It’s rooted in the fact that typically black people in America have less access to swimming opportunities in a lot of areas and thus cannot or are worse swimmers
A buddy of mine is in the Navy. He’s black. According to him, the swimming parts of his training were the hardest. He said that black people have more muscle density, and so don’t float as easily. He said he had to constantly tread water just to not sink, whereas white people could just float with no problem.
Swimming lessons and large bodies of water that are safe to swim in are privileges that have often been denied to black communities. As such black people are generally less likely to know how to swim, which can then fuel the stereotype.
when the US tried to integrate pools, white people would pour bleach and acid into pools, or put nails at the bottom to injure Black swimmers. so growing up during that time Black people would be vary wary of pools and not swim at all, nor teach their children to in future generations. also, municipal pools in Black communities were extremely unkempt, or Black children would have to swim/play in creeks and ended up drowning. there’s a whole lot of history on the matter but essentially, tldr: racism.
The US used to have a lot of public swimming pools, especially in the south. When those pools existed, they were almost exclusively ‘whites only’ or had a specific day that black people were allowed to swim (usually the day before it was cleaned). When the feds started enforcing integration in public accommodation, many of these pools were filled in or sold to ‘private’ clubs that could maintain a ‘whites only’ policy.
Basically, black people were mostly banned from public pools and a stereotype grew from it.
It’s a dated racist trope that stems directly from a time when only white people had access to most of the public pools. The act of a black person touching a “whites only” pool’s water was enough for them to drain the water. That’s the level of racism that this stems from.
btw….plenty of those people that approved these rules from this era are still alive and voting.
Because in the US swimming pools used to segregated, and racists would pour bleach into them or make them otherwise dangerous or deadly to use. Especially when pools were supposed to be desegregated, they would do whatever they felt necessary to keep black people from using whites-only pools and beaches. It was a decades-long deliberate violence against African Americans in the US that has resulted in less of a swimming culture in African American communities. (I say African American to be a bit more specific wrt historical context. I’m not saying that black immigrants were allowed in “whites-only” pools, but that a black person from 1960s Jamaica would have a different relationship to swimming than an African American in the 1960s, and the psychological effects of the violence faced by African Americans is passed generationally like any culture/race-based trauma.)
I think it’s mainly an older people in the city thing.
Most county kids have access to lakes, rivers, and ponds to swim in. City kids are limited to public swimming pools. People who grew up before the civil rights movement didn’t have access to swimming lessons.
Many towns don’t have swimming pools. It is more economical to build parks with running/walking paths, baseball or basketball courts, maybe tennis courts that can be used year around than maintaining a pool that can only be uses a few months of the year. Accessibility is still an issue, but more and more people value swimming lessons as life lessons now too.
Navy baby here. Old also. I grew up with everyone knowing how to swim. And my town has lots public pools in the city. Also YMCA is big on teaching lots of people how to swim. Maybe cause we are South East coast? But not my experience.
It’s “true” but only because of racism in America. City pools in areas with high African American populations are often shut down and there is limited access to private pools or swim lessons in a lot of majority black areas. Higher rates of poverty (again due to systemic racism) also limit access due to affordability of swim lessons. Basically all the issues that disproportionately effect African Americans because of systemic racism impact their access/opportunity to learn to swim.
To be abundantly clear, there’s absolutely no other reason besides systemic racism for this stereotype.
edit: lifeguard and swim instructor for a long time, I often taught adult swim lessons and many African American adults I had in those classes have relayed to me that they never had access to pools as kids; so I know this from anecdotal experience as well. Motivation for many of them to learn as adults is they want to make sure their kids know how to swim and want to be able to swim with their kids; giving them the opportunity they didn’t have.
It’s not a “stereotype”. Only in the last 25 – 30 or so years of the 20th century were municipal pools open to Black people, North or South. This is lived experience for many of us and documented history you can look up.
Short answer is racism; everything was segregated, including pools and beaches. when there was only one beach or pool it was a ‘whites only’ space. Even during the building boom for public pools if there was a pool built in a predominantly black neighborhood it was nowhere near as nice as the palatial pools built for whites. Even in places that were supposed to be for everyone white people policed pool spaces, often with violence. There were racist myths about black people’s bones and their ability to float straight out of Jim Crow. Lots of research material available to research about the legacy of this particular strand of systemic racism and how it continues to today.
