1. Blacks do not feel pain.
According to a 20-year meta-analysis study, this myth is so believed that Black patients are 22% less likely to receive pain medication than white patients. Another study stated that 40% of first and second-year medical students believe that Black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s. This myth has been and can be consequential to Black livelihood; we may be super dope, but we’re not superhuman.
2. More Black men in prison than in college.
Ivory Toldson, an associate professor at Howard University School of Education and author of No BS (Bad Stats), argues against the infamous narrative, stating:
I pulled the data from 2001 that the Justice Policy Institute used, and I noticed that at least 1,000 colleges weren’t reporting their headcount of black males then. And I also noticed that a lot of colleges that didn’t report any numbers when the Justice Policy Institute wrote their report were historically black universities. They were big, state universities that I’m pretty sure had some black males present at the time.
3. What about Black-on-Black crime?
This is the LAMEST excuse against the Black Lives Matter movement from whites, republicans, and even some Blacks. The argument is supposed to point out a contradiction that if a Black person doesn’t care about Blacks’ crimes in their neighborhood, then why should they care about white officers killing unarmed Blacks. Well, besides being a false equivalency, how about the FBI Expanded Homicide stat that most crime victims’ offenders are of the same race, like 82%.
4. Black people had it better during segregation.
Yes, during segregation we had thriving Black communities such as Rosewood in Florida, Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and other Freedmen’s towns throughout the United States that were either destroyed by white riots or lost through desegregation. However, that was not representative of all Black life, which was massively affected by post-Civil War Jim Crow laws that systematically blocked Black empowerment for 100-plus years. These oppressive laws placed former Confederate soldiers as elected politicians and law enforcement, prevented voting rights, and separated the military—to name a few. So, yeah… no.
5. Black folks can’t swim.
See Simone Manuel, Olympic Gold medalist; Lia Neal, Olympic Silver medalist; Maritza Correia, first record-setting Black swimmer; and Cullen Jones, Olympic Gold medalist.
6. Black folks do not support each other.
Your Black momma, your Black daddy, your Black Auntie & Uncle, and your Black neighbors/friends. Every other Black person that gave you a head nod. Black banks, Black colleges, various Black businesses—big and small—and the list goes on. The Black American life is a unique one; hence why it is different from the white experience. The comparison of white allegiance to Black alliance without the mention of Systematic racism being the benefactor of white advancement alone would never make success identical to Black achievement.
7. Black people generate heat.
Nope. June in the South, a thermostat with a broken knob, an air conditioner that goes on strike in August—those culprits may contribute to the inner heatwave. But Black folks just being ourselves ain’t raising the temperature.
8. All Black people love chicken.
… Okay, let’s maybe change this list to eight myths.
9. Black men and women (mostly) are always angry.
Always angry? No. At times fed up and exhausted with the oppressive American system’s hypocrisy that continuously tries to prevent us from being our best Black selves?! Yes.
