Many sharks are harmless. It’s the ones that aren’t that get all the bad press.............
In my own experience, these are not typically aggressive. I’ve been up close to both white and black tips. In most cases they were ‘sleeping’ in caves or on the bottom.
Wiki has this to say:
Whitetip reef sharks are generally shy and non-aggressive towards humans, though they may approach out of curiosity, and encounters rarely result in harm. However, they may investigate swimmers closely, and spear fishers are at risk of being bitten by one attempting to steal their catch.