by LaToya Johnson
Almost 60 percent of black children can’t swim. Why is that, and what can we do about it?

While many kids love the water, fewer minority children make a splash in the sport of competitive swimming. And black children, ages 5 to 14, drown at a rate three times higher than their white peers, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
 
Cullen Jones, Olympic swimmer and gold medalist and Tavion
Traynham. Photo credit: Daniel Johnson/Courtesy USA
Swimming Foundation 
These disparities result from a number of variables, such as the influence of parents’ attitudes toward swimming and the parents’ swimming ability, according to a study done by the University of Memphis’s Department of Health & Sports Sciences and commissioned by the USA Swimming Foundation.

Researchers discovered that minority children were less likely to swim if their parents couldn’t swim or if their parents felt apprehensive about swimming. Some additional significant study findings indicated the following:

• Minority youth from homes where family members did not swim or weren’t fitness-oriented were more likely to be unskilled at swimming or uncomfortable in the pool.

• African-American boys said they were better swimmers, more comfortable in the pool and less afraid of drowning compared with their female counterparts. (In fact, the study found that African-American females had the weakest swimming skills or comfort level in pools when compared with females of all other races.)

• Higher income predicted youth’s better swimming ability and comfort with the sport.

• Youth from homes with highly educated parents or guardians were more skilled and comfortable swimmers.

Besides these findings, however, cultural conditioning also influences the swimming disparities between blacks and whites. Olympic gold medalist swimmer Cullen Jones points to attitudes passed down through generations that have made both black girls and boys too self-conscious to pursue swimming.

“I have a lot of females in my family, and black women do not like to get their hair wet,” Jones says. “In every group of African Americans I’ve talked to, that is something that’s always said.”

For black boys, however, reasons to avoid learning how to swim are different. Having to wear skin-tight swimwear is a “big deterrent,” Jones says. “Boys don’t like wearing briefs, and that dissuades a lot of them from becoming competitive swimmers.”

Guys become self-conscious and wonder what friends will say about them, Jones says. They think their friends will think they’re “a sissy,” and that concerns them.

“I’ve heard from people all over the world, and they don’t say anything about the fact that I’m wearing a skin-tight suit [when swimming],” Jones says. “But at age 11, boys can be mean, and I know that because I’ve been through it.”

Jones says he understands and sympathizes with both genders’ concerns about stigma attached to swimming, but he hopes both sexes will consider his accomplishments in the sport and be able to move beyond these psychological issues essentially rooted in a lack of self-esteem.

Racism at the Pool
 
Racism is another issue with psychological roots that contributes to black parents’ unconscious unease with swimming, according to historian Jeff Wiltse, author of the book Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America.

Wiltse’s book examines the history of municipal pools as stages of racial and social conflict in America. “Latent social tensions often erupted into violence at swimming pools because they were community meeting places, where Americans came into intimate and prolonged contact with one another,” Wiltse writes.

The primary concern for whites at that time, Wiltse indicates, was that the pool’s sexual atmosphere would give black men the opportunity to interact with white women and promote racial mixing. As a result, pools turned into battlegrounds where blacks were beaten for daring to swim in supposedly desegregated waters.

Today, that legacy of fear lingers. That race is a trigger for violence against blacks in America is a lesson handed down through generations. This legacy influences the poolside concerns of parents who often do not quite remember the reason for their fear. Nonetheless, it is there and subtly communicated to their children: Take care where you swim.

As recently as last month, a news report detailed an incident at The Valley Swim Club, a suburban Philadelphia private pool, where attendants ejected a group of minority children whose parents had paid for access to the facility.

“When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately excited the pool,” said Horace Gibson, the parent of a camper. “The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately.”

“It was never our intention to offend anyone,” says John Duesler, president of the swim club’s board of directors, in a CNN story about the incident. “This thing has been blown out of proportion.

Nevertheless, the incident sparked outrage in the community. Senator Arlen Specter (D–Pa.) issued a statement calling the allegations “extremely disturbing” and said he was looking into the matter.

But beyond the headlines, the episode reflects swimming’s history of racial politics and why some black parents have apprehensions about the sport.

