Make a Splash Tour wants 800,000 children to learn how to swim this summer. (Courtesy Photo)
As the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation kicks its annual late-night community pool events into high gear, swimming organizations are urging Blacks to learn how to swim. With an estimated 70 percent of Black children unable to swim, the USA Swimming Foundation and the University of Memphis, have set a goal of teaching 800,000 children to swim in 2015.
“One drowning is one too many. Knowing how to swim can be the difference between life and death, as formal swim lessons can reduce the risk of drowning by 88 percent,” said Debbie Hesse, executive director of USA Swimming Foundation. “Drowning is such a big problem, but it’s 100 percent preventable. The USA Swimming Foundation and Phillips 66 are educating communities on the opportunity to make learning to swim a life skill all children can easily acquire this summer.”
Researchers like Maria Burzillo have attacked the false belief that Blacks inherently fear swimming by noting the prevalence among several West African nations of both swimming and surfing before colonization. Additionally, scholars like Victoria Wolcott have documented how contested spaces of recreation prohibited Blacks from sharing beaches, public swimming pools, and even lakes alongside Whites. Their absence, however, prompted ridiculous theories that Black people were not as buoyant as other races and prone to drowning, or that an historic ban on instructing enslaved Africans to swim caused a generational resistance to being trained.
Whatever the underlying cause, the loss of life attributed to drowning each year has proven astronomical. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 10 people drown every day in the U.S., nearly 25 percent of which are children younger than 14. The CDC found the rate of Black children drowning was nearly three times higher than White children. In addition, adults who fear the water also tend to project their anxieties onto children and grandchildren, with only 13 percent of children born in non-swimming households ever learning to swim.