Two White Dudes Invent Prosthetic Tail That Saves Winter the Dolphin’s Life; Morgan Freeman to Portray those White Dudes in “Dolphin Tale”

Wait a second... aren't those two actual scientists white guys?

A recent advertisement for a new family movie called Dolphin Tale had me intrigued. As a kid in the mid-90s, I was swimming in the ocean far away from my parents and the shoreline. Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by a pod of dolphins.

Showing no fear, they allowed me to pet them before playfully swimming away. I tried to swim after them, but upon passing the second sandbar I stopped. Trying to stay above water (as the tide bobbed me up and down) to fully capture their majestic departure, I finally relented and swam back to the shore.

That memory came flooding back to me as I watched the trailer for Dolphin Tale. Debuting in theaters on September 23, Dolphin Tale is the extraordinary "true" story of the dolphin, Winter, the star attraction of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

Tragically, Winter lost her tail in a crab trap back in 2005. Heroically, two employees of Hanger Prosthetics & Orthotics, Kevin Carroll and Dan Strzempka, were moved by Winter's story and motivated to develop an artificial tale for the dolphin. It should be noted here that both Carroll and Strzempka are white; in the film Dolphins Tale, the roles of the two white guys who actually invented the artificial dolphin tale have been lumped into a character named "Dr. McCarthy", played naturally by the numinous negro himself, Morgan Freeman:

Morgan Freeman … From Easy Reader on PBS' The Electric Company to the voice of VISA in television commericals to the Academy Award-winning actor he is today, Morgan Freeman brings a wealth of experience to his role as Dr. McCarthy in Dolphin Tale. But when he first read the script, he wondered who or what would play Winter.


“I wondered how they were going to do the dolphin. Where are you going to find a dolphin without a tail? I didn’t know about Winter at all.”

Once on set, Morgan got to know more about Winter’s tale while portraying an eccentric doctor who creates prosthetics for war veterans at a VA hospital.

Now you might be asking yourself: why does it matter that Hollywood has decided to put a Blackface on the actually inventors of the artificial dolphin tale, designed by two white guys, that save Winter's life? It's just a movie, which happens to be produced by the same people who brought us 2009's surprise hit The Blind Side.

It's important because a lot of people are going to see this film, and because most people believe what they see on television and in films, they'll come away thinking that a Black guy actually invented this prosthetic tail that helped saved Winter's life. I wrote a whole book on what I call "Black Fictional Images", entitled Hollywood in Blackface.  Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, and Will Smith are the go-to Black actors for creating positive images of Black people via portraying fictional Black scientists, inventors, doctors, and people who routinely save the world.

If you haven't picked a copy of it up yet, I highly recommend it.

That the casting director and script writer for Dolphin Tale would find it necessary to amalgamate the two white scientists who actually invented the artificial tail for Winter into a "Black Fictional Image" that could only be played by Freeman is one of the more egregious examples of Hollywood's policy of Blackfacing true events for the purposes of inculcation.

There was no "Dr. McCarthy"; this is a Black Fictional Image created with the expressed desire of convincing moviegoers that a Black person was involved in the tale of saving Winter the Dolphin. In this case, the artificial tail was invented and developed by a Black guy. People believe what they are told, what they see.

But the truth is always just below the surface. So who are the real inventors of the artificial dolphin tail that saved Winter's life and inspired the film?:

In December 2005, a three-month-old bottlenose dolphin found herself tangled in the ropes of a crab trap near Cape Canaveral, Florida. Fortunately, fisherman Jim Savage heard her cry and was able to free the little dolphin from the rope that was wrapped tightly around her tail and mouth. After making some calls, a rescue team came to help and she was taken to the Florida Clearwater Marine Aquarium (CMA). The team at CMA worked night and day to help Winter recover from the injuries and she began to make steady improvement. However, her tail was badly damaged and as the team feared, she lost her tail.

In 2006, Kevin Carroll, an expert prosthetist and vice president of prosthetics at Hanger heard her story and offered to fit her with an artificial tail. “My heart went out to her, and I thought I could probably put a tail on her.”

