• grue@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    …if there’s [a pool] available near them.

    Speaking of institutional racism…

    This validated a new normal across America: When legally required to share public pools with Black children, many white families decided they’d rather not go at all. Closing public pools to avoid racial integration became official policy for many cities across the U.S.

    Not only did racism deprive black people of access to pools (leading to stereotypes like “black people don’t swim” etc.), it also greatly reduced it for white people, especially ones not wealthy enough to pay for membership to one of the private pools that sprang up in the wake of the closures of the public pools.

    We are all sicker because of the bigots’ hate.