African Americans need to learn swimming

Swimming, more percentage of white people than African Americans

Six teens who didn't know how to swim drowned when they toppled into an 18-foot sinkhole in the Red River near Shreveport, La., and tried to save each other.

The incident was reported in the Shreveport Times more than four years ago.  What was so unique about this.  The teens, ages 13 to 18, were from three families.  Adult family members standing nearby also could not swim and could not save the young people from drowning.

The uniqueness of the incident was only in part the number of youth who drowned in a single incident.  It is that many African Americans don't swim nor teach their children to swim.

Family members explained the accident happened when the young people were wading in in shallow water near a sandbar when one child strayed into an unfamiliar part of the river.

"They went into the vicinity of an 18-foot sinkhole," said Shreveport Fire Chief Brian Crawford. "And once one started toppling into that sinkhole grabbing ahold of another, trying to save another, eventually seven were pulled into the hole."

In 2i009 MSNBC reported nearly 60 percent of African-American children cannot swim, citing a study done by USA swimming.  According to statistics black children drown at a rate almost three times the overall rate of white children.  Furthermore, as USA Swimming reports, less than 2 percent of itsd 252,000 members are African American.

USA Swimming also found 31 percent of the white respondents could not swim safely, compared to 58 percent of the blacks. The non-swimming rate for Hispanic children was 56 percent, although more than twice as many Hispanics as blacks at the time were said to be USA Swimming members.

Still in 2014 there are those who maintain the fact African Americans don't swim is a stereotype, despite what happened in Shreveport.  We are told that it is not that African Americans can't swim, as if there is a suggestion of a physical or psychological impossibility, but a holdover from those times when African Americans found it difficult to find a swimming pool where they were welcome.

In spite of the discussion about whether or not African Americans can swim, young people are now affirming that they can and they will, as it has often been observed there are not enough swimmers of African American ancestry who know how to swim well enough to save either themselves or others in case of an accident.

The young people who drowned in Shreveport were all African American.