Pirate's Cove

Salon writer Brittney Cooper is Very Concerned

America’s war on Black girls: Why McKinney police violence isn’t about “one bad apple”
Many have been quick to dismiss or make excuses for the shocking video out of Texas. Here’s the truth of the matter

In just over two months, we will commemorate the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a natural disaster that ravaged communities along the Gulf Coast. This tragedy was made infinitely worse not only by decades of governmental neglect and far-ranging poverty, but also by the fact that so many Black people could not swim.

That nearly 60 percent of Black people cannot swim is directly attributable to decades of segregated pool facilities in this country. While that problem ostensibly went away with the desegregation efforts of the mid-20th century, de facto segregation of pool facilities persists to this day, because community pools are now largely private amenities in suburban neighborhoods that many Black youth don’t have access to.

Got that? Even though segregation ended long ago, by law, it’s the fault of White People not allowing Blacks to swim in their pools. Because there wouldn’t be massive lawsuits and stuff if they were denied access to a public pool. Interestingly, so many of these areas with public pools where Blacks live are in Deep Democrat areas, so, this means that Democrats are racists and want Black girls, and boys, to die. Let’s also not forget that, during the era of Jim Crow and through the 60’s, the areas that had segregation were Democrat areas.

In fact, swimming skills are sorely lacking in all races in the US. I grew up at the beach, and swam competitively through high school, and continued surfing for decades, though I’d say my swimming skills aren’t what they used to be. But, I can tread for a long time, and swim plenty of laps still. I also taught swimming when I was younger. These skills are ones I’d say most need, and, perhaps instead of spending time on worthless leftist endeavors at school, time could be spent teaching swimming skills. Of course, since Democrats have made majority-minority urban areas so dangerous with their soft on crime policies, pool might not be particularly safe.

White people in the aggregate value the “safety” of their private, segregated, residential spaces far more than they value a system of policing that protects and values all lives equally. It is clear that the anxiety that many white suburban residents feel about having their communities “overrun” by Black people feels far more “traumatizing” to them than having to stand idly by while a few teens get roughed up by the police. If the cost of making white people safe is more than a few Black communities being systematically traumatized and made always to feel unsafe, then so be it. The notion of white safety has its foundations in Indigenous, Black and Brown unsafety. Until white people begin to question the violent origins of such a concept, the police will continue in the name of “white safety” to go around terrorizing communities of color, mostly with impunity.

Let’s get very un-PC for a moment: why are Whites always supposed to give up their values? Why must they always pay the price? Why are we not allowed to advocate for our own safety? Why is it that only other races, in particular Blacks, are allowed to protect their own race?