Oh, those teeth! Your finger practically bleeds just looking at them: three rows of perfect, razor-sharp white triangles that you know are going to hurt. They're inside a mouth made for swallowing you whole, that's obvious, but when you think about it – are sharks really as bad as they seem? As you'll see in the new book “Sharks Don't Sink” by Jasmin Graham, maybe dentism isn't the problem. In studying them, maybe racism is.
Growing up near the ocean by Myrtle Beach, Graham fell in love with the water early in her life. She fell in love with the creatures there when she was 10, with her father, fishing – something her forebears had done on local piers for decades. She knew then that she wanted to be a “shark scientist.
” She was 18 when she first held a live shark, and that cemented her dream. Not long afterward, though, Graham felt like she “had burned out completely.” She'd been trying to make it in “a toxic, white, male-dominated .
.. environment laced with .
.. casual and overt sexism and racism,” and it was harming her well-being.
She was about to quit when she found a few other Black women who were shark scientists too and who were going through the same thing. Graham received instant support, and it was life-changing. Two weeks later, the new friends had decided to mobilize.
They met a Miami investor who lent resources and who helped them found Minorities in Shark Science (MISS), an organization that gives BIPOC young women an introduction to shark sci.