By Mark, with Grok 3
In 1978, a high schooler nearly drowned at Lake Tahoe. A track star (4:31.6 mile), he swam 200 yards to a buoy at 5 a.m., alone, driven by a 2% mindset—fortitude too stubborn to quit. Too lean to float, freezing, he clawed to shore, blacking out, wrists failing, jumping for air. “Thirty seconds more, I’d have drowned,” he recalls. In 2012, now a retired Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) mechanic with Primary Lateral Sclerosis (PLS), barely walking or speaking, he cleared a carburetor Airworthiness Directive—his final task. His 1970s high school and a brilliant 2025 South Africa thought experiment reveal why only 2% of Navy SEALs are Black: it’s numbers, not a problem.
In that racism-free school (1976–1980), Black track athletes (one-third of the team) were top-tier but didn’t all have the 2% grit SEALs seek—often found in non-athletes, as even NFL players rarely endure BUD/S’s torment. Dennis Brown, a Black valedictorian, showed academic fortitude. The no-cut swim team, with indoor pools and big college meets, welcomed all—“no one would have said boo.” Yet, Black students chose track over swimming, despite recreational dips. Cultural disinterest or social barriers were cited, but the observer, who defied PLS to maintain aircraft, calls these excuses. Black baseball pioneers like Jackie Robinson dominated a white sport (18% Black MLB by 1980). Why not swimming? Framing it as “technical” sounded racist, implying Black inability, when his A&P precision proved otherwise.
BUD/S is a sluice box, harshly agitating recruits with drown-proofing, cold-water torment, and Hell Week’s sleep-deprived misery to make them quit. Like gold, heavier and determined to stay put, the 2% remain—too stubborn to surrender. Black students, athletic or not, could have pursued SEALs. Why the disparity? His 2025 South Africa thought experiment explains: if BUD/S were in South Africa, the smaller white population (8%, 4.8 million) would have a smaller 2% pool (96,000) than the much larger Black population (80%, 48 million, ~960,000 2%), so whites would underperform, yielding more Black SEALs and fewer white. In the U.S., Blacks (12%, 40 million, 800,000 2%) are outnumbered by whites (60%, 198 million, ~3.96 million 2%)—a 4.95:1 ratio. Numbers drive outcomes
The 2% Black SEAL rate is no flaw. As this A&P concludes, we’re inventing a problem where none exists. Celebrate the 2%—they’re gold.
Published by Editor, Sammy Campbell.