Monday Morning Post: Swimming, Race, Privilege & the Myth that Black People Don't Swim

In my work life, I spend my days fighting urban poverty.  One of the basic premises in the work that I do, is that a system is ideally designed to produce the result that it gets.  For instance, in the U.S., we  have the perfect systems to produce the result that ~16% of people live in poverty.  But, if you, like me, don't think that result is acceptable, then to change it, we fundamentally have to change the systems that produce it.

Team Goldfish blog is a place where I play with ideas that swimming has led me to--from training and gear, to humor and science, to daydreaming.  However, as I've been reading my Twitter feed this weekend--in the wake of both the George Zimmerman verdict, and lots of international swim competitions--I've been struck by the dichotomy between the part of me that is committed to social justice for all people, and the part of me that participates in a sport that is quite privileged.      

I will continue to reflect on this, and figure out what I can do about it, how I can contribute to changing this system. (beyond supporting the USA Swimming Foundations Make A Splash Initiative).  And if you have suggestions, I would love to hear them. 

But it reminded me of an article I read in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago entitled "Swimming and the Fear Factor" which explored drowning, racial disparities and efforts to teach kids -- particularly children of color -- how to swim. One of the quotes in the article which stood out for me was that according to Lynn Sherr, author of Swim: Why We Love the Water, "Before the Civil War, more blacks than whites could swim. There are many stories of shipwrecks in which black slaves rescued their owners.”

It's fascinating and dispiriting to think about the social, economic and cultural factors -- the systems -- that have contributed to why many children in general, but black and Latino kids in particular, never learn how to swim. I was remembering all this when I stumbled upon this video, and it seemed apt to share this week, a week where hopefully we can begin a real dialogue about race, and the systems that produce racial disparities in the US.

h/t SwimSwam