911
"That Mamdani is a menace!"
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2026
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Y'all know that stereotype about how "black people can't swim?" That came about because, back in the day, cities were being forced to racially-integrate their swimming pools and a lot of them spitefully chose to close them instead. (And then the wealthier white people regained access by buying memberships to private pools, possibly attached to their new swim/tennis subdivision they'd just moved to as a result of white flight. The net result is that White Americans are more likely than Black Americans to have the opportunity to learn to swim, to this day.)
Just something to think about in this thread about the New York Post trying to get people mad about a leftist brown person in a swimming pool.
Actually goes back even further.
During slavery being able to cross water was a superpower for escaping slaves. Blood hounds would lose the scent.
If a master saw one slave swimming, everyone would be whipped. Pretty soon, the older slaves would stop any kid who went into the river.
Also https://nabsdivers.org/
Damn. "Black people can't swim" hits wayyy harder with that context
Here's another fact I learned recently.
Back in the early days of movies, it was common for a vaudeville to show a one reel cartoon in the middle of the live acts.
Because blackface performers were popular in those days a lot of the early cartoon were based on blackface comedians.
That's why so many wear white gloves, have black bodies and white lips.
Ok, hold up, dumb question incoming. Is Mamdani considered a POC? Like I know it's arbitrary but I feel like I've been making a categorical mistake now...
Not a dumb question at all. For racists groups in the US, POC is for the most part broadly defined as "not white, unless they're hot". The Petter G meme with the card is pretty much on point.
It's much more nuanced for anyone else.
I don't get the US American ruleset, but I can at least give you basic facts:
His parents are both of Indian descent. His father was raised in Uganda, his Mother in India. Zohran Mamdani was born in Uganda, they moved to South Africa when he was five, and then to the USA when he was seven.
Definitely makes him not white.
A lot of pools are unnecessary too. The vast majority of cities have some water feature that I guarantee people used to swim in before we started dumping our shit and various poisons in them. Usually they are accessible to everyone and they could be again if we just cleaned up our act. Especially in the age of extreme heat having free swimming areas accessible to everyone would be a big deal.
Cities have always dumped their shit into the river, it's half the reason to build a city there.
To say nothing of the fact that having a pool you can chlorinate is less likely to get someone sick, you can't treat natural water the same way
What if we try hydrogen peroxide
Sure but when it was only a few people it wasn't as much of an issue. And the pollution part is new.
We can make them clean enough to swim in again if we want to. It's totally doable.
I'll have what you're smoking. Spend a week in NYC and tell me we can make that water clean. I grew up on Long Island Sound, and the entire coast of CT dumps literal raw shit into the sound when it rains too much.
I mean yeah we'll have to stop doing that...
This may shock you but I have been to NYC before.
Those can be dangerous. There's a "river" (it's rather tiny for a river, but big for a crew or steam, and is named a river) near me that has walkways around it. One of the larger sections that had a sorta beach used to be available to public was closed a year or two back due to erosion and an E.Coli outbreak.
Lots of rivers also have hidden dangers like strainers, undercut rocks, eddy fences, etc. Pools are generally controlled environments, so some may consider them to be preferable for safety.
Where do you think the e. Coli comes from? This is exactly what I'm complaining about...
Some are dangerous yes but most cities are in flat areas where they're fairly safe for a proficient swimmer. Proficiency that would be easier to obtain if anyone could swim there for free.
The only time that would be was before the city existed. Sure we got carried away with chemicals in the 19th and 20th century, but before then a large portion of a city's trash and poop ended up in the nearest body of water. Just dumped straight in. Don't forget all the horse poop people had to deal with when that was the main transport system.
There was a reason diseases like cholera used to be such an issue.
Honestly I'd rather swim in the Hudson next to Manhattan today than in 1750.
Yes I am talking about when populations were way lower but my point is with modern governance and technology it's totally possible to have clean natural bodies of water for swimming again.
you cant filter or chlorinate a river/lake, and you cant put anti-slip tiles around one
pools' artificiality is useful and lets proper safety precautions be taken
Like the good old Broad Street pump.
Look, just let whitey have this one sport. Between that and the winter olympics, it's about all we've got left.
Skill issue
so like a bunch of sports then