Swimming: an elitist pastime?

[Rii]

So most of the following article from the BBC concerns African-Americans and their non-swimming ways, and that's certainly an interesting topic for discussion of itself, but it was a broader - albeit, related - statement which most caught my eye:

BBC: Why don't black Americans swim?

A month ago, six African-American teenagers drowned in a single incident in Louisiana, prompting soul-searching about why so many young black Americans can't swim.

When 15-year-old DeKendrix Warner accidentally stepped into deeper water while wading in the Red River in Shreveport, he panicked.

JaTavious Warner, 17, Takeitha Warner, 13, JaMarcus Warner, 14, Litrelle Stewart, 18, Latevin Stewart, 15, and LaDarius Stewart, 17, rushed to help him and each other.

None of them could swim. All six drowned. DeKendrix was rescued by a passer-by.

Maude Warner, mother of three of the victims, and the other adults present also couldn't swim.

I admit I find the lemming-like quality of tragedy vaguely amusing in a macabre sort of way. At what point does it become clear that this approach simply isn't working?

But according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the fatal drowning rate of African-American children aged five-14 is three times that of white children.

A recent study sponsored by USA Swimming uncovered equally stark statistics.

Just under 70% of African-American children surveyed said they had no or low ability to swim. Low ability merely meant they were able to splash around in the shallow end. A further 12% said they could swim but had "taught themselves".

[....]

Some might assume the fundamental reasons would be lack of money for swimming lessons or living in areas where there were no pools, but the reality is more complex.

"Fear of drowning or fear of injury was really the major variable," says Prof Carol Irwin, a sociologist from the University of Memphis, who led the study for USA Swimming.

Typically, those children who could not swim also had parents who could not swim.

"Parents who don't know how to swim are very likely to pass on not knowing how to swim to their children," says Ms Anderson.

In focus groups for the study, Prof Irwin said many black parents who could not swim evinced sentiments like: "My children are never going to learn to swim because I'm scared they would drown."

The parents' very fear of their children drowning was making that fate more likely.

The major reason behind the problem could lie in the era of segregation says Prof Jeff Wiltse, author of Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America.

"The history of discrimination… has contributed to the drowning and swimming rates," says Prof Wiltse.

In his work he identified two periods of a boom in swimming rates in the US - in the 1920s and 1930s when recreational swimming became popular and the 1950s and 1960s when the idea of swimming as a sport really took off.

The first boom was marked by the construction of about 2,000 new municipal pools across the nation.

"Black Americans were largely and systematically denied access to those pools," he notes.

"Swimming never became a part of African- American recreational culture."

In the northern US that segregation in pools ended in the 1940s and early 1950s, but many white swimmers responded by abandoning the municipal pools and heading off to private clubs in the suburbs where segregation continued to be enforced.

"Municipal pools became a low public priority," he notes.

After the race riots of the 1960s, many cities did start building pools in predominantly black areas, says Prof Wiltse, but there was still a problem. Many of the new pools were small - often only 20 by 40ft (six by 12m) and 3.5ft (1m) deep.

"They didn't really accommodate swimming. They attracted young kids who would stand in them and splash about. There really wasn't an effort to teach African-American children to swim in these pools."

Although there are many poor or working class white children who cannot swim for similar reasons, swimming has gained an image as a "white sport".

"It is [seen as] a country club sport that only very rich kids get to participate in. The swimming pool is [seen as] a very elitist thing to have in your backyard," says Prof Irwin.

I think a swimming pool is a rather elitist thing to have in one's backyard, but I don't see how that translates across to the activity/sport more broadly, particularly given that most backyard swimming pools are too small (or simply the wrong shape) to support more than recreational splashing about.

But maybe I'm entirely off-base here and swimming is right up there with sailing, horse riding and Formula One. What say you?

 

[Kemaiku]

This should end well.