Despite the current political environment discouraging people from acknowledging the existence of systemic racism, the percentage of black teens who can swim compared to their white peers is pretty solid evidence of the stereotype simply being rooted in the same old racist bullshit
I have also heard this, and variations, used as an excuse racist people use to try to legitimize not wanting black people in a pool.
It’s not racism, it’s actually them wanting to protect black people./s
Real crazy example was a dad telling his son that his black friends couldn’t swim in their pool because “they have different skin oils that mess with the pool cleaning chemicals.” That one’s just sciency enough that a kid can’t argue with it.
There’s two contexts – both because poor black areas in north America did not have public swimming pools or not enough of them.
Another thing is that until recently, the same context for a good chunk of recent African migrants. Access to pools is not common outside of urban areas in many African countries. Many fresh water lakes are not safe to swim in due to wildlife or pollution, so you’d only find stronger swimming cultures on the southern coasts. North Africa is very Muslim dominated so you might get men knowing how to swim but majority of women would not have that opportunity.
Historically, people learn to swim either in private pools, community pools or school pools. Private pools are/were only for people with means. Community pools often explicity only allowed whites. And segregated schools did not have equal funding, so likely didnt prioritize a pool.
I’ve seen evidence that community pools started declining after integration, because presumably people didnt want their kids swimming with black kids, so more community pools shut down and more people got private pools.
Nowadays that’s all in play. My high school was a predominantly white high school and required passing swimming class to graduate. I not think that’s the case for every school. Also, there’s some generational knowledge in play. My father taught me how to swim. For others whose parents don’t know how to swim can’t teach their kids.
In other words, past (and present) racism recreates itself.
During the civil rights act public pools. were shut down across America. Generally speaking anytime blacks in America tried to access white spaces (eg beaches, public pools) they were legislatively and/or violently removed.
Because of lack of access black people have had less opportunity to learn to swim and the associated culture. This compounds over generations.
Fast forward, Everyone forgets and/or pretends it didn’t happen and make up myths about why blacks don’t swim (eg thick thigh bones)
Fast forward today and you elect a president who appoints officials to remove black history from the military, sports, and the like and everyone looks down rheir noses at black peoples and our “culture” etc
That stereotype is old, tired, and kinda insulting. But once you know the history, it makes a lot more sense why it even exists. The real reason behind the stereotype is history and access. Back in the day, black people were often straight-up banned from public pools and even beaches. And when integration started happening, there were violent reactions. It’s not about not wanting to swim, it’s about not having the same chances to learn.
Swimming is passed down through families. If your grandparents swam chances are your parents did and you do.
If you own slaves one way to prevent them from escaping your plantation is by not allowing them to learn how to swim. No family tradition of swimming means fewer swim.
In America, when segregation ended, they didn’t want to share their community pools with black people and would pour bleach and acid in them to prevent black people from using it. Most white people had the means to afford their own pools and the ones who didn’t refused to share them with black people. It actually led to many pools being closed down and behind paywalls. Black people didn’t have the resources to get swimming lessons, and when they did, they were barred from classes, denied the facilities to participate, etc.
When you say “is it a true stereotype?” That question has two meanings: 1, is it true that this is a widely believed stereotype? Or 2, is this belief that black people can’t swim really true?
Anyone who’s been to an island full of black people, like say the Bahamas, knows this stereotype is nonsense.
However here in the US I have often noticed a strange aversion or fear of swimming among black children when I was growing up. I myself an African American and I never understood where all this is coming from. Three is a also widely held belief that black people can’t float. Don’t know where that’s coming from either.
It is no accident that during the waning days of Jim Crow, the first public accommodations to close rather than desegregate were the municipal swimming pools. I was a child then, but I remember a lady telling my mother at church (my family was white) the nasty racist trope that you could catch an STD from swimming in the same pool as black people.
A lot of these answers mention segregation but all the Jamaicans I know can’t swim or weren’t able to swim when I first met them. Their reasoning was just “never learned to”. What else could it be there?
My parents grew up in the ’60s and even though they lived in coastal towns didn’t have access to pools or beaches until they joined the Marine Corps. No negroes allowed on white beaches, even in Charleston. They never taught me to swim. I learned in college. I put my children in swim team when they were toddlers. Most black people can’t swim because we haven’t historically been allowed to.
I heard in my childhood (from the admittedly somewhat bigoted religious types that raised me) that Black people have more muscle density and less fat, and therefore don’t float as well.
