Posted on 08/02/2010 8:20:12 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache
It looks like two families.
“Assistant Fire Chief Fred Sanders says they were playing in the water Monday evening and stepped over a sudden drop-off to 20 feet deep.
Sanders says they were with adults, but none of the group could swim.
He says he believes they were from two families three brothers in one family, and two brothers and a sister in the other.”
When I took swimming in college two of the basketball players were in my class. The professor (a PhD) said that black males drown the most because they are usually more muscular than others. Fat floats while muscles sink. Those two athletes did okay learning how to swim but in the deep water they had quite a bit of difficulty.
A 12 footer that far north huh. Of course they might be swimming upstream in the summer.
Oh yes, someone did say blacks can't swim...the word was used without immediate clarification...and there has even been an assertion on this thread that it might have something to do with blacks' BMI and center of gravity.
JADB has said that she didn't mean to use the word "can't" as "being incapable," that she rather meant that they didn't possess the skills required to swim due to not having been taught.
But it was said, and someone postulated on the physicality of black people. Hence my response.
They found the other two,,,(the shreveport times)...
I find it pretty funny (funny clarified as odd, not haha) that you would jump to the conclusion that I meant blacks were incapable of swimming, especially when I specified a certain part of the country.
Maybe people were reading science publications.
“Bejan and Jones cite past studies of the human body which found that on average, the center of gravity is about three percent higher in blacks than whites. Using this difference in body types, the researchers calculated that black sprinters are 1.5 percent faster than whites, while whites have the same advantage over blacks in the water. The difference might seem small, Bejan said, but not when considering that world records in sprinting and swimming are typically broken by fractions of seconds.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100712103349.htm
The other way would be to use it in the sense that blacks aren't capable of learning to swim which I did not see implied or specifically mentioned. I could have missed a comment or two but personally I didn't see where anyone implied or stated that blacks were not capable of learning to swim.
Was fishing in the bass boat about 15 years ago and lost the grip on my rod and real and it went overboard. Flipped the wife my wallet and dove in without thinking. Got the rod and real and climbed back into the boat.
Wife was laughing at my dumba$$, looked around to see if any other fisherman saw my little screw-up, that's when I saw a couple of 10 footers about 75 feet away on the opposite bank.
A very good learning experience.
Interesting, my grandmother who was extremely high waisted always said she swam just like a rock. The rest of the family is all “normal” and all swim like fishes. Don’t know if that had anything to do with anything but an interesting piece of info.
Red Chute Bayou is infested,,,(east of me),,,
They killed one in Alabama that was 28’ 1”,,,
That 12 footer most likely came down 12 Mile Bayou from
Caddo Lake,,,
~~~
We were told that the city was going to build a big
wave-pool on the parkway but the money got spent on other
Krap,,,
The lawyers will be on this by dawn!...
Hi John ... why was it that you didn't swim well? Was it the same for all six of you, or were there different reasons?
I really don’t know why blacks aren’t generally attracted to swimming but it surely can’t be that minor of a physical difference, that would only affect super athletes at the highest levels of competition, white people run and race in their youth, although they probably won’t be entering the Olympics.
Whitey here can’t swim either! I also grew up in a lake community to boot!!
That’s too damn close,,,
Some of the smaller lakes here have been closed for swimming
because of alligators,,,
They kept quite about that 12 footer for a few days,,,
Damn Fishin’ contest...
Best lesson to learn it seems.
Just horrible.
Naw ... that story, along with the photo of the gator hanging from a crane, has been credited to a half-dozen places across the south and has been a internet sensation for 7-8 years.. The photo actually came from Texas and the gator was around 13 feet. No 28-foot alligator has ever been recorded.
All six drowned trying to save a 15 year old that survived when someone tossed him a life jacket.
That is a heavy burden to carry.
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