“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”.
The study found 58% of Hispanic children had no or low swimming ability. For white children, the figure was only 42%.
“It is an epidemic that is almost going unnoticed,” says Sue Anderson, director of programmes and services at USA Swimming.
The swimming body would like all children to be taught to swim.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-11172054
The swimming body would like all children to be taught to swim.
Most people are just barely ‘floaters’, which makes sense since water makes up so much of our bodies anyway. I float with lungs full of air and sink when I exhale.
Women tend to float higher in the water than men since a higher percentage of their bodies is fat and a cubic inch of fat weighs less than a cubic inch of water. Really fat women probably don’t sink even if they exhale. Hence my guess that Whoppi likely floats pretty well, whether or not she knows how to swim.
Black men, especially fit or skinny black men and boys are much more likely to sink. If they sink even with a lungful of air this will keep them from being happy swimmers because they have to exert some energy keeping their heads above water and are thus more likely to drown. I have no doubt that generations of warnings of the dangers of deep water also leads to reluctance to take up swimming.
You can’t teach someone to swim if they are the reason the local pool shut down.