Celebrating swimming? (Doug Mills/The New York Times)Watching the American men’s relay team swim for gold in Beijing, it’s hard to believe the United States has a swimming problem.
But there’s little to celebrate about the state of American swimming at home. In 2005, there were 3,582 unintentional drownings in the United States, averaging 10 deaths per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Drowning is the second-leading cause of accidental death among children.
But the most worrisome statistics involve black children and teens ages 5 to 19, who are 2.3 times more likely to drown than whites in this age group. For children 10 to 14, the rate is five times higher.
Nearly 6 out of 10 African-American and Hispanic children are unable to swim, nearly twice as many as their Caucasian counterparts, a concern often highlighted by U.S. Olympian Cullen Jones, who is African-American and swam the third leg of the winning men’s relay this week.
In June, The Wall Street Journal profiled Cullen Jones and his efforts to raise awareness about swimming among African-American children. In that report, Mr. Jones said members of his own family still ask him why he chose the sport. “They’ll say, ‘Don’t you know blacks don’t swim?’ ” Mr. Jones told the paper. (To read the article, click here.)
In 2006, The New York Times story “Everyone Into the Water” reported on why the barriers to swimming for black children are so high.
Although studies have shown that many Africans were avid swimmers when they were brought over as slaves, most slaves born in the United States were not allowed to learn to swim because it was a means of escape. That created generations of nonswimmers and spawned the myth that African-Americans could not swim. Though widely discredited, a 1969 study titled “The Negro and Learning to Swim: The Buoyancy Problem Related to Reported Biological Difference,” was printed in The Journal of Negro Education and fed the stereotype. The problem was compounded by segregation, which kept blacks out of many pools and beaches.
The USA Swimming Foundation is trying to address the problem through its Make a Splash program, which is working to educate parents and increase swimming rates among all children. Donors who want to help can sponsor swimming lessons for children.
The C.D.C. offers this fact sheet on water-related injuries and how to prevent them. In addition to swimming with a buddy and installing barriers around family swimming pools, the agency notes that learning to swim is also important. However, even when children have completed swimming classes, parents should still supervise swims and make sure pool fencing and other safety features are in place.
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In the Netherlands, there is a governmnet mandate that you must know how to swim by the 4th (3rd?) grade. There are plenty of free lessons and schools are set up around getting kids to swim. Grade promotion is contingent on being able to swim the length of the pool. This was in response to children drowning in the dykes. Can you imagine the hue and cry about government intervention and nanny state? Perhaps if the children drowning weren’t children of color from the inner city….
— PamI’m a city parent and there are many community center pools near me which offer free or very inexpensive swim classes for children. Because I love to swim, I place a high priority on teaching my two children to swim. They belong to the YMCA for only $65 a year, and I get to swim with them because my son is only 4 years old and needs supervision during family swim times. My daughter is 8 and swims on a community center swim team (her membership: $25 a year).
It may be that parents who can’t swim are the biggest reason that kids can’t swim. If parents dread the water, they are likely not encouraging their kids to swim. I’d love it if nonswimming adults got lessons, too.
— Mary OWhat on Earth is this commentary about? Are you asking me to pay to teach African-Americans how to swim?
P.S. I can’t swim. I’m white.
FROM TPP — Then if you have children, they are at 8 times higher risk for drowning than children of swimmers, regardless of race.
— Dallas WilliamsOf course! It’s the Federal Government’s responsibility to ensure every child knows how to swim. Your insinuation that race and victimization are to blame for the unfortunate drowning statistics is both short sighted and ignorant.
— ErikI am a black mother, non-swimmer, who is determined that her 4 year old will not continue the family tradition of not knowing how to swim. We started swim toddler lessons last summer and this week I plan to sign her up for a more focused series of swim classes. Last week she saw her dad do the doggy paddle and was pretty impressed. She said “I want to learn how to do that”. We will do our best to support and encourage her effors.
— Denise O.I remember some starlet on Jack Paar or Cavett or some show in the Wayback telling about a cruise she took around Manhattan and there was a mishap and some young people her age drowned. She was from CA and had learned to swim. She never thought she would need to–and it saved her life. You never know in this life. I did try to take my own kid to the Y a year too early (she was 4, maybe) and she sat on the edge turning blue and crying. The next year–she was a fish! The time was right.
— StarAs a marine science grad student in Miami, I worked at a Dade County middle school summer program for minority and low income students teaching marine science research skills. Most of my students were African-American, African-Caribbean or Latino, all of whom lived less than 5 miles from the ocean. Forget about teaching science skills, my first task was usually to teach them how to swim. With life vests on, I would have them float on their back and learn to relax in the water, then roll over and start moving their hands and feet. To my continuous surprise, most of my students learned to swim within 5 minutes and went on to snorkeling and diving in the ocean shortly thereafter. More importantly, for these students learning to swim established an enduring relationship to their environment, built their confidence and motivated them to stay in school and pursue higher education. To this day, I have 20 something post grads reminding me that I taught them to swim! It was the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.