In an Associated Press (AP) story about the incident, reported by USA Today, Jones commented “hearing about what’s happened to these 65 kids is both disturbing and appalling.”

A spokeperson for the USA Swimming Foundation’s “Make a Splash” (MAS) campaign, Jones teamed with the organization to motivate minority parents and their children to test pool waters and learn how to swim.

Debunking Myths

Jones, a world-class swimmer, is also teaching another valuable lesson. He and other minority athletes in water sports debunk the myth that blacks aren’t good swimmers because of an innate lack of buoyancy.

John Cruzat, diversity specialist for the USA Swimming Foundation, says this common misperception—made worse by illogical academic research—grew out of a 1969 study in The Journal of Negro Education titled “The Negro and Learning to Swim: The Buoyancy Problem Related to Reported Biological Difference.” This, researchers believe, is the originator of the myth that African Americans are genetically predisposed to not be able to swim.

“There are still people who give credence to these stereotypes, even in the black and Hispanic community,” Cruzat says. “These long-held beliefs are still so potent. If you don’t teach your children to swim, you’re putting your grandchildren at risk.”

Jones also believes parents play a vital role in encouraging more minority kids to swim, but he says the hardest part of the process is getting parents behind their children.

“What I try to do is speak to the hearts of the parents and get them to understand that swimming is a great way to keep their kids active,” Jones says. “I always tell them that when the kids come home and they’re rambunctious and jumping off the walls, swimming will take care of that. They’ll be tired when they come home.”

Make a Healthy and Historic Splash

But swimming is more than just a good sedative to calm your child’s hyperactivity. It’s a full-body workout that has many health benefits. 

Jones adds, “It’s a great source of exercise in general…unless you become serious about it—then it becomes a job.”

Nevertheless, like Jones’s mother, you might consider involving your kids in competitive swimming. The sport boasts great benefits: It teaches sportsmanship, time-management, self-discipline and goal-setting, and it provides an increased sense of self-worth through participation in pool activities.

Swimming may even improve kids’ attitudes toward school. Parents whose children participate in MAS and USA Swimming Foundation swim meets rave about the difference they’ve seen in their kids who started swimming. Parents are impressed with how disciplined their children become after committing to swimming, and kids gain respect for water safety.

But, though learning how to swim might be the most obvious aspect of water safety, it’s not the only one.

Jones advises parents that it’s important their kids become aware basic water safety tips before learning how to swim.

Those tips include following these rules:

•    Never swim alone; use the buddy system.

•    Never swim in abandoned lakes, rivers or pools.

•    If possible, make sure that you or someone in your swimming circle knows basic cardiovascular pulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

•     Never swim when there’s thunder and lightning.

•     Get involved in a structured swim class as soon as possible.
Jones stresses that the misconception that black folks don’t swim kills the motivation of many African-American children who want to learn how. It’s a myth found only in the United States, Jones says, where less than 2 percent of registered U.S. swimmers are African American.

“Outside the U.S., a lot of people know how to swim,” Jones says. “I’ve swum internationally, and I can tell you that Nigeria has a swim team.”

Of course, we’ve heard a lot about Jones since he swam his way to Olympic gold last summer at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. But the first African-American swimmer to make history for winning Olympic gold in the sport was Anthony Ervin in 2000 in Sydney. (Ervin took the gold in the 50-meter freestyle race.)

In 2004, Maritza Correia won a silver medal in the 400-meter freestyle relay, making her the first black female swimmer to make a U.S. Olympic swim team. And, in the 1970s, Jim Ellis led the first all-black swim team in Philadelphia.

If you’re motivated to enroll your children in a swimming program but don’t know where to start, try your local YMCA. You can also visit the USA Swimming Foundation website, swimfoundation.org, for a current listing of local partnerships in your area.

As Jones says, “The point is to definitely try and catch kids in the fearless age where they feel like they can do anything.”

If you’re older and don’t know how to swim but want to learn how, remember, you’re never too old or young to dive in!

Source:  http://www.realhealthmag.com/articles/blackchildren_swimming_drowning_1936_17102.shtml