It took about a year and a half for Carroll and Hanger’s Sarasota, Florida Practice Manager, Dan Strzempka to develop the new tail for Winter. It was a more difficult task than Carroll originally anticipated. "When we fit a socket on a person, we have one long, solid bone and the socket isn’t moving in every direction. With a dolphin, it needs to move along with her full spine." One of the biggest challenges they faced was figuring out how to keep the tail from sliding off and how to propel a 400-pound dolphin 10 feet into the air. Carroll and Strzempka have since volunteered their nights and weekends to the CMA fabricating a series of tails, creating special liners, and developing new materials for her very delicate skin.

 But what about Dr. McCarthy? What about the character that Morgan Freeman will portray in Dolphin Tale? Didn't a septuagenarian Black male invent the prosthetic that save Winter's life? No. It was two white guys, members of that unappreciated race who invented (and sustain) practically everything that keeps modern society moving forward.

The only invention that can be created to a Black person is the Super Soaker, and even that is just an improved device for delivering concentrated blasts of water in a playful, weaponized stream of fun.

Two white guys and their contributions to the Winter story have been lumped together into the creation of palatable Black Fictional Image in Dr. McCarthy, played by the ubiquitous Morgan Freeman.  The rest of the cast is hideously white, like Super 8 or I am Number Four. Ashley Judd and Harry Connick Jr. also star in Dolphin Tale, rounding out a cast full of other white people. The insertion of a Black Fictional Image of Dr. McCarthy, played by Morgan Freeman, was perhaps necessary for this film to get green-lighted.

 Having too many white faces would have potentially made the movie un-filmable. USA Today ran a story on the actual white guys who invented the artificial tail for Winter, and how techniques used in the invention of the prosthetic device for the dolphin have been used to help humans:

When an animal is hurt in the wild, humans will come to its rescue if possible. With TLC, the animal is able to return to the wild, its lasting effect on humans limited to some warm memories.

The case of Winter, the bottlenose dolphin, is decidedly different. Winter lost her tail after being caught in a crab trap near Cape Canaveral in 2005. She was just 3 months old and 75 pounds, a rope was tied around her mouth, and she was losing circulation to her tail when a fisherman found her and called Florida's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution. 

Now, Winter is getting an artificial tail that will let her swim much like she used to. The high-tech work also has made life better for an Iraq war veteran who lost his legs to an explosion.

The link between dolphin and war veteran is Kevin Carroll, vice president of Hanger Prosthetics and Orthotics in Bethesda, Md., a dolphin lover who first heard about Winter's desperate situation on the radio. Winter had stunned her handlers when she used her flippers, typically reserved for navigation, to swim.

Carroll knew that if the dolphin continued to swim in this unnatural way without her tail, she probably would develop further problems in her spinal cord. 

Carroll, who usually works with human patients, offered his services to Florida's Clearwater Marine Aquarium, where Winter has been receiving treatment. 

Carroll's company began creating a flexible, silicon-based prosthetic tail. He planned to place the tail over a gel-like substance to hold it in place while protecting the dolphin's sensitive skin. Carroll says he tried several substances until he found a commercially available one that suited Winter. 

About a year later, he again experimented, this time on a human.

Brian Kolfage lost both legs and his right hand in a mortar attack Sept. 11, 2004, while serving with the Air Force in Balad, Iraq.

Kolfage, 22 at the time, received two leg prosthetics but continued to have a severe skin reaction. Carroll decided to experiment with the gel-like substance he had developed for Winter, using it to pad the irritated area between Kolfage's new left leg and pelvic area.

In what Carroll calls a "big breakthrough," the substance relieved Kolfage's discomfort. 

Kolfage, now 25 and working a desk job for Air Force security in Tucson, began walking again. "I really didn't think it would work … but it was like the difference between night and day," Kolfage says. "It was perfect." 

Carroll always expected to be able to apply some technology discovered with Winter to a human case, but he says the success of such applications is rare.

