Brothers are not noted for their swimming abilities. Fact. Go watch swim qual at Great Lakes or either MCRD.
The blacks I knew in the active Army were all smart, and viewed the Army as a career to get away from “the hood”. I was a finance specialist so the required ASVAB scores were much higher, along with certain reqired HS math classes.
Most of the white guys in my specialty were from poor families looking for college money.
The white guys in Combat Arms I knew were mostly kids from rural areas looking for adventure, or couldn’t get the scores for other MOS’s.
My Finance company in Ft. Lewis was about 65% Black give or take out of 120 or so soldiers and officers. There was ONE black guy that could swim. When we did the water training myself and 3 other young white guys took turns swimming to the bottom of the deep end to retrieve the fake M-16 we were supposed to swim across with.
The Navy could probably get some very good blacks into SEALS without changing BUDs standards, but they would need an advanced swimming prep course for the blacks first. I knew a USCG rescue swimmer that went through BUDS and the CG had a prep school prior to him going because it was too expensive to have washouts. He said the grad rate for the Coasties was much higher than Navy or Marines.
Many blacks I knew excelled at PT, had super high aptitudes, viewed the military as a career, some could even shoot (not as good as me though). The swimming thing is a matter of exposure. Not many public pools in “The Hood”.