pool in my backyard.

And how does she explain the blacks in the North? As far as I know public pools have been opened for longer than my lifetime to blacks.

[Hot Tabasco]

I have two children who are black.

I wonder how many blacks adopt white children........

[IWontSubmit]

I lived all over Africa.
You hardly ever see them in the water.

[Kenton]

The first time I ever heard that "blacks can't swim" saying was at Great Lakes Naval Training Center in 1966.

As part of basic training, all future sailors have got to be able to swim, for obvious reasons. All recruits were required, one by one to jump into the deep end of the swimming pool and demonstrate whether you were a swimmer, or a "sinker" as they called them.

Most of the white guys could swim, dog paddle, or at least tread water. But every black guy in our company, 7 men as I remember, went straight to the bottom, and the lifeguards had to go in to drag them out.

Of course, cities were a lot more segregated back then and I heard somebody speculate that it was because there were more public pools in white neighborhoods than in black neighborhoods, so that may be part of the reason.

[hardspunned]

When I was in basic training I failed the army swim test. Had to go to remedial swim class. Me and 12 black guys. Just saying.

[Mariner]

In my Navy boot camp swim day, 3 black guys were discharged for not being able to get from one end of the pool to the other.

Literally.

[pepsi_junkie]

There’s an old joke – or, at least, that’s what some people have the nerve to call it – that goes something like this: Why don’t black people swim? Their bones are too dense to float. That’s it. That’s the punchline. It’s patently untrue, of course. But I’ve heard it more times than I care to remember.

Yeah, this is a joke that is told hundreds a time a day, I'm sure. Comes up all the time. Um, who is the author hanging around with that tells terrible jokes about black people repeatedly?

[LiveFree99]

Disease microbes, parasites, crocs and other nasties.