As for Winter, the 20-month-old dolphin has boosted aquarium attendance 15% to 25% and inspired corporate sponsorships and donations to the aquarium. 

Winter's progress is slow and steady. Carroll released a prototype of a prosthetic tail in April but has not permanently attached it to Winter, who cannot swim normally without it. 

Trainers, most of them volunteers, work with Winter up to six hours a day to acclimate her to the gel material. Carroll hopes to attach the socket-tail device in about a month and the full prosthetic in six months. 

Hanger Prosthetics and Orthotics is paying for the entire project. Carroll and practitioner Dan Strzempka have been donating their free evenings and weekends to complete research and visit the dolphin at the non-profit aquarium where she will remain for the rest of her life. 

"I didn't realize it would take so long," Carroll says. "But I've committed for the long haul."

Again, the "Dr. McCarthy" you will see in Dolphin Tale doesn't exist; a Black guy - even one played by the charming Morgan Freeman - had nothing whatsoever to do with the creation of Winter's artificial tail. It was two white scientists who invented Winter's artificial tail, but including this inconvenient truth in Dolphin Tale would make the movie too white.

So before some Black Web site like Thegrio.com, Theroot.com, or Newsone.com tries to claim yet another fictional Black invention, let's remember that "Dr. McCarthy" is not real; it's just two white scientists rolled into one numinous negro to elicit the necessary cinematic Black Fictional Image effect upon moviegoers.

Hollywood in Blackface, in action. 

What is Black Fictional Heroes Month?

You knew it coming. Last year for Black History Month we brought you Black Fictional Heroes, an ode to the monumental roles Black people have had in Hollywood that have helped create positive images in the minds of movie goers, television viewers and those who consume vast amounts of popular culture.

A Black Virologist?

Though the real world produces a scarcity of positive examples of Black people (hence Spike Lee’s vain hope of locating Black men to become teachers, when less than 50 percent of Black males even graduate high school), Hollywood has helped craft the ideal (idol?) numinous negro to supplant the continuous  inundation of negative information that emanates from the Black community.

Television gave us The Cosby Effect, a by-product of that wonderfully fictional Black family that Americans invited into their homes on a weekly basis during the 1980s. Though 72 percent of Black children are born to single mothers (an incredibly high percent never makes it past the second trimester), the positive images from Bill Cosby’s sitcom denuded many of the negative stereotypes that white people held regarding Black people. “We’d love to have the Huxtable’s as neighbors,” thought many white people viewing The Cosby Show.

Though patterns of residential living suggest otherwise, The Cosby Effect is real. The power of Black Fictional Heroes is real.

NASA can scour America’s elite colleges for the next top Black engineer to no avail, but Hollywood can cast a Denzel Washington, Will Smith, Cuba Gooding Jr. or Morgan Freeman as a top virologist, mechanical engineer, molecular biologist or even God and viola, you have a fictional representative that millions upon millions will see.

What NASA can’t find, Hollywood and television can easily manufacture. That is the beauty of mass media, fabricating images that can create a massive amount of cognitive dissonance among the viewer. The media will constantly bemoan the lack of real-world Black architects, doctors, dentists, ballerinas, engineers, Nordic Gods, and even wine enthusiasts, but movies and television (even commercials) rarely has a shortage of Black people starring in roles reality simply can’t duplicate.

This is the idea behind Black Fictional Heroes. We at SBPDL love movies and through viewing hundreds if not thousands of films have come to admire the tenacity of casting directors in Hollywood who continue to perpetuate the idea of Black Fictional Heroes.