Because they sink. I once met a guy in swimming pool and asked me to teach him. I said, so easy, just keep the head up and it will be close to his mouth but never completely. I slowly let go and he sank. Somehow their bone is heavier of something.
I think OP was asking why it’s a modern stereotype or situation. It’s no surprise that 95% of the comments here are from people mentioning conditions in the 1900’s, but I think the OP is entitled to be given reasons why it’s an issue in 2025.
That said, the answer sometimes or often may have to do with the past- for example, kids’ parents today may not know how to swim because their parents didn’t know how to swim…and that was the case because their parents’ parents didn’t know how to swim because of segregation and economic circumstances, and so on.
Jamaica here….. We have many people that can swim of course.
But as well as the cultural and wealth aspect of access to pools etc
i have heard that Black people have an added challenge to say swim to a “competitive ” level?
because they generally have a denser or higher muscle to fat ratio? Which is less buoyant?.
Same reason there aren’t a lot of black hockey players. A pool is a resource that costs money to maintain. If a municipality doesn’t fund public pools in black communities, which they historically have not, there’s nowhere to learn how to swim.
It’s not a stereotype; it is so qualitatively true as to be safely considered statistically true. The RAND corporation did a study on why Blacks were underrepresented in Special Operations Forces in the US Military. Blacks consistently fail the swim qualification portion of selection (all SOF selections have swim qual, not just the SEALs). Their conclusion was traced back to, you guessed it, the lack of public swimming pools made accessible to Black kids. These pools were available to white kids during segregation and closed down after integration. The net result is Black kids grow up playing basketball and football and not swimming due to lack of infrastructure. Basketball hoops are cheap, and football fields can be any empty lot (many of those in predominantly Black areas). The Navy solves this by teaching every Seaman-Recruit to swim as it is worth the investment to them and they have ubiquitous access to swimming facilities and qualified instructors. All SOF candidates are expected to meet minimum qualifications prior to arriving at selection, therefore if you aren’t a competitive swimmer (not just a rookie) your selection scores such as they are, will suffer accordingly.
When I was in Marine Corps boot camp 10 years ago the drill instructors would call all the black recruits iron ducks. I thought it was a dumb stereotype until literally every black recruit failed the swim quals. I was the only black recruit to pass, but I don’t look black at all (I’m 25% Hispanic) so it didn’t matter lol
Where I am in the Caribbean black people acccess beaches all the time and the sea is close at hand in dozens of island countries but barley half the men can swim and hardly any women at all.
Everyone gets told the sea is deadly, that black bones are too heavy, and most scarily, “there is no back door in the ocean”.
A lot of people are saying it has to do with segregation, which may have played a part but I doubt that’s the main cause. In the Marines we swim qual annually and in my experience the “dark green” Marines struggle a lot more than any others. Maybe because they tend to be leaner than average. I’ve asked and been told it’s because they’re more muscularly dense.
There’s nothing biological, there are cultural and historical reasons in certain places. One thing to remember is that black hair is different and many black women do not want to get their hair wet. This may or may not be communicated to you as anything other than “ I can’t swim” or “ I don’t swim” but what it really is, is something more specific. Working at a largely white summer camp, I had to be subtle and teach a bunch of white kids why their female black counselor was serious when she told them “do not dump that bucket of water on me!”
I think it’s just a matter of access. They probably don’t ski, paddle canoes, hike, or play tennis as much as white people. (Yes, I know about Venus and Serena Williams.)
I’m 36 and I’m black and I can’t swim. Had swim classes in high school and the water terrified and I didn’t like the gritty feel of the floor after coming out of the pool. Plus I never liked deep water so I failed swim class and never learned how to swim. But it’s often a socioeconomic issue.
I had a pool with mandatory swim lessons at my school when I was growing up. I thought that was standard, but found out that is not the norm. It is especially rare in schools in poor neighborhoods.
Go to the Caribbean, You will be surprised at how few black people don’t know how to swim. Despite living near the ocean. I am sure its true of Africa as well.
it’s more of one of those joke stereotypes people make jokes about when they’re talking to their friends and making risky jokes, not a true stereotype that people believe i think
While many of the comments here about swimming pools and lack of access are possibly part of it
I always thought the stereotype came from the fact most great apes fear water they can’t wade through. Thus why zoos can use moats to contain the chimps and gorillas
Wow, this might upset some people but, I invited one of my best friends and his wife with me to go to a local swimming hole. They asked if their son (17m) could also attend. Of course!
