It’s amazing to still learn basic facts about our nation’s history as it relates to violent repression of black Americans. I hadn’t known about this history of swimming pool violence and the horror of not wanting to swim because of the perception of being “dirty” which lasted until, well, pretty recent by your account. I was also “surprised” to hear the account of west Africans being better swimmers than “our own people” from the historical account. I wasn’t really surprised in that I didn’t think it was physically possibly, but in how I hadn’t heard of this account or encountered it, and it goes to show that deleting historical accounts of positive encounters and actions a la CRT disallows those perceptions from entering into the mindset of American children, leaving them accounts of slavery and violence.
People like Fred Rogers have fought the establishment through subversive acts of inclusion and recognition of equal humanity for decades. The video clip was astonishing in revealing his subversive act of love and a positive message and encounter. We need more of that, and none of the divisively racial spewing hatred of De Santos and Trump and their ilk, who are not modern but descendants of Strum Thurman, Senator TIllman whose seat he filled in South Carolina, and many, many other autocratic politicians who dared call them democratic when they hated the inclusion, acceptance, and equality that it brings. Those kids with baseball bats in Pittsburgh showed up armed ready to beat blacks because “leadership” and the encouragement and allowance of politicians to inflame and create inequality for their autocratic love of power.
Thanks for sharing.