Swimming Upstream

Our recent discussions on race reminded me of an article in Sports Illustrated that I read over the summer. I thought it was relevant for two reasons. First, it addresses the fact that often when people say a race is naturally bad at something it's usually due to social, rather than physiological factors:

As African-American participation in swimming continued to lag, some came up with explanations for the inability of most blacks to swim. One popular hypothesis—which has since been discredited—proffered by Ohio University's zoology department in a 1969 study titled "The Negro and Learning to Swim," was that blacks weren't as buoyant as whites. Among the reasons cited for this were blacks' purportedly lower lung capacity, heavier bones and poor physiological response to cold. (Dodgers vice president Al Campanis repeated the buoyancy theory in his notorious Nightline appearance in 1987.)

On the other hand it provided a very specific example that affirms Barack Obama's statement that, "so many of the disparities that exist between the African-American community and the larger American community today can be traced directly to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow." The fact that African-Americans represent a tiny minority in competitive swimming, while black kids have three times the chance of drowning than white ones is not a result of biological ineptitude, but is instead a remanent of white-only pools. When I think of the places I most often swim in pools (at country clubs, resorts, etc.) it's obviously why economical disadvantaged black families would have a hard time teaching their kids to swim.