 

[Squiggy]

 

[Roger Wilco]

I think swimming should definitely be taught in school. If that's not a crucial life skill, what the fuck is? It's shameful if a 15-year-old can't swim at least enough to keep himself above water until somebody can help him.

 

[Count Zero]

I'm not an American. In my country it's definetely not an elitist pastime. It's taught in primary school and at public pools there are usually many people with a migration background.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

I can't swim. Swimming was taught in my high school P.E. class but it was only for a few weeks and i didn't learn much.

But to be honest, my idea of going to the beach is sitting in a beach side bar enjoying a martini.

 

[Amaris]

I think swimming should definitely be taught in school. If that's not a crucial life skill, what the fuck is? It's shameful if a 15-year-old can't swim at least enough to keep himself above water until somebody can help him.

I agree. The earth's surface is covered by about 70% water. At some point, that swimming skill is going to come in handy.

 

[Rii]

I think swimming should definitely be taught in school. If that's not a crucial life skill, what the fuck is? It's shameful if a 15-year-old can't swim at least enough to keep himself above water until somebody can help him.

It'd be one thing if swimming ability was correlated with exposure to water in the same way that, say, skiing ability (of which I have none) is correlated with exposure to snow, but according to the article this isn't the case and folks are exposed socially to pools/beaches/etc. whether they know how to swim or not.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I came from a poor/working-class background and I am a moderately-capable swimmer. I can cover distance and tread water.

I did most of my swimming at Cub/Boy Scout camps and community pools. The most I ever had in my backyard were those $10 thin-walled things, which you didn't swim in so much as just sit and splash around.

 

[Rii]

I came from a poor/working-class background and I am a moderately-capable swimmer. I can cover distance and tread water.

I did most of my swimming at Cub/Boy Scout camps and community pools. The most I ever had in my backyard were those $10 thin-walled things, which you didn't swim in so much as just sit and splash around.

If the board software supported it I was going to add a second question for swimmers about when they learned to swim. It strikes me that it's not something many people pick up of their own accord as adults or even teenagers, rather it's something thrust upon them by parents. Certainly that was the case for me.

And of course that hypothesis would map nicely with the article's observation that children's ability to swim is highly heritable, thereby laying the foundation for the article's exploration of historical social factors contributing to contemporary demographic differences.

 

[Jetfire]

I am a moderately capable swimmer, comfortable traversing some distance.

Our middle school taught swimming in PE and most of the kids I went to school with and the majority I lived around were black.

 

[pookha]

heck some of our many drownings this summer came from people who were were not aware of their limitations in swimming.

especially people in boats with out a floatation device.

now i could see a specific regional issue.
around here with all the lakes it is pretty easy to find a place to swim.
and the y's as well as the boys and girls clubs have pools and teach swimming.
but i dont really buy into the racial tendency thing.

 

[Lonemagpie]

This looks like some sort of US-specific cultural issue rather than a general social-grouping-vs-water issue...

As for Formula 1 - you know it's a young black male who's leading the championship now...? And he's a previous champion. Even that isn't a rich white guys only thing any more...

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I came from a poor/working-class background and I am a moderately-capable swimmer. I can cover distance and tread water.

I did most of my swimming at Cub/Boy Scout camps and community pools. The most I ever had in my backyard were those $10 thin-walled things, which you didn't swim in so much as just sit and splash around.

If the board software supported it I was going to add a second question for swimmers about when they learned to swim. It strikes me that it's not something many people pick up of their own accord as adults or even teenagers, rather it's something thrust upon them by parents. Certainly that was the case for me.

And of course that hypothesis would map nicely with the article's observation that children's ability to swim is highly heritable, thereby laying the foundation for the article's exploration of historical social factors contributing to contemporary demographic differences.

I was forced to learn as a kid. My parents tried on several occasions to teach me to swim, but it never took until I got to Boy Scout camp. There, you were taught to swim by being pushed off the dock into 8-foot-deep water. You either figured it out pretty fast or were horribly embarrassed because you had to be rescued.