Please don’t be getting upset about stereotypes but, no one informed me that they couldn’t swim. They are black, I am white, my wife is half and half.
It wasn’t until we were chest deep that they started to become alarmed. Apparently none could swim. At all. This was the point when they confessed. ALL but my friend who insisted he could tread water. So I carried their gigantic varsity football son across the river princess carry, while me and my wife tried to assist the other two. Wtf?
So we proceeded to splash around in the shallows for a while before I decided to go down the rapids. At the bottom of them it becomes seriously deep, for about 20 feet, there’s a strong current which will dump you out at the end but it’s DEEP. Then immediately calf deep. My friend decided to follow.
I went first and I waited for him in the shallows. He came off the rapids and disappeared into the deep. And did not come back up. I was panicking. I was a former lifeguard and I was panicking. I waded in and managed to catch him sputtering and boasting about how he “had it.” Never fucking again. Full stop.
For God sakes tell folks if you can’t swim!!!
Stereotypes are stupid until they aren’t. I almost killed my friends
All these anecdotes are truck but there’s not really an excuse for this generation to not know how to swim. There’s no stigma anymore, there’s state parks, water parks, YMCAs, etc.
I’m from Florida. The way we learn to swim is going to the beach when we are bald little babies and floating in the salty sea. Then getting our chubby little cheeks and noses filled with water and gagging/coughing like a chain smoker.
I learned to swim when I was 1 or 2. I never needed lessons. Just water.
Everybody here points to segregation of swimming pools, the same segregation that ended over 50 years ago. That’s not the reason anymore
I think it’s more of a cultural thing. Maybe black folks just aren’t interested in swimming. Stats proof that out. Nothing wrong with not being interested in swimming
Just in my experience. In order for something to be considered a stereotype there needs to be some truth to it and it needs to be decently common. And alot of black people cannot swim.(I know this from personal experience)
Redlining. Back in the day they would segregate towns and make poor areas of the town, then make education and other funds come from income taxes. So rich people had better schools and government funded things. The problem would compound more and more over time. Often times cities have publicly funded pools. If you were black you’d be put in an area with low enough income that a city pool isn’t in the budget, aka no swim lessons. So it became cultural to not really do swim lessons. “My dad didn’t do swim lessons so he never put me in lessons”
This doesn’t apply to all black people but it is a common reason
Comments
It’s rooted in the fact that typically black people in America have less access to swimming opportunities in a lot of areas and thus cannot or are worse swimmers
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A buddy of mine is in the Navy. He’s black. According to him, the swimming parts of his training were the hardest. He said that black people have more muscle density, and so don’t float as easily. He said he had to constantly tread water just to not sink, whereas white people could just float with no problem.
Swimming lessons and large bodies of water that are safe to swim in are privileges that have often been denied to black communities. As such black people are generally less likely to know how to swim, which can then fuel the stereotype.
when the US tried to integrate pools, white people would pour bleach and acid into pools, or put nails at the bottom to injure Black swimmers. so growing up during that time Black people would be vary wary of pools and not swim at all, nor teach their children to in future generations. also, municipal pools in Black communities were extremely unkempt, or Black children would have to swim/play in creeks and ended up drowning. there’s a whole lot of history on the matter but essentially, tldr: racism.
https://www.buffalo.edu/ubnow/stories/2019/07/wolcott-segregated-pools.html
The US used to have a lot of public swimming pools, especially in the south. When those pools existed, they were almost exclusively ‘whites only’ or had a specific day that black people were allowed to swim (usually the day before it was cleaned). When the feds started enforcing integration in public accommodation, many of these pools were filled in or sold to ‘private’ clubs that could maintain a ‘whites only’ policy.
Basically, black people were mostly banned from public pools and a stereotype grew from it.
It’s a dated racist trope that stems directly from a time when only white people had access to most of the public pools. The act of a black person touching a “whites only” pool’s water was enough for them to drain the water. That’s the level of racism that this stems from.
btw….plenty of those people that approved these rules from this era are still alive and voting.
