It was Issa Rae and her smash hit Insecure that lead to my curiosity about why black people and swimming don’t mix. The scene is set on a picturesque beach and a few fully clothed black kids are flouncing around in the shallow water but most are playing in the sand, pretty disinterested in the water. The question, “Why don’t more of them swim?” is posed and Issa simply turns and answers with “Slavery”.
The delivery made me chuckle but it also provoked serious thoughts of curiosity. This answer has to be more than a punchline, it was too weighted and delivered in such a matter of fact way that it has to have some meaning behind it.
And it does.
Long before police openly assaulted little black girls in McKinney, White people in America were enforcing White Supremacy and segregating swimming pools.
Before the slave trade even began, Africans living in coastal communities were observed by early European explorers to be excellent swimmers. In fact, there are African-American swimming stories that should’ve been turned into tear-jerking million dollar films at this point. From a man swimming the english channel doing the butterfly stroke, to an eighteen year old woman chasing and capturing gold in the Olympics. The swimming history of African-Americans is rich and packed with stories that we never seem to hear about.
So my question is, "Why is this?"
After some digging, all answers lead back to one thing. Slavery.
It was simple. Slave owners, knowing that they were losing “valuable product” due to their slaves’ propensity to swim, began taking drastic steps to protect their property. One of these steps was to instill a fear of the water by dunking disobedient slaves in water until they nearly drowned and by creating fear through stories of creatures living in the water.
Thus, it didn’t take long to destroy the West African swimming tradition from African- American culture. The Jim Crow laws that were enacted after The Civil War prohibited blacks from the popular seaside resorts in places like Atlantic City, N.J. and Revere Beach, Mass. And by the 20th Century, as the swimming pool began to gain in popularity in the United States, the color line prohibited blacks from enjoying this pleasant recreational skill.
In addition, self-segregation also played a role in limiting those of African ancestry from getting in the water. I remember my distant cousin saying to stay away from the pool because “black folk don’t swim".
So, next time you hear someone ask questions like, “Why don’t black people swim?” or “Why are so many black people afraid of dogs?” and, “Why are there so many black people living in poverty?” etc. Let them know that those aren’t coincidences. These things didn’t just happen naturally, all on their own. There’s a reason for it, and you don’t have to be a historian to know they’re all interconnected through slavery, endemic racism and persistently racist cultural norms.