 

[TerokNor]

Hmm...I don´t think swimming is elitist. Here in nursery/ school each kid has swimming lessons and gets at least 2, mostly 3 swimming-badges (at least it was so in my school-time).
1. Seepferdchen (thats what the little kids train for for showing they can somewhat swim)
2. Freischwimmer (the second one, that usually, at least I know it the way, each kid makes in school, it means you can swim well and can stay alive in deep water so to say)
3. Fahrtenschwimmer (the third one is advanced, this is often also done in the school swimming lessons).

I have only 2 of them, not the third one, cause I refused to dive and pick up the rings from the deepest spot in the pool, which was one of the tasks to get the advanced swimming badge. :-/
Anyway I can swim well enough to not drown in the swiming pool or lakes and oceans in normal weather conditions (but I still don´t dive, I always have my head above the water).


TerokNor

 

[STR]

Swimming? Not elitist.
Golf? A little.
Tennis? You're getting there.
Polo? Oh hell yeah, I mean, indubitably.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

You need a monocle when you say that, old chap.

 

[clint g]

I'm a moderately capable swimmer. I learned how to swim at a really early age (I was around 3 or 4). If I continued to work on it I would probably have been really awesome at it. As it is, I hardly touch a pool now but I'm still more than capable of swimming.

 

[Rii]

But to be honest, my idea of going to the beach is sitting in a beach side bar enjoying a martini.

Not a big fan of sand myself; but the pool is another thing. There are few sights in this world more captivating than the toned female form in motion underwater.

but i dont really buy into the racial tendency thing.

You ... don't buy into the CDC's data? It's a rather large discrepancy to dismiss as being of no significance.

The earth's surface is covered by about 70% water. At some point, that swimming skill is going to come in handy.

To be fair, knowing how to swim probably isn't going to help you very much if you were to suddenly find yourself somewhere in most of that 70% which isn't anywhere near land. So you die a little slower.

As for Formula 1 - you know it's a young black male who's leading the championship now...? And he's a previous champion. Even that isn't a rich white guys only thing any more...

I admit I don't follow it much, haven't since I was a kid. It only came to mind because I was just checking out some footage from the upcoming game F1 2010, which, incidentally, is looking rather shiny:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dm1PWu-tlQ[/yt]

Hmm...I don´t think swimming is elitist. Here in nursery/ school each kid has swimming lessons and gets at least 2, mostly 3 swimming-badges (at least it was so in my school-time).
1. Seepferdchen (thats what the little kids train for for showing they can somewhat swim)
2. Freischwimmer (the second one, that usually, at least I know it the way, each kid makes in school, it means you can swim well and can stay alive in deep water so to say)
3. Fahrtenschwimmer (the third one is advanced, this is often also done in the school swimming lessons).

I have only 2 of them, not the third one, cause I refused to dive and pick up the rings from the deepest spot in the pool, which was one of the tasks to get the advanced swimming badge. :-/

Ah, picking up rings from the bottom of the pool, I remember that.

I can't (well, won't unless it's absolutely necessary) open my eyes underwater without goggles and consider all those who are comfortable doing so to be freaks.

Here there's no public school swimming program per se, but there's a an associated, largely government-funded swimming program for children 4-17yrs which runs for 2-3wks/yr during the Summer holidays which enjoys a high degree of participation. It has something like 12 tiers (excluding the associated 'instructor' path which can be pursued from the 9th tier or so onwards) ranging from floaties to oxygen-assisted CPR. I was one of the few who ran the whole gamut, although I missed out on getting the final 'Distinction' badge on account of the fact that I managed to break my finger during the endurance swimming component. All things considered, the program is probably one of my fondest memories of childhood/adolescence.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

But to be honest, my idea of going to the beach is sitting in a beach side bar enjoying a martini.

Not a big fan of sand myself; but the pool is another thing. There are few sights in this world more captivating than the toned female form in motion underwater.

I think we're gonna have to agree to disagree.