n May 17, the city pool in Bridgeport, Texas, was packed with seventh graders celebrating the end of the school year. Some were enjoying the barbecue; others were splashing around in the water.
Luis Gonzalez, a friendly Hispanic boy with playful eyebrows and a sweet smile, was one of the revelers. The 13-year-old was standing at the edge of the pool near the deep end when a classmate reportedly pushed Gonzalez in and watched him sink to the bottom, arms flailing. The student said nothing, and lifeguards found Gonzalez unconscious minutes later on the floor of the pool.
Despite prayers and vigils by family and friends, Gonzalez died 12 days later.
“It’s just tragic and unfortunate. It should never have happened,” said Richard O’Hara, superintendent of the Bridgeport School System.
The truth is, this tragedy would never have happened had Luis Gonzalez known one basic skill: how to swim. Unfortunately, like far too many minorities, he never learned.
As a result, minorities make up a disproportionate number of drownings in the United States every year. In 2002, the most recent year for which statistics are available, nearly 650 children between the ages of 5 and 19 drowned. More than 40 percent of the victims were minorities.
The problem is even worse among black children between the ages of 5 and 19, who are 2.6 times more likely to drown than whites.
Such high rates among minorities, who make up less than a quarter of the U.S. population, signal a systemic problem in the aquatics industry. Experts say minority kids are not learning to swim as often or as well as their white counterparts. They blame a number of thorny issues surrounding the problem — race, class, culture, privilege, poverty — that make it difficult for the industry and minority groups to attack the problem head on.
Meanwhile, few lifeguards, leaders or role models of color exist in the world of swimming. Though some aquatics professionals have taken steps to address the minority drowning problem, experts say the industry has not done enough. And every year, children such as Luis Gonzalez suffer the deadly consequences.
Dying for attention
No one contests that drowning rates among minority groups are higher than they are for whites: The statistics place Native Americans with the highest rates, and blacks are not far behind.
Still, the number of drowning deaths is not large enough to demand action.
“Not enough people are dying and not enough people are saying it’s a problem,” says Gail H. Ito, an assistant professor in the College of Health, Physical Education and Recreation at Chicago State University. “This isn’t an issue that has claimed a lot of lives; it sounds terrible, but that’s the reality. It hasn’t become a public safety issue at all.”
That’s partly because research about minorities and drowning is incomplete or simply nonexistent. For instance, Hispanics, who are considered an ethnic group, also face a serious drowning risk. But because ethnic groups can be any race, the evidence is mainly anecdotal.
“There are huge holes [in the research]; it’s like Swiss cheese,” says Kaky McPeak, assistant professor of physical education at North Carolina Central University in Durham. “Drowning prevention is in the details. We simply don’t know the extent of the problem. It’s very difficult to go to a grieving family that lost a boy to drowning and ask, ‘Do you think he overestimated his swimming abilities?’ or ‘What kind of swimming lessons did you provide to him?’”
McPeak and her colleague, Thornton C. Draper, director of aquatics at the university, began delving into minority drownings last year and were surprised by the lack of consistent, quality research. They are among many aquatics experts who point out that statistics don’t tell the whole story: Existing drowning rates are based on the number of deaths per population. What they don’t figure in is the “privilege” factor, the amount of time that groups spend around recreational water. In the case of minorities, that amount of time is much less than it is for whites, experts say. That means minorities are not only drowning more frequently than whites, but also may have a higher likelihood of drowning the few times they do swim.
“I think the key for minimizing the drowning issues in any culture goes to exposure and then to access,” says Valerie Rawls, president/CEO of Hill Rawls Marketing Consultants, LLC, in Schaumburg, Ill. Rawls has investigated drowning rates for some of her clients, which include large suburban Chicago park districts. “Even community pools aren’t in operation. Some of the facilities need to be closed completely or rehabbed,” she says.
Others contend that more research is needed to show the link between high drowning rates and poverty. Swim coaches, for example, recognize that there are plenty of affluent minority families, but they also know the number of poor, underprivileged minorities is even greater.
Living dangerously
That leads to another difficult subject in the debate about minority drowning: class. Many minorities don’t learn how to swim simply because they can’t afford the lessons.
The National SAFE KIDS Campaign reports that more than 40 percent of Native American children are poor, three times the poverty rate of white children; more than 30 percent of black children live below poverty level, twice that of whites. These children neither own pools nor do they often learn how to swim. But they still find their way to water — and that’s where many take their last breath.
“Every year, at every pool, there’s a near- drowning or a drowning, and usually these drownings occur on a hot day, after work hours, when kids sneak into pools that they can’t afford to go into,” says Sabir Muhammad, a black competitive swimmer from Atlanta and founder of Swim for Life, a nonprofit group that helps teach inner-city kids to swim.
