Hmm… BBC Asks "Why Don't Black Americans Swim?"
Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, September 3, 2010, 10:55 AM
I’m glad this didn’t come out of some conservative’s mouth.
Since it was posted at the liberal BBC if there is any controversy it should blow over in a few hours.
They must not have heard of Cullen Jones.
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David R. Graham commented:
Come on, this is a long-known reality, reflected in the fact that so few blacks are in SOF units and line units generally.
For God’s sake, why can’t one simply tell the truth, state the obvious and not worry about howlers hating facts. They’re never going to accept them, even if it kills them. So why must one worry about what they will say when one states the truth? It is cowardly to do that.
Blacks overall do not know how to swim. That doesn’t mean they can’t. It means they don’t know how and have little impulse to learn.
Dwayne the canoe guy commented:
I used to think this but my wife set me straight. She grew up in a mainly black part of town and she said the community pool was full of minority kids that could swim the shorts off of anyone.
Andreas K. commented:
“We would like it to be like seatbelts and bicycle helmets,” says Ms Anderson.
Waiting for the law to enforce it. “All children must learn to swim.”
Too bad that a law can never make up for the lack of common sense.
Or maybe it’s because you can’t learn swimming from a welfare check? Oh that was bad.
James commented:
Way to actually read the article. It mentions Cullen Jones.
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Chris commented:
Any minute now…..
Eleventy Zillion dollars has been set aside for new Swimulus package, per executive order (who needs that pesky ol’ Congress, anyway?).
And don’t anyone object, you bunch of &*@@*##&%*#*&$ racists!
Adirondack Patriot commented:
In Jamaica, some of the best swimmers I ever met were young black kids. Here in the US, swimming is not encouraged in black communities and schools as much as basketball and track.
Sheila commented:
Oh come on, Jim, one exception (Cullen Jones) does not prove a rule here. You can either accept the standard PC meme (legacy of Jim Crow, not enough integrated swimming pools, it’s whitey’s fault, it’s racism, it’s whitey’s fault, it’s racism . . . ) or scientific fact and social evidence (blacks’ bones tend to be heavier, they have no history ever of any sea exploration all along Africa’s coast, and black women don’t like to get their hair wet). Yes, and as Andreas noted, you can’t learn swimming from a welfare check. Decline and fall.
ck commented:
Fathers teach children to swim.
Rose commented:
Maybe this is racist, too – I never knew.
I was told from a child that Blacks cannot FLOAT, because of abody chemistry that is very dense ( some say muscles are dense and fat is what floats – take THAT for what it’s worth as well).
They told me this all the time because, although I don’t have any Black bloodlines at all, I also cannot float.
I became great at the technical aspects of SWIMMING through Red Cross classes at a Naval base, by a lifetime Navy Wife who taught the Navy recruits as well as the town’s children – but since I cannot FLOAT, by stroke three of something like the Butterfly Stroke, I am about 2 feet from the BOTTOM of the pool – impossible to pull back to the surface in only ONE stroke.
I can tread ok, but not on days when I am very weak. So I found that is harder work for me than I thought when I was younger.
At each stage I progressed through, the instructor would have to come and give verification – she generally did to each class – but when the instructor of the individual class tried to flunk me because of my inability to stay on the surface, if that was relevant, she would have to come and show the instructor how I was performing TECHNICALLY correct, and they couldn’t hold my body density against me.
I could Technically pass, though no one could pretend that was something I COULD do, they had to admit that I knew how to do it.
At that time, they assumed it was chemical changes in my body for change of life, and I would outgrow it – I never did.
Just to show who weird it is, my maternal grandmother can float in 3-4 INCHES of water. 90% of her body above the waterline. Serious. Even as a fairly large elderly woman. If she comes to the river with us, she loves to take naps on the water – but has to be blockaded on the downriver end, so she won’t float away while asleep and everyone may get distracted, so we build a little shelf of rocks so she has a small “cove”.
Still one of the all-time funniest things I ever saw in all my life.
My Mom and Dad both float just fine – not as good as Granny. His mom, I don’t know, because she would not get in the water at all, refused to learn to swim or let her daughters either, for the sake of “modesty.”
But at any rate, that is what the NAVY folks told us about swimming.
I found those “swim noodles” a few years ago, and bought some for my youngest, who thought that was a pain.
I used them, instead, and never had such an easy time of swimming in all my whole life, nothing like a lifejacket whatsoever, but great buoyance. Fabulous!
So I can say, if that is what keeps Black people from learning to swim – it is no joke the level of work it takes, in the difference between a naturally buoyant person and someone who is not.
StandUp4Chuck commented:
….and black people like watermelon and fried chicken. Swiming isnt a demographic. Black folks in the country know how to swim. Its the urban folks, white and black that sink like lead sinkers. The BBC is another liberal useful idiot.
Jim Walker commented:
This is actually quite a good article and you should read the comments to it. Also note that the article not only mentions Cullen Jones, it contains his picture.
Stuart commented:
And white men can’t jump. Now tell me another one.
KR commented:
As a mom, my experience is that moms are usually the ones to sign up their children for swimming lessons. When my child was learning to swim at the local municipal pool, the vast majority of families were non-black. For this option it is limited to parents who have the time during day work hours to be involved.
Several years back the Salvation Army and the Joan Kroc (McDonald’s founder’s wife) estate/foundation built a huge facility with 3 state of the art swimming pools for the poorer part of San Diego. They offer swimming lessons, but the summer schedule for pool use is packed with day-camps with many minority children. Here the parents can be at work while the kids swim.
Carlung commented:
Rose is correct. When I worked in South Africa it was well known that the Africans negroes could not float mainly because of the high density of their bone matter. You only saw white people at the swimming pools
Nick commented:
who gives a crap.
