The Government Pool

I heard something quite shocking this afternoon driving around town.

As usual, I was listening to NPR and the usual weekend program (I don't remember its name) featured a man in Cincinnati, OH, who has donated large sums to keep the city's public pools open for the last few years. They called him the city's Pool Godfather.

Awfully nice of him, don't you think?

Anyway, the host of the program asked him a few questions about why he'd donated all this money, blah, blah. What came next is what grabbed my attention: the host asked what August would be like without a pool, somewhat sardonically. Next came a recording of his responses from some young kids who, with the general pool noises in the background, began answering in their child-like way.

“Oh, it would be super hot and sticky,” said one. Another said he'd never leave the house, and on it went, one childish voice following another with varying degrees of cuteness. Until:
“It would be wrong. The government has to keep the pool open, they can't just close it for no reason." This last in an unmistakably black, ebonics-tinged accent.

Now, I don't know if it's because this particular black child was more “politically aware” than the other children or what else—he sounded like a young child in age, just like the others—but it suddenly hit me, perhaps because of my biases, I admit, that this child is already being groomed to protest to the government in loco parentis. He is already so attuned to politics, already so willing to moan and gnash his teeth at the all-providing government, already knows from where his sustenance, if you will, emanates.

Already.

I may be completely, 100 per cent wrong (as I usually am, God knows), but this, if it is anything like I think it is, bodes evil days ahead for black America.