This is often considered a racist question and should not be. It is easily observable and should be addressed. It is nothing but tragic that such a large percentage of blacks (at least American blacks) don’t swim - it is horrible how many more drownings they endure, and I don’t understand the reason for it.
It seems to me it can’t be helped until it is acknowledged, and there is nothing racist about it.
I used to hear why blacks don`t swim is they don`t float
very well....whatever
Been donating blood for 30 years or so,Seen about 5 blacks
donating in that time span.Never saw a black doing Apheresis
25 gallon donor here
When I was in my teens I worked as a lifeguard on an Army base. Part of our job was to do “drown proofing” with the soldiers. Almost every black guy would go straight to the bottom like a rock and end up trying to crawl up on your head when you brought them back up LOL!! In general they seem to have very little body fat so part of the problem was they had zero buoyancy. I think a lot of it comes from exposure and being comfortable in water. What a tragedy for the mom to lose 3 children. Can’t imagine.
Sorry, but to me that smacks of the liberal attitude that blacks are incapable of taking care of themselves, making their own decisions, and so WE have to take them in hand and do something for them.
My local Y had some kind of outreach program to urge blacks to learn to swim. Why? They know they'll drown if they go in the water without knowing how. But shouldn't they be able to choose whether they learn? They KNOW swimming lessons exist and apparently choose not to take advantage of them. Their choice.
He pointed out that blacks have a heavier/denser skeletal frame so that they don't get injured as much running, etc. However, (now he didn't say that but I came to the conclusion) that would make them heavier in the water. There are very few Olympic swimmers that are black. (This man didn't just focus on blacks, he went into the physical frames of, say, Asians and how they are basically made for gymnastics and diving --- stuff like that.
I found it interesting because he was looking at the differences in the physical bodies of different ethnic groups and how that affected which sports they were good at. Of course, it was immediately called "rascist" and the man became a pariah. Such sillines.
It may simply also be a case that minority parents just don't see this as a priority for their children where, whites do. Maybe the parents just need to be educated in how important it is for the child to be able to swim, even just a little.
No one - NO ONE! - who lives on a planet that’s 7/10 water should not know how to swim. I don’t care what color you are.
Because the majority of blacks live in areas where swimming facilities are not available to them.....The same question could be asked about why there are no blacks on the U.S. Ski team......
I grew up on a lake in northern Michigan and learned how to both swim and ski as a youngster. When I moved to Detroit for my junior and senior year of high school, I easily made the senior swim team which not surprising, only had one black on the team.
We had had a kid from NY stay summers with us in the Fresh Air program. We taught him to swim and do water rescues! It is crazy that so American children don’t know how to swim or at least to tread water.
They’re afraid of water and drowning. The fear is passed down in families.
There are plenty of free public (often inner city) programs that encourage kids to learn to swim, particularly in summertime.
You can lead a horse to water (heh) but you can’t make him drink.
It absolutely is not a racist question but only a question of a statistical fact.
A a scuba instructor rarely did I have a black student. But when I did the checkout dives at the end of the class were the funniest thing.
Anybody else in the class would either drive themself to boat or have a family member take them and drop them off and pick them up upon the boats return EXCEPT if that person was black.
Then the whole family would pile onto the boat, dressed in their Sunday best to watch the “crazy” family member jump off it into the water.
This was NOT an isolated incident but every time I had a black student.
Make sure a child has swimming lessons, either formally or through the family, requires higher end parenting skills. The black community sadly, has a larger crossection that does not have that level or parenting ability.
My four black children swim like fish.
Most of us went swimming with our parents when we were young - and later they dragged us to swimming lessons.
Same with reading... white parents read to their children more - have books in the home - take kids to ‘lessons’ of all types.
Most black parents don’t.