When you watch movies (or television and the commercials between programming) you allow your mind to enter a state of “increased suggestibility” that allows the implantation of the numinous negro phenomenon (what we call the Black Fictional Hero) to easily seep into your brain. Though sports provide the bulk of real-world positive examples of Black people, Hollywood works diligently to program the rest through a steady diet of fictional heroes:

Consider this passage from Four Arguments For The Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander:
I asked ... prominent psychologists, partly famous for their work with hypnotism, if they could define the TV experience as hypnotic and, if so, what that meant. I described to each the concrete details of what goes on between viewer and television set: dark room, eyes still, body quiet, looking at light that is flickering different ways, sounds contained to narrow ranges and so on. Dr. Freda Morris (former professor of medical psychology at UCLA and author of several books on hypnosis) said, "It sounds like you are giving a course outline in hypnotic trance induction."


Dr. Ernest Hilgard, who directs Stanford University's research program in hypnosis and the author of the most widely used texts in the field (said), "Sitting quietly, with no sensory inputs aside from the screen, no orientating outside the television set is itself capable of getting people to set aside ordinary reality, allowing the substitution of some other reality the set may offer. You can get so imaginatively involved that alternates temporarily fade away. A hypnotist doesn't have to be interesting. He can use an ordinary voice, and if the effect is to quiet the person, he can invite them into a situation where they can follow his words or actions and then release their imagination along the lines he suggests. Then they drift into hypnosis."


Now, if anyone were really honest about this, how could they say that the typical watching of television doesn't fit the same conditions necessary for hypnosis? Of course, some people will scoff at the idea that hypnosis is anything but Quack Science; for those I suggest researching the Department of the Ministry of Truth as described in George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four or Soma as referred to in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. I suggest researching these two only if I can get those of you who still believe television is good or neutral to turn it off for a moment to bother to pick up and read a book.


The point of this is to show that television is a form of hypnosis. Hypnosis is described as "suspension of the critical factor" which expands on the idea of "increased suggestibility." A person who is hypnotized may accept statements as true that he or she would normally reject…

As I stated in my article (and confirmed by Marie Winn's book The Plug-In Drug) it is not what is on television that is bad, it is not the content that is damaging; it is the mere act of watching television that is harmful. Television is a displacement of time. It is a huge waste of time — in a hypnotic state — that implants other people's messages into the viewer's head.

Think about this: how often do you see movies or television shows where the villain is Black? Though Thug Report showcases the true color of crime, Hollywood would have you believe that only white guys are actively engaging in criminality. Television shows such as Law and Order utilize real-life crimes as plots, yet switch the races from Black culprit to white to ensure that people will watch.

The nightly newscasts that turn into veritable into Thug Report’s is a reality that most people find difficult to live in (though most move flee the problems by moving to whitopia’s), so TV shows and movies constantly manufacture white villains and criminals to root against, while a Black cop becomes the hero.

From the Super Soaker to creating Batman's arsenal

Ask yourself: How many movies or television shows have you ever seen where the Black guy was the villain? In Mission Impossible III, it was teased that Lawrence Fishburne’s character was a rouge member of the IMF, a double-agent for a terrorist cell. Instead, Billy Crudup’s white character was the traitor. To make it worse, he dared suggest Fishburne’s character (Brassel) got the job as head of the IMF because he was an under-qualified Black man, signifying his true immorality:

(Musgrave reveals himself to be the traitor)

Ethan: You told him. You told Davian Lindsey was coming, that's how he knew.

Musgrave: I thought you could get her back. But I wasn't going to let all people, to let Brassel to undo the work I've done. I took action, Ethan. On the behalf of all working families of America, the Army force, the white house. I've had enough of Brassel and his sanctimony. IMF director, he's an affirmative action poster boy. 

One of the lone recent movies where the bad guy is Black happens to be Unbreakable. Mr. Glass, played by Samuel L. Jackson, is a super-villain who pulls off acts of terrorism in a bid to find an unbreakable person.

What other television show or movie made recently has a Black antagonist? Movies where they save the world come out routinely, as do movies with a Black person portraying the President of the United States (funny that most of them are president when the world is ending). Name some that have Black bad guys.

Now come up with movies or television shows that have a Black person portraying the moral compass, always there with sage advice or a brilliant new intention. In the real world, the primary invention we have courtesy of Black people is the Super Soaker. In movies, the inventions of Black people help bring about artificial intelligence and the destruction of the world.

