s/o: POC and swimming - what are your experiences?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious why start a new thread? This is easy to google.

-b/c it involves a separate issue from the morality/decency of what these specific young people did/failed to do to that poor drowning man. And it was distracting from the other thread.

PP here. I was asking more from the point of, what is your point in discussing further? Yes, it's known that at least two thirds of AAs can't swim--this is an easily found statistic. The reasons why this is the case are also easy to google. Do you just want personal anecdotes? I could see this sort of devolving into an anonymous place to deride many POC who never learned to swim for reasons related to discrimination and unequal access.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Given the newly-added citations, I don't doubt the statistic.

Should swimming be taught in every public school and be mandatory?

I'm not a POC but my public high school DID have a pool. It was the norm for the majority of kids to get a note excusing us from swimming in gym. Mine referenced chlorine bothering my contact lenses or something. There were like, 30 girls on the bleachers, and five poor unfortunate souls actually in the water. There was a joke that those were the girls whose mothers didn't care about them. So "mandatory" doesn't actually MEAN mandatory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious why start a new thread? This is easy to google.

-b/c it involves a separate issue from the morality/decency of what these specific young people did/failed to do to that poor drowning man. And it was distracting from the other thread.

PP here. I was asking more from the point of, what is your point in discussing further? Yes, it's known that at least two thirds of AAs can't swim--this is an easily found statistic. The reasons why this is the case are also easy to google. Do you just want personal anecdotes? I could see this sort of devolving into an anonymous place to deride many POC who never learned to swim for reasons related to discrimination and unequal access.

PP again. And it looks like it already has, from recent posts.

[Anonymous]

I'm an UMC AA female and I don't know how to swim; I can float and in an emergency could do a rough doggy paddle until a lifeguard got to me, but that's it; I have tried swim lessons multiple times but can't quite get the hang of it. I would like my child to swim and intend to keep trying with adult swim lessons for myself because it's a safety issue.

There were no pools open to AAs where my mother grew up. My dad swims because he grew up near a lake. The amount of time necessary to wash, straighten, and style my hair in a way that met cultural/social norms was a factor in my parents' decision to abandon swim lessons when I was a child (they paid for classes but I never passed to the higher level). When I did baby swim classes with my daughter I spent far more time on hair after swimming than we spent in the pool and traveling to/from the pool. Not using that as an excuse but I do think it was a factor especially for older generations when 'natural' hair was viewed as unacceptable.

[Anonymous]

It should get better with the current generation, given the large amount of resources the DC government has poured into public pool over the last 15 years.

But in the DC area the pools were some of the first things to be defunded after the White Flight years. All those private, exclusive pool clubs in MD and VA? They were created so the whites wouldn't have to mix at the pool with poor POC.

It all goes back to money as a proxy for racism. Amazing, right?

[Anonymous]

Hopefully Simone Manuel's Olympic win will inspire many AAs to swim. It is an extremely white sport in the US. I am Asian American and still feel like a minority, but that's probably just the same as outside the pool.

[Anonymous]

I posted early about my family. Hair care with daily or weekly swimming was a pain in the butt, but I know even my male cousins didn't learn because of other poverty barriers within the same afterschool program. Required:
True swimsuit not shorts
a combination lock
a swim cap
flip flops
Doctor's signature on form that child could participate

My aunt had six kids close together in age. She didn't drive. She worked in a factory and barely made their rent. Their dad worked in another state and sent money for basics. School clothes were always from the thrift store. Even if the thrift store sold swim trunks and flip flops that was money she'd have to take from jackets and shoes. Her kids got shots through the free clinic. I doubt they ever had a physical once.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It should get better with the current generation, given the large amount of resources the DC government has poured into public pool over the last 15 years.

But in the DC area the pools were some of the first things to be defunded after the White Flight years. All those private, exclusive pool clubs in MD and VA? They were created so the whites wouldn't have to mix at the pool with poor POC.

It all goes back to money as a proxy for racism. Amazing, right?

About this time last year, I posted asking if anyone could recommend a private swim club in MD that was relatively racially diverse. It didn't go particularly well.

[Anonymous]

Asian here and I grew up going to the pool daily in the summer, and was on swim team year-round. My own children can swim, but not nearly as well as I can because I work and they only get to the pool a couple of times a week, if that, whereas I lived at the pool every day.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps if the issue were treated as a public safety issue, more kids could be taught, and more lives saved?

It seems analogous to the last administration's recognition of childhood obesity as a public health matter worthy of government attention/resources.

[Anonymous]

I am a person of color and I swim. Grew up swimming and was a lifeguard in college.

[Anonymous]

I think OP is using Black and PoC interchangeably here and really shouldn't be.

Specifically, Black Americans are far less likely to know how to swim than their white counterparts. That's the piece we're talking about, not PoC in general.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think OP is using Black and PoC interchangeably here and really shouldn't be.

. . .

??? Explain.

[Anonymous]

According to a PP/ARTICLE black people don't swim due to violence and intimidation? Does anyone actually believe this crap?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It should get better with the current generation, given the large amount of resources the DC government has poured into public pool over the last 15 years.

But in the DC area the pools were some of the first things to be defunded after the White Flight years. All those private, exclusive pool clubs in MD and VA? They were created so the whites wouldn't have to mix at the pool with poor POC.

It all goes back to money as a proxy for racism. Amazing, right?

About this time last year, I posted asking if anyone could recommend a private swim club in MD that was relatively racially diverse. It didn't go particularly well.

Maybe because there was an insinuation on your part that white people would be nasty to you because you are black. 99% of people don't care about this crap.