Colo Kid commented:
…when I entered the U.S. Navy(1951) each recruit had to take a swimming test in order to qualify for graduation from boot camp. I was surprised to find that not a one of the blacks in our three company boot camp unit of 180 recruits could swim. Each black was given time in the pool to develop a rudimentary ability to swim. The one black in my company of 60 men finally passed the test by graduation time from boot camp. My company also had two whites who had to take additional time to learn to swim Navy style.
Joanne commented:
I thought it was because it ruined their hair-do.
Lance commented:
Maybe the drowning had nothing to do with swimming. There are waters that even the best swimmers can’t handle.
Anyway, I had a black friend as a teenager who annoyed me when he refused to hit the beach with the rest of us. He said it had nothing to do with swimming but the sun. He didn’t want to get darker than he already was. I kind of understood – I didn’t like getting freckles.
Marsh commented:
They actually managed to figure out a way to blame these kids drowning on white people… Anti-white leftists are always looking for ways to demonize us it seems. God forbid parents take on the responsibility of teaching their kids basic skills which could save their lives. That would just be racist.
bastiches commented:
Jim,
Cullen Jones is part of the article.
If you are concerned about the image of conservatives, perhaps you should actually read the articles to which you link.
Arch commented:
I think Holland has a universal swimming instruction program and I think it would be an excellent idea here.
Other than the service academies, the only college I know that has a swimming requirement to graduate is Dartmouth.
BarbaraS commented:
Swimming is an option. There should be no requirement to pass swimming for anything but a swimming class. This is still a free country (but getting less so every day) and anyone who does not want to learn to swim doesn’t have to. It is not freedom for the government or any institution to tell us we need to learn to swim for our own safetyor whatever and to deny us graduation or a job for lack thereof.
Arch commented:
Unfortunately, today, common sense is not so common.
Since the Left threw the Boy Scouts under the bus and parents became overprotective of their children, there are missing self reliance skill sets among American boys – swimming, shooting, camping. At six I could ride a horse, swim and shoot a rifle safely and accurately. At twelve, I could hunt small game, camp out and navigate through the woods without getting lost.
How many stories do we read about some grown man taking his family on a short cut through the woods and running out of gas with no idea what to do?
Perhaps instead of teaching fairy tales about drowning polar bears and rising sea levels, the schools should teach little jenny and little chuckie not only swimming but also how to keep safe and warm, find a water source and get noticed by rescuers.
Arch commented:
Barbara:
From 1987 to 2006, I lived in Buffalo NY, 20 miles south of Niagara Falls. Twice while I was there, idiots decided to go over the falls in enclosures. Unfortunately, they both survived, weakening Darwin’s argument.
You have the right to drown if you want. I won’t deny it. If, however, you want rescue forces to risk their lives and come to get you, you should at least take the time to help yourself.
There is a wide line between being libertarian and being foolish. On which side do you want to stand? Darwin wants to know.
unknown jane commented:
It comes down to availability and desire — the very small hick town where I was from turned out a lot of (white) non-swimmers. The closest pool was over 10 miles away and swimming lessons took place during the weekdays, so a lot of people didn’t get to go swimming because the desire to do so wasn’t there. And then there’s the cost — some people simply did not have the money for that sort of thing — where I’m at it still is prohibitively high for some parents.
On the flip side I knew a Black woman, on welfare, struggling (she was working poor, so didn’t get the same amount of benefits)…she had my daughters (who were on the swim team) teach her sons to swim because she thought it was important — she traded babysitting and a pool pass for the swimming lessons and for tutoring. She had a desire to get these things for her kids.
Taxpayer1234 commented:
It’s a bunch of hooey that one needs to be buoyant to be a swimmer. My father-in-law was a swim coach for over 30 years and is currently a world champion Masters swimmer in backstroke. So he knows a thing or two about swimming. He says it’s the power of the arms and legs, not buoyancy, that makes a good swimmer. Some of the best swimmers he’s coached aren’t very buoyant at all.
Swimming, like bicycle riding, is one of those skills that is often taught by a family member. I’d guess that many African-Americans who know how to swim learned from a parent–just like many whites who know how to swim learned from a parent.
Buffalobob commented:
I’m staying away from this one. But I’ll bet there is a whole lot of joken going on.
Faye commented:
Lance is right. The rivers in that part of the nation can be very dangerous. The Red River has whirlpools that pop up out of nowhere and up in the mountains of Arkansas the rivers can have underground caverns where part of the river current goes. It’s safer to go swimming in these rivers with a native who knows the waters.
Dennis commented:
Wow, is there any statistic the media hasn’t split along racial lines?
Everyone’s made of a hundred different demographics (religion, socio-economic status, age, etc). Why don’t they try splitting us along one of the other ones for a change?
MVH commented:
Do British blacks know how to swim?
Seriously, how dumb can you be?
Drider commented:
Another question would be, why do Europeans have such terrible teeth.Are dentists not part of their health system?
soylent green commented:
My little liberal arts college required every student to swim 100 meters in order to graduate. At the risk of saying “there ought to be a law (!)” or creating an impediment to graduation, local school boards should consider this as a requirement to advance from elem. school to middle, or middle to high.
Notice I did *not* say Congress should pass a law or the Secretary of Education should issue a directive (!)
Foxfier commented:
When I went through boot camp, most of the black or fashion-conscious girls didn’t want to swim because it’s horrible for your hair. (I think there was one gal who had some black ancestry– she’s from PR– who swam just fine, until they figured out she has sickle cell and stopped letting her show off. Something about it being a higher risk?)
On the floating thing– all of my uncles on one side were Navy and could swim, but like a rock. It’s not horribly common, but it’s far from uncommon.
Marsh commented:
Swimming lessons are too expensive? It’s called the internet. Almost anything you need to know is completely free.