This Web site has documented Black Run America (BRA) for almost two years, a tyrannical ideology that governs every aspect of life in the former United States. It seeks to remove any and all vestiges of a once prosperous nation,and in movies we even see history under attack.

Why else would Morgan Freeman be cast in a Robin Hood movie? Because people believe movies and television are an extension of reality and perceive history to be accurately portrayed in them. Though England had almost no Black people in the nation as little as 50 years ago, it makes perfect sense for Freeman to be in 12th century Britain when you apply logic utilized by Hollywood.

Same goes for a Black person playing a Nordic God in Thor, or even a Greek God in Percy Jackson: The Lighting Thief.

Black people provide an endless comedy of errors in the real-world, though Hollywood and television work overtime to create positive examples of Black people through Black Fictional Heroes and compensate for the reality's deficiencies.

Search the archives for last years inductees and suggest new entrants into this illustrious Hall of Fame. Men like Morgan Freeman, Will Smith, Denzel Washington and Eddie Murphy have done more to create positive examples of Black people through their film roles then any bus boycott or civil rights speech ever could dream of replicating.

We will be highlighting Black Fictional Heroes all month, these men and women who have done more to artificially create the perception of equality through their films and television roles then any of the saints you will learn about during Black history month.

Just remember that Black people are more likely to engage in heroism than whites. Then you'll understand why Black Fictional Heroes month is so important.

Scott's Tots it's Not: Flocabulary to Save the Day

The skies are clear, no superhero is near. Black people wait with bated breath for that hero to arrive that will provide the knowledge and knowhow necessary to cause of cessation of Waiting for “Superman”.

A hero with the pedagogic dexterity to steer the rudderless and capsizing ship that represent the attempts at educating Black children has yet to found.   No didactic compass has been located to point Black children in the right direction, for Black children fall behind in the educational game and drag the rest of country to Davy Jones’ Locker.

No amount of money from the state or private charities nor instruction from Crusading White Pedagogues has been sufficient in addressing the distractions that plague Black children and cause the racial gap in learning.

Though the promise of free scholarships from Michael Scott in an episode of The Office did motivate Black children to perform solid enough in their academics to garner tuition from the hapless manager of Dunder-Mifflin Sabre, this fictional TV show is not representative of real-life (consult Scott’s Tots episode).

In the real world, hundreds of organizations offer scholarships that help-out Black children at the expense and exclusion of other races (which is why middle-class white voters flee the increasingly Minority Rainbow Coalition (MRC) run Democratic Party).

Reports have been circulating that indicate a superhero not unlike Meteor Man is at work creating curriculums utilizing Flocabulary, hip-hop style teaching, in a last ditch effort to offer Black children the opportunity of closing the racial gap in learning:

Concern over a new hip-hop curriculum that refers to the founding fathers as "old dead white men" has delayed the program's rollout for at-risk students, Oklahoma City Public Schools Superintendent Karl Springer said.

"We're making sure that whatever we do, first, we do no harm," Springer said. "The science behind the concept is wonderful. There may be some things, though, that are inappropriate that we need to be careful about."

Known as Flocabulary, the program is a music-based educational tool that uses raps, rhythms and rhymes to help students learn and memorize everything from vocabulary and English to math and social studies.

About 15 teachers have complained or expressed concern about the rap song lyrics, said Ed Allen, president of the Oklahoma City American Federation of Teachers.
"I just don't think we were real careful where we deployed it," Allen said. "Not all parts of it are real affective for the more troubled youth."

It is the U.S. history curriculum that has raised concern.

One of the rap songs — "Old Dead White Men" — chronicles the shortcomings of the early leaders in the United States.

Of President James Monroe's tenure, the rap says: "White men getting richer than Enron./ They stepping on Indians, women and blacks./ Era of Good Feeling doesn't come with the facts."

That's followed up by an assessment of President Andrew Jackson's checkered dealings with American Indians.