Because in the US swimming pools used to segregated, and racists would pour bleach into them or make them otherwise dangerous or deadly to use. Especially when pools were supposed to be desegregated, they would do whatever they felt necessary to keep black people from using whites-only pools and beaches. It was a decades-long deliberate violence against African Americans in the US that has resulted in less of a swimming culture in African American communities. (I say African American to be a bit more specific wrt historical context. I’m not saying that black immigrants were allowed in “whites-only” pools, but that a black person from 1960s Jamaica would have a different relationship to swimming than an African American in the 1960s, and the psychological effects of the violence faced by African Americans is passed generationally like any culture/race-based trauma.)
Here’s a good infotainment clip about it. https://youtu.be/PuGkVzeh4zM?si=d85BMETbT7msewfs
I think it’s mainly an older people in the city thing.
Most county kids have access to lakes, rivers, and ponds to swim in. City kids are limited to public swimming pools. People who grew up before the civil rights movement didn’t have access to swimming lessons.
Many towns don’t have swimming pools. It is more economical to build parks with running/walking paths, baseball or basketball courts, maybe tennis courts that can be used year around than maintaining a pool that can only be uses a few months of the year. Accessibility is still an issue, but more and more people value swimming lessons as life lessons now too.
Navy baby here. Old also. I grew up with everyone knowing how to swim. And my town has lots public pools in the city. Also YMCA is big on teaching lots of people how to swim. Maybe cause we are South East coast? But not my experience.
In Australia we all get swimming lessons.
They don’t want to mess up their hair……
It’s “true” but only because of racism in America. City pools in areas with high African American populations are often shut down and there is limited access to private pools or swim lessons in a lot of majority black areas. Higher rates of poverty (again due to systemic racism) also limit access due to affordability of swim lessons. Basically all the issues that disproportionately effect African Americans because of systemic racism impact their access/opportunity to learn to swim.
To be abundantly clear, there’s absolutely no other reason besides systemic racism for this stereotype.
edit: lifeguard and swim instructor for a long time, I often taught adult swim lessons and many African American adults I had in those classes have relayed to me that they never had access to pools as kids; so I know this from anecdotal experience as well. Motivation for many of them to learn as adults is they want to make sure their kids know how to swim and want to be able to swim with their kids; giving them the opportunity they didn’t have.
It’s not a “stereotype”. Only in the last 25 – 30 or so years of the 20th century were municipal pools open to Black people, North or South. This is lived experience for many of us and documented history you can look up.
Because a lot of black people don’t know how to swim lol
Short answer is racism; everything was segregated, including pools and beaches. when there was only one beach or pool it was a ‘whites only’ space. Even during the building boom for public pools if there was a pool built in a predominantly black neighborhood it was nowhere near as nice as the palatial pools built for whites. Even in places that were supposed to be for everyone white people policed pool spaces, often with violence. There were racist myths about black people’s bones and their ability to float straight out of Jim Crow. Lots of research material available to research about the legacy of this particular strand of systemic racism and how it continues to today.
Despite the current political environment discouraging people from acknowledging the existence of systemic racism, the percentage of black teens who can swim compared to their white peers is pretty solid evidence of the stereotype simply being rooted in the same old racist bullshit
I have also heard this, and variations, used as an excuse racist people use to try to legitimize not wanting black people in a pool.
It’s not racism, it’s actually them wanting to protect black people./s
Real crazy example was a dad telling his son that his black friends couldn’t swim in their pool because “they have different skin oils that mess with the pool cleaning chemicals.” That one’s just sciency enough that a kid can’t argue with it.
the answer in the usa is racism
As someone of Chinese descent. I can tell you this is true for a lot of Asian people too.
This video explains the whole history of this stereotype.
There’s two contexts – both because poor black areas in north America did not have public swimming pools or not enough of them.
Another thing is that until recently, the same context for a good chunk of recent African migrants. Access to pools is not common outside of urban areas in many African countries. Many fresh water lakes are not safe to swim in due to wildlife or pollution, so you’d only find stronger swimming cultures on the southern coasts. North Africa is very Muslim dominated so you might get men knowing how to swim but majority of women would not have that opportunity.
I am from Florida and it’s unfortunately not exactly a stereotype. It’s always bad to generalize 100%.
But I used to be a lifeguard and my friend runs a business teaching kids how to swim.
Not being able to swim disproportionately affects black kids
Historically, people learn to swim either in private pools, community pools or school pools. Private pools are/were only for people with means. Community pools often explicity only allowed whites. And segregated schools did not have equal funding, so likely didnt prioritize a pool.
I’ve seen evidence that community pools started declining after integration