— HilI think parents are the biggest problem. No one in my family can swim (I am black) several generations back. I don’t think most americans are taught to swim in swim classes I think the vast majority are taught the basics by a family member. ANd if no family member knows then no one can pass the knowledge on. Even worst swimming will be activly discouraged. I can’t imagine going to a beach with my kids. I’d be too worried they’d drown before my eyes.
— SuhirIn the Netherlands, there is a governmnet mandate that you must know how to swim by the 4th (3rd?) grade…This was in response to children drowning in the dykes.
A dike is a wall–how can anyone drown in a wall? Do you mean canals, perhaps?
— KimmieWell of course I come from that terrible socialist place Australia which puts public safety above personal choice. No child gets out of primary school unable to swim unless they are exempted for disability.
If the parents won’t do the right thing it falls to the government to mandate that the schools do it.
As long as the job gets done I’m fine with that. And I think it is not unrelated to the success of the Australian swimming team that we are a nation where swim skills are not optional and not elite.
— JillyflowerFor what it is worth, I attended a NY public School (upstate, not in the city)and learning to swim well enough for a simple skills test was compulsory.
— DeWittExcellent, Denise O! (#5)
And I hope at some point you’ll decide to get into the water with them and learn to swim too :)
— Mary ODefinitely a legacy of slavery. All kids (all races, but particularly there should be outreach to poor kids) should be given free lessons, and even rides to the lessons, and parents free lessons too, and grandparents if wished for! Painful for this non-Black American to witness the effects of so many generations of abuse.
— AnneCompetent instructors and pool accessibility are major factors in what percent of populations can swim. I am a masters coach who encourages everyone to give swimming a try. We have both an aging population and a growing obesity problem. Swimming is low impact and works all major muscle groups. My biggest thrill and greatest heroes are the two 63 year olds whom I taught to swim last year who both swim two miles a day now and that was starting from zero with a fear of the water.
But I am lucky because Salt Lake County where I live has public recreation centers that are dotted around the county so no one is very far from a pool nor are the fees onerous. So while it may not need federal dollars to incorporate swimming lessons for more people, it does need public money to guarantee accessibility to facilities.
— priscillaWe absolutely don’t need the government encouraging kids to swim. I’m sure there’s a free market solution to this, as there is to every supposed problem. Maybe the public pools (which should be sold) can license floating kiosks that would be stationed in the middle of pools that could sell juice boxes that the kids would have to swim, with money, to get. You could also have vendors poolside selling floatation devices so the kids who can’t or won’t learn to swim can enrich another vendor and keep our economy going.
— ScottI guess a worst case scenario would be having the government give money to churches to pay swim consultants to hire swim instructors to teach kids to swim.
The US is an evil racist country which does not teach its children to swim. The solution to this problem and all other problems for that matter is a larger government with more taxes.
I think we should all go live in Canada
— AlexSwimming is not hard at all if all you aim to do is stay afloat and perform slow and steady directional movement. I do not understand why people don’t learn other than being hydrophobic. Spend a day or two in a 4 ft deep pool and most intelligent people can at least feel comfortable not sinking like a rock in deeper water. the physics is pretty simple. paddle down and the person goes up.
— smashmouth03I grew up in Fairfax County in the 1980s and we walked from (public) elementary school to a local outdoor pool for swimming lessons each spring. I was later a lifeguard, and taught swimming lessons. I’ve also worked with foster kids in DC.
I don’t understand the indignation some posters are expressing about government efforts to teach kids to swim. It is incredibly dangerous when children don’t know how to swim. When there is such a racially disparate distribution of non-swimmers, how do we pretend we don’t have a problem? It’s a public health problem. Black kids in this city deserve the same access to pools and swimming instruction that I took for granted growing up. It’s not a joke; it’s a matter of life and death.
— MLI love how the very mention of a disparity in the drowning rates of children provokes such an instantaneous, reactionary response from all the psychos whose first response on hearing about a problem is “OH MY GOD, IF THERE’S A PROBLEM I BET SOMEONE SOMEWHERE WANTS THE GOVERNMENT TO GET INVOLVED!!! I’VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING TO STOP THIS IMAGINED INTERVENTION BEFORE SOMEONE ACTUALLY DOES SOMETHING TO REMEDY THIS PROBLEM!!!”