"Andrew Jackson, thinks he's a tough guy./ Killing more Indians than there are stars in the sky./ Evil wars of Florida killing the Seminoles./ Saying hello, putting Creek in the hell holes./ Like Adolf Hitler he had the final solution./ 'No, Indians, I don't want you to live here anymore.'"

Springer said he was concerned about some of the lyrics, and that's why the district is holding off on the program until it's been evaluated.

Flocabulary CEO and co-founder Alex Rappaport said the lyrics are made intentionally provocative and sometimes humorous to create student engagement among some of the toughest-to-reach students in the nation.

"In general, the purpose of our program is to motivate students, and we often say the enemy here is student apathy," Rappaport said. "We want students to ask questions and challenge assumptions that are made and think critically about historical themes."

Hip-hop is what the kids are listening to these days, and because Black Run America (BRA) dictates the Ebony-tilitarian (what is best for Black people will be implemented at the expense of everyone else) philosophy, schools across the country will come to rely on Flocabulary and might even start hip-hop schools to plug the racial gap in learning:

The Portland School Board's charter school committee recommended approval of the High School for Recording Arts Portland -- the first recommended approval by that committee in at least four years.

The committee passed the resolution in a 2-to-1 split vote Friday morning.

If the full school board approves the charter application at the Dec. 14 board meeting, the High School for Recording Arts Portland would be the 10th charter to operate within Portland Public Schools' boundaries. The district has more charter schools than any other place in the state, but it also has a tougher application than most school districts and turns down most applications.

Superintendent Carole Smith also recommended the Portland School Board approve the charter school, which wants to use an arts-integrated curriculum, hip-hop music and credit by proficiency to serve about 200 students.

But Smith's report also recommended the school revise its budget, provide a more detailed curriculum outline and consider postponing the opening to 2011 in order to integrate the school into the district's high school redesign process.

Supporters said the school was an innovative idea that could engage disinterested students by drawing from hip-hop music and other recording arts.

Board member Dilafruz Williams cast the only dissenting vote among the three committee members, saying the school didn't have a strong enough academic foundation.

"I don't understand how, through the recording arts, you will be able to teach all those other critical subjects -- math, science, physics, algebra," Williams said. "I appreciate the strength of the recording arts. But we are in the business of doing that other academic piece and not the recording arts."

All board members said they were concerned about the low achievement scores posted by the High School for Recording Arts Minnesota, a 12-year-old charter school in St. Paul, Minn., that is sharing some of its strategies with the Portland school. Since it is not a replication of the Minnesota school, board members can't use concerns about the Minnesota school as a reason to deny the High School for Recording Arts Portland.

The Word Up Project by Flocabulary has shown stirring results, though any individual who points out the dumb-downed tests that students are taking now to create the impression of successful teaching will only be greeted with scorn and ridicule. 

Other teachers who work with Black students have used more unorthodox methods to improve education:

During the 20-plus years Harriett Ball taught in Texas public schools, her methods weren’t always applauded. She sometimes butted heads with a system that didn’t appreciate deviation from the norm. However, Ball was committed to her rambunctious teaching style, which is now nationally celebrated…

She used songs, chants and games to get kids excited about learning. “I take whatever the kids are watching and make it educational,” she said.

Ball once taught math using a McDonald’s commercial tune; another time, she used a mock boxing match to help students “knock out the continents” for a geography test.
“They all aced the test,” she remembers.

Interaction is the cornerstone of Ball’s method. “They’re not just listening to me, they are responding.”

The dramatic improvement in her students’ test scores soon attracted attention.

We will continue to impatiently practice Waiting for “Superman” all the while implementing the most foolish, pathetic and inane (costly) programs possible to try and uplift those who fail in every school system in America they be found, yo. 

SBPDL believes that the only way to improve education is found in the story of Ken E. Bonds, a man who has decided to take up arms against the prevalence of pants on the ground, non-belt wearing individuals on his Memphis street. 

If change is to come, it must come from within. With a 70 percent out-of-wedlock birthrate, the times they ain’t gonna be a changing. To see Harriet Ball rap to her school, click here.

