Educational Post of the Day: Does Planking Have Its Roots In the American Slave Trade?

You ever wonder what the whole planking craze is about? Well it looks like it may have its roots in slavery.

Don't take my word for it, just peep the Wikipedia excerpt below and decide for yourself:

(Wikipedia) "In order to achieve profit, the owners of the ships divided their hulls into holds with little headroom, so they could transport as many slaves as possible. Unhygienic conditions, dehydration, dysentery and scurvy led to a high mortality rate, on average 15%^[4] and up to a third of captives.

Often the ships, also known as Guineamen,^[5] transported hundreds of slaves, who were chained tightly to plank beds. For example, the slave ship Henrietta Marie carried about 200 slaves on the long Middle Passage. They were confined to cargo holds with each slave chained with little room to move."

So, you may want to think twice before you take that next planking photo.

Tags: planking

Comment by MILTON on July 6, 2011 at 3:17pm: good information...

Comment by joshua williams on July 7, 2011 at 12:25pm: Shit deep, but white people pop dat planking shit off first so........

Comment by akai moore on July 10, 2011 at 5:24pm: we as black people do wateva we say goin on. and dont know wat da hell we doin or wat it means. dis new generation is lost.

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