Oddities

Black People Can’t Float

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I hear a lot of crazy things everywhere I go. Sometimes it’s in the grocery store, the gas station, or even at my job. The craziest thing so far is that black people can’t float. Now I need to explain how this happened and why, trust me it was more innocent than you probably expect.

I was just getting my MS Excel on while I heard my 2 coworkers having a conversation that bordered on racist if it had been a white guy and a black guy, but since it was a Korean guy and a black guy it was totally acceptable by societal norms. Something had led them to discussing who would be the better swimmer or something like that and the Korean guy turned around and asked the black guy if it was true that black people can’t float. I damn near fell out of my chair, not because of the comment, but because the genuineness of the question. The Korean guy really thought that black people couldn’t float. The black guy didn’t know what to say except to laugh and dispel the myth quickly.

I think that since black people can’t swim, which was scientifically proven through an article in Yahoo News, which I would bet my life on, that the floating part was a natural conclusion. I can remember when I was a teenager and my friend told me that black people had an extra muscle in their legs that white people don’t have which is why they were better at basketball than me. I believed that for a very long time. I just assumed I was never going to be better at basketball but then I realized that it wasn’t true and that I was just white. While it took 10 years to find out the truth, I now understand that black people were not built different just so they can play basketball.

These examples really show how many people really don’t understand that we are all the same. Honestly though, I am ok with so many people thinking this way. If we all knew and understood that we were identical then life wouldn’t be nearly as fun. I am not talking about people getting hurt, that shit is never fun. I am talking about the funny things in life that we can laugh about like not being able to float. If you are reading this, and are black, I thank you for giving me this one to smile about…I appreciate it, even though I am well aware that it is not true…although I couldn’t find any pics of a black person floating in Google images…weird.