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thehopefulquotes

“When you stop chasing the wrong things, you give the right things a chance to catch you.”

— Unknown

Frida Kahlo

thepowerofblackwomen

FIRSTS WOMEN WHO ARE CHANGING THE WORLD

Issa Rae (First black woman to create and star in a premium cable series)

Oprah Winfrey (First woman to own and produce her own talk show)

Serena Williams (First tennis player to win 23 Grand Slam singles titles in the open era)

Shonda Rhimes (First woman to create three hit shows with more than 100 episodes each)

Ava DuVernay (First black woman to direct a film nominated for a Best Picture Oscar)

Gabby Douglas (First American gymnast to win solo and team all-around gold at one Olympics)

Dr. Mae Jemison (First woman of color in space)

Mo’ne Davis (First girl to pitch a shutout and win a game in a Little League World Series)

Patricia Bath (First person to perform laserphaco cataract surgery and the first African-American female doctor to receive a medical patent)

Aretha Franklin (First woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)

Ursula Burns (First black woman to run a Fortune 500 company)

Rita Dove (First black U.S. poet laureate)

Loretta Lynch (First black woman to become U.S. Attorney General)

#TheyAreTheFirst #BlackExcellence

theurbansensualist

Herstory

mae-martin

softwhorecore-deactivated201812

THIS IS ACTUALLY FACTUAL AND NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED MORE

opaliris

http://www.usms.org/articles/articledisplay.php?aid=294

soulfulmags

“Knowing that they were losing “valuable product” due to their slaves’ propensity to swim, slave owners began taking drastic steps to protect their property. One of these steps was to instill a fear of the water by dunking disobedient slaves in water until they nearly drowned and by creating fear through stories of creatures living in the water. Thus it didn’t take long to excise or destroy the West African swimming tradition from African- American culture. The Jim Crow laws that were enacted after The Civil War prohibited blacks from the popular seaside resorts in places like Atlantic City, N.J. and Revere Beach, Mass. And by the 20th Century, as the swimming pool began to gain in popularity in the United States, the color line prohibited blacks from enjoying this pleasant recreational skill.

In addition, self-segregation also played a role in limiting those of African ancestry from getting in the water. I remember my Aunt saying to stay away from the pool because, “black folk don’t swim.””

odinsblog

Such a long and consistent history of anti-Blackness and swimming. Long before police openly assaulted little black girls in McKinney, GoodWhitePeople™ were enforcing White Supremacy and segregating swimming pools.

Motel manager, James “Jimmy” Brock, pouring acid into a swimming pool to drive black people away from a “Swim In” protest, in St. Augustine, Florida on June 18, 1964.

Next time you hear someone ask questions like, “Why don’t black people swim?” Or “Why are so many black people afraid of dogs?” And, “Why are there do so many black people live in poverty?”…..let ‘em know that those aren’t coincidences. These things didn’t just happen naturally, all on their own. There’s a reason for it, and you don’t have to be an historian to know they’re all interconnected through slavery, endemic racism and persistently racist cultural norms.