Heaven forbid we spend time actually thinking about solutions rather than turn into raving lunatics at the perceived possibility of actually decreasing childhood drowning. Lets start frantically worrying about government agents in jackboots and speedos busting down our doors and dragging our kids out to the wading pool instead of actually approaching this issue rationally. It is the American way, after all.
— JonMy wife, a North Philly (African American) city girl could not swim when we decided to retire from Princeton NJ to a lakeside home in New Hampshire. She quickly recognized the fun she would miss and off she went to the YWCA for lessons at 60 years of age. After we moved she took Private lessons at the local college and now her favorite fun is Kayaking and snorkeling.
Last summer we had a young college student visit with another family. The Aftican American family, with three boys,all excellent swimmers were surprised that the college student, raised in Gahana, did not know how to swim. I suggested to him, that since the planet’s surface was two thirds water, it would be agood skill to know. He took me up on the suggestion, went at it with determination in the Reutgers U pool and this summer we swam and snorkeled all over the lake together.
It’s never too late to learn!
— Gerald CooperSorry, but this looks like some seriously misguided outrage. Like age black children may be 2.3 times more likely to drown than whites, but my strong suspicion is the disparity in being shot is much greater. Certainly not disagreeing that learning to swim is an important skill (if only for life preservation), just with the premise that we have a “crisis”.
— Mark MIn an interesting side note, I saw Dara Torres on NBC this morning answering a question about her being the ‘oldest’ swimming medalist. Her response was “water knows no age”. I must therefore postulate that water knows no race, either.
Blacks don’t swim?
Remember, white men can’t jump!
Let’s move on….
— Keith E.The USA Swimming Foundation is trying to address the problem through it’s Make a Splash program
it’s = it is
— kathyits = possessive
Parents are white, immigrants and never learned to swim. I neer was given lessons, just taught myself.Why is this a race issue and not a socio-economic issue? Oh, I forgot; it’s the NYTimes!. I see inner city kids on television getting tennis lessons, golf lessons, etc.
Perhaps people should not let their children, who don’t know HOW to swim, swim when there are red flags up and rip tide warnings, like there have been for the past two weekends at NY area beaches.
FROM TPP — It is the CDC , not the NYT, that is reporting that black teens drown at 5 times the rate of white kids.
— SueOy! Another topic I’m faintly aware of.
Met my husband at camp where he was teaching children to swim and I said to myself, “Wow, he’s wonderful with kids and doesn’t look to bad in a bathing suit either!”
Almost thirty years later, he still looks good in a swimsuit and is still teaching children to swim.
When we were looking to buy our first home, my husband had two criteria. The first was there had to be good schools and the second there had to be a pool in the school district because he wanted his, still toddler children, to swim varsity.
Today, my oldest son is a former ocean lifeguard and my younger son is presently a WSI, lifeguard AND EMT. Both swam varsity.
So let me begin to tell you what I think is the problem with swimming and drowning. First off, Robert Moses got it right when he saw the inner city children jumping off the piers into polluted waters and decided to create the amazing pools that the city has to offer. What a pity that all these years later, living on an island, the children of the greater New York City area are hard pressed to swim in the Hudson and East Rivers. Since Moses (an avid swimmer himself) departure, few pools have been built around the city and sadly, the rivers are still polluted.
Look around the city, as well as here on Long Island, and note how few schools have pools. They invest millions in their tracks and fields for football, baseball and lacrosse, while the swimmers receive little accolades and little money for the upkeep of their pools. In our district, the swim team asked numerous times for a clock, but were turned down as many times as they asked. But when the football team needed new uniforms, why the money magically appeared. And this, sadly occurred in one of Long Island’s affluent districts. In Hempstead, a mostly black community, the high school once had a magnificent pool. The last time we swam there, several years ago, their pool was unheated and now it is closed.
One of the saddest things about the lack of appreciation for swimming is that the lack of swimming instruction programs that lead to varsity, also leads to the dearth of lifeguards at our swimming holes. Pools, oceans, and lakes go begging for qualified lifeguards. And you know how most of those lifeguards and water safety instructors got their training? They began swimming varsity. If no one is supporting our swim programs, you can’t expect a lifeguard to protect you, nor a Water Safety Instructor to teach you to swim.
And finally, do you know how much it costs for students to become a Red Cross certified lifeguard? Scholarships should be offered to students who wish to learn to swim and then become Red Cross certified lifeguards and WSIs.
Tara, thanks for bringing attention to this important issue. Perhaps the next time a parent attends a high school football game, they should pass by the high school’s pool (if they have one) and applaud the swimmers before applauding the home football team! You never know, the next time you go swimming, that lifeguard watching you swim might have been one of those young kids training for varsity.
— voracious reader