#176. The Super Soaker

In the upcoming science-fiction film Inception, one of the main characters is heard to state:

“What's the most resilient parasite? An Idea. A single idea from the human mind can build cities. An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules. Which is why I have to steal it.”

Ideas lead to discovery, which in turn lead to innovations, ultimately giving us inventions that benefit humanity.

It is stated that life began in Africa and that humans migrated elsewhere, thus the Out of Africa Theory (OAT). Often maligned as The Dark Continent, those of African descent have been noticeably absent from any hard science fields when it comes to Nobel Prizes and worse, metallurgy never took off on a continent bestowed with untold resources. It was left to Europeans and now, the Chinese (those who evolved outside of Africa, if OAT is to be taken seriously) to mine these resources for human usage.

Prometheus is said to have stolen fire from the Gods and given it to man, an act he was eternally punished for and yet this divine spark was the mythical instigator for all human innovation.

Black people are painfully aware that Prometheus decided to impart that divine spark of fire unto white people, thereby depriving the earliest form of life (if OAT is taken seriously) any opportunity to create, innovate and eventually invent anything of lasting significance that has helped benefit the humanity:

Imagine some pathetic Euro-American activist grabbing your lapels and demanding,

"Did you know that Euro-Americans invented the airplane? [You nod.] Oh, you did? Well … did you know that Euro-Americans invented the golf cart? Huh? Huh, did you know you that?"

Well, duh, everybody knows—whether or not they're crass enough to mention it—that over the last 500 or 600 years, whites invented pretty much everything worth inventing. (And, of course, a lot that wasn’t.)

For his encyclopedic Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century, Peter Watson interviewed 150 scholars from around the world about who was responsible for the great innovations. Watson recounted that

"…all of them—there were no exceptions—said the same thing. In the 20th century, in the modern world, there were no non-western ideas of note."

Maybe this is a little unfair to the Japanese, whose Just-in-Time manufacturing was hugely important. And to some nonwhites in the West who came up with good ideas like jazz. Overall, though, the dominance of whites is just so hugely apparent that it's in bad taste to talk about it.

During Black History Month, Crusading White Pedagogues go to great links to elucidate the trivial inventions of Black people to the point of praising George Washington Carver for his contributions in furthering our knowledge of peanuts and multiple usages and applications of this delicious diminutive snack. Sadly, even these teachings are inaccurate.

A list of purported Black inventions is found here, though these touted accomplishments face scrutiny here. Black Invention Myths is a website dedicated to truth in a world where Fictional Black History Month Heroes are being drudged up from the bottom of seemingly endless sea of innovations brought to you solely by the Black mind:

Perhaps you've heard the claims: Were it not for the genius and energy of African-American inventors, we might find ourselves in a world without traffic lights, peanut butter, blood banks, light bulb filaments, and a vast number of other things we now take for granted but could hardly imagine life without.

Such beliefs usually originate in books or articles about black history. Since many of the authors have little interest in the history of technology outside of advertising black contributions to it, their stories tend to be fraught with misunderstandings, wishful thinking, or fanciful embellishments with no historical basis. The lack of historical perspective leads to extravagant overestimations of originality and importance: sometimes a slightly modified version of a pre-existing piece of technology is mistaken for the first invention of its type; sometimes a patent or innovation with little or no lasting value is portrayed as a major advance, even if there's no real evidence it was ever used.

Unfortunately, some of the errors and exaggerations have acquired an illusion of credibility by repetition in mainstream outlets, especially during Black History Month (see examples for the traffic light and ironing board). When myths go unchallenged for too long, they begin to eclipse the truth. Thus I decided to put some records straight. Although this page does not cover every dubious invention claim floating around out there, it should at least serve as a warning never to take any such claim for granted.

Well, Black-Inventor.com is one of the best tools for researching Black inventions as they provide links, unlike numerous websites that purport to highlight inventors who hail from The Dark Continent.