“Kids in urban areas drown more than kids in suburban areas,” he says. “We all know it’s true, but it’s difficult to address. Unfortunately, water safety is something that is not very high on a lot of people’s list of things to teach their children in urban, minority communities.”
Take Kadarius Wagner. On a particularly hot day this last May, the 13-year-old and a group of friends slipped into a closed YMCA pool in Oak Cliff, Texas, to cool off. Wagner didn’t know how to swim and got stuck in the deep end. He became another black drowning statistic.
But it doesn’t just happen to children who sneak into pools. Public pools and waterparks pose a danger to minorities at all times.
“One of my fears has always been with the water slides,” says Sue Nelson, aquatics program specialist for USA Swimming, the sport’s governing body. “What a fun activity! But how many children go on those and don’t know how to recover in the heaviness of the water? And many people don’t even know how to walk in the wave pools without being knocked down by the current. That again goes back to learning to swim.”
Indeed, inexperienced swimmers strain tight resources and tire an already short-handed lifeguarding staff at many public pools and waterparks, which sometimes beef up their staff numbers during visits by large numbers of minorities.
“Some waterparks in this area hire more guards when they know that minority groups from the inner-city schools are coming in,” says Ito of Chicago State University. “They know that these kids can’t swim, so they train their staff what to watch out for and where to look. This is counter-intuitive. We need to act preventatively. We need to make it a priority to teach kids this skill.”
Understanding history
Experts cite dozens of reasons this isn’t happening. The issues are complex at best, without a clear solution.
But a good start may be understanding the historical and cultural contexts surrounding minorities and swimming that extend back to slavery.
At that time, slave owners kept blacks from learning to swim to prevent them from escaping. In addition, some groups used water as a torture device, drowning blacks and Native Americans as punishment for poor behavior.
During the Civil Rights Era, Jim Crow laws kept many blacks out of public swimming pools. Such rampant discrimination pigeonholed minorities for decades.
One of the most unshakable remnants of that history is the myth that black kids simply don’t — and can’t — swim. To this day, parents in some black communities buy into the belief. This incongruous notion is based on a 1969 study called The Negro and Learning to Swim, which said that blacks were biologically less buoyant than whites because of higher density in their bones and body mass.
Even some individuals in the aquatics industry continue to give this theory credence, despite dozens of studies since that prove the premise false. Most coaches, however, laugh at the thought, saying it’s a study that needs to be challenged and discredited in the public dialogue.
“It’s a common stereotype among black people,” says Lee Pitts, founder of the Lee Pitts Swim School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which is geared toward teaching black kids how to swim. “So many people buy into that myth. The reality is that swimming ability has absolutely nothing to do with biological or anatomical differences between the racial groups.
“Blacks are more muscular people as adults,” continues Pitt, who is black. “That doesn’t mean that blacks can’t learn to swim well. If a black person says it, they start to listen. If a white person says it, it’s inflammatory. We need to start dismissing these stereotypes and give them no credence so they can slowly erode.”
Closing doors
But even if aquatics professionals can convince minority children and their families that swimming is a valuable skill, it won’t mean anything unless there’s a place for them to learn.
The fact is, for most disadvantaged (that is, minority) swimmers, clubs and schools are out of financial reach, with some rates starting at $50 a month.
Public school systems, too, have turned their backs on swimming. Physical education budgets nationwide are being slashed by up to half, and costly aquatics programs often are the first casualties.
Meanwhile, public pools — the only remaining options for swim lessons — are at a crossroads. As city budgets shrink, many outdated pools are being replaced with either splash parks that cost a fraction to maintain or by revenue-generating waterparks.
That’s what’s happening in Philadelphia, where four pools have been taken off line and replaced with spray zones.
“There’s tremendous pressure on the municipality, which is already financially strapped, to provide a safe environment without the risk of drownings or the high maintenance costs,” says Dr. Michael Jackson, director of the graduate program in sports and recreation administration at Temple University in Philadelphia.
“If this continues, today’s generations are never going to develop an attraction for, a liking for, a proficiency for the activities in aquatics,” he says.
If, by luck, a pool manages to stay open year ’round, it usually converts to a competitive swim club program, so children in intermediary stages of learning are left behind.
“There are short-term learn-to-swim programs and long-term competitive swim programs,” says Paul Wallace, executive director of the Jordan Aquatics Foundation, a nonprofit group in Austin, Texas, which teaches inner-city youth how to swim. “But there are no feeder programs to adapt the kids into high school, college or national competitive swim programs. It’s difficult to take a raw kid and invest financially and time-wise to bring them up to that level,” he says.
