Checked his online image. Why is it that Blacks often can't swim? Even professional athletes?!
Regards,
One black friend of mine, in boy scouts, had so little body fat that he literally could not float/sunk like a rock even when exerting himself not to. It was amazing to watch.
I’ve also heard that in Navy SEALs training, guys with a modest amount of insulation can swim and endure the cold water, better.
*Why is it that Blacks often can’t swim? *
If parents can’t swim, they can’t teach their children to swim. Those children grow up to be adults who are embarassed to admit they can’t swim and don’t take lessons so they can’t teach their own kids. Rinse and repeat.
I didn’t swim until I was 10 after I almost drowned at a base pool party and my dad was ordered to enroll us kids in Red Cross lessons toot sweet. Although I learned basic lifeguard lifessaving techniques, no way could I do that now. Until that age, tho, I’d never been exposed to water deeper than a kiddy pool
Probably less than a quarter are able to assist someone else in distress or control the situation. Drowning people panic and want to climb on top of you and if you can’t get them to calm down, trust you, and roll on their backs (or nowadays, grab onto the rescue donut or float) so you can assist, you’ll get drowned, too (as my hard-core instructor made quite clear to me- several times!)
THis is probably overkill but for general info:
According to a Slate article in 2010, being able to swim coorelated with income level, the higher the poverty level the less kids could swim. Maybe that has to do with parents always working so no leisure time, or lack of a community pool/free lessons.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/08/how-many-americans-can-t-swim.html
According to the Red Cross in 2014, half of swimmers couldn’t pass a basic self-safety test. Somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of Americans couldn’t swim the length of a pool
https://www.today.com/health/more-half-americans-cant-swim-well-enough-save-themselves-can-2D79689254
This hasn’t changed much in 8 years - with only 56% able to self-rescue.
https://leisureswimmer.com/what-percentage-population-can-swim/
Back 15 years ago, I ran a church summer pool program.
I took a management course from the Y.
They taught us to be especially vigilant about Africa Americans.
It is well known they have the really bad combination of nobody in the family swimming and total fearlessness around water.
Sure enough, the only people pulled out of the pool that summer were blacks.
Navy boot camp in Orlando, 1971...many black guys struggled while in the pool practicing skills we were supposed to learn in order to graduate. Most did eventually.