Sadly, insufficient evidence is cited which can credibly confirm any of the aforementioned inventions that came from the fertile soil of the African mind (Ancient Egypt was not Nubian, to the dismay of Afro-centrists everywhere).

However, one such innovation is credited to a Black person which Black people collectively can take credit for and relish in the notion that one innovation is fully documented as theirs: The Super Soaker.

This toy gun, when filled with water, has the ability to supply children with endless hours of fun and we owe its creation to Lonnie Johnson:

Lonnie Johnson has some impressive hard science credentials.

He’s worked for the Strategic Air Command and for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, engineering missions to Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. He holds more than 100 patents, many of them in that arcane spot where chemistry, electricity and physics cross into future technology. He invented a chip that converts solar heat to electric current

Now Johnson, a nuclear engineer is introducing a new generation of rechargeable battery technology that could revolutionize the, cell phone, pacemaker and plug-in electric car.

But among the crowd of aspiring engineering students, their parents and some of Los Angeles’ top names in engineering, Lonnie Johnson is still known as Mr. Squirt Gun, inventor of the Super Soaker water gun.

“What, cried UC Riverside engineering students Ebube Agu, Kevin Mitton and Nkenge Wheatian “He invented the Super Soaker”? The students were among those gathered at the Proud Bird Restaurant for the Los Angeles Council of Black Professional Engineers’ 31st annual awards and scholarship banquet.

Keynote speaker Johnson, 61, doesn’t mind if he’s better known for watery mayhem than rocket science.

Perhaps that’s because more than $1 billion worth of Super Soakers have sold since 2007. His share (he licensed the Soaker’s design to Larami Toys, later bought by Hasbro) won him financial independence to pursue his own dreams and ideas which is how his Atlanta based Johnson Research and Development Company was born.

“It all started with an accident,” Johnson told the crowd.

The Super Soaker toy gun is the most important contribution to humanity that can be credibly linked to being solely the innovation of a Black individuals mind, thus it can truly be celebrated by Black people everywhere as a profound sign of their inestimable value:

No one could mistake Lonnie Johnson for a crackpot tinkerer. The Atlanta toy inventor knew he had something special when he let his children play with the pump-and-nozzle apparatus he had fashioned. "The other kids in the neighborhood," he says, "just had regular water pistols."

Johnson first got the idea for the Super Soaker in 1982, while he was still in the Air Force. "I was experimenting with inventions that used water instead of Freon as a refrigeration fluid," he recalls. "As I was shooting water through a high-pressure nozzle into the bathtub, I thought that it would make a neat water pistol. From that point, it was an engineering problem."

In March 1989, Johnson visited the Larami Corp. booth at the American International Toy Fair held at New York City's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. But, he was in a wary mood for deal-making, bringing with him a history of disappointing ventures with manufacturers who had licensed his previous ideas. "I didn't have a nondisclosure agreement with me," he recalls, "so I talked very superficially. I just said I had an idea for a new type of water gun and asked if they would be interested."

Millions of children can thank Mr. Johnson for this invention, as he helped progress toy military technology by 50 years and ushered in a new era of water-based weaponry that few can hope to replicate. Every other innovation, well... we think you know who to thank.

Sadly, the invention of the Super Soaker is an albatross for Black inventors as so few other innovations have come from the innovative minds of Black people (Robert Johnson did found Black Entertainment Television, but this innovation has done little to improve the quality of life for anyone who watches the channel).

Lonnie Johnson has placed a heavy burden upon Black people (especially Black inventors) by inventing the Super Soaker, a device of such overwhelming importance that one can scarcely imagine a time when such an innovation wasn’t help wreck havoc in backyards across Whitopia’s everywhere.

Stuff Black People Don’t Like includes the Super Soaker. Lonnie Johnson’s invention is a sad reminder that unlike the character Leonardo DiCaprio will portray in the upcoming film Inception, Black people can’t steal inventions as he can dreams for their own benefit.

Only in movies are such innovations brought to us by Black people. Save the Super Soaker, of course.