What’s more, transportation often is one of the biggest hindrances to getting minority kids into swimming. “Some of these kids who would give absolutely anything to be on a swim team just can’t get to the practice,” says Kathy Baldwin, executive director of The Gift of Swimming Inc. in Gotha, Fla., a nonprofit that provides swimming scholarships to disadvantaged children. “Yet they don’t have an adult who can get them to every lesson, and you can’t teach someone to swim if they only show up one time a week.”
Respecting differences
Ingrained cultural differences also make it difficult. For instance, coaches specializing in minority swim instruction say that more than 50 percent of black parents do not know how to swim, so the skill never becomes a priority in those households.
“Some of the parents are scared of water,” says Kim Burgess, director of Swim Central, a program of the Broward County Parks and Recreation Department in Florida that works with local schools to provide underprivileged children with exposure to water. “They were never taught to swim, so their kids don’t get taught. It’s not a priority.”
More than three-fourths of black women say they are nonswimmers. Many coaches and black athletes say that hair care and maintenance is one of the issues that keep them out of the water. Some white aquatics professionals don’t realize the time and money black women spend to maintain and style their hair. Chemically treated water tends to undo styles quickly, and causes frizziness and other problems.
“It can help to acknowledge the hair issue,” says Dr. Christine M. Branche, director of the Unintentional Injury Prevention Division at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.
“Maybe it’s time to adopt a different hairstyle, a ‘lower’ maintenance hairstyle like braids or corn rows,” Branche says. “Keep in mind, you still have to acknowledge that that’s not ‘low’ maintenance, but it is ‘lower’ maintenance.”
Branche, who is black, has written dozens of studies and presentations about minority drownings and cultural stigmas related to swimming. She says swim instructors must take extra precautions to ensure sensitivity to cultural variances.
Frequently religion is a factor as well. In many Native American belief systems, for instance, discussing mortality is frowned upon. Among Hispanics, who are often Catholics and very traditional, parents sometimes prefer that genders be separated and that swim classes be conducted in Spanish. Some Hispanics even prefer wearing T-shirts over their swim attire, Branche notes.
“A lot of people in water safety don’t understand why someone would want to wear a T-shirt when they go to the pool or the beach,” Branche says. “We need to get over it. That’s obviously part of their comfort index. The idea is to get them into the water. Messages should still depict bathers in proper swimming gear, but instructors should be willing to work with those swimmers.”
These different needs and fears must be addressed. “It’s important to go out and talk to those communities, to find out what their expectations are and what we as a community committed to water safety can do to close that disparity,” Branche says.
Lacking role models
Unfortunately, the aquatics industry lacks successful black athletes to defy those cultural hang ups. Everyone is asking the same questions: Why? Where is the Michael Jordan of swimming?
Dozens of industry professionals believe it will take a role model of Jordan’s caliber to relate to today’s youth. “We need heroes who can inspire kids,” says Bruce Wigo, CEO of the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “Why has it become so uncool to go into swimming, especially when it offers so many opportunities? It’s tragic.”
It’s not that there aren’t options. NBA superstar Tim Duncan was a competitive swimmer as a teenager and continues to swim today. His sister is nationally ranked. And Dancehall artist Sean Paul participates in national swimming and water polo competitions for his native Jamaica. But these athletes don’t talk about their swimming, and nobody in the swimming community has tried to tap them.
“I would like to be able to reach out to Tim Duncan,” Wigo says. “If we, as an organization, can get someone like him, I think we can generate that interest. I want people who can bring relevancy and focus to our organization and get the message out that swimming is fun.”
That attitude, however, simply doesn’t exist in the pop culture mind-set — at least, not in America.
“If you’re an African-American male, and you’re a good athlete trying to decide what sport to play, you can turn on TV and see basketball, football and maybe baseball,” says Lee Willing, assistant head coach of the Lone Star Aquatic Club in Austin, Texas. “The only time you’ll see swimming is on ESPN 2 at 3 a.m., and the only time you’ll see African-Americans in swimming is if you’re looking for it.
“Within every community, it’s a big deal, but especially in the African-American community, role models are extremely important, whether it’s a pastor telling them it’s OK to swim, or a member of their community who has succeeded,” he continues.
Willing has conducted research on recruiting minorities to the sport, thanks to being named an American Swimming Coaches Association scholar in 2000. By comparing data on minority swimmers from USA Swimming to statistics from the NCAA, he found that minority males were staying in the sport at a higher rate than white males.
“We’re retaining them at a higher level, but we’re not getting in at a higher level,” he says. “If I tell kids about how great swimming is, they will want proof. I’m just a middle-aged white guy. I’m not their proof.”
But others counter that kids don’t need to be convinced swimming is fun. They just need the opportunity to learn.
“The reality is that there’s no color line in sports,” says Wallace of the Jordan Aquatics Foundation. “It doesn’t matter if you’re black, purple, green or red. All kids want to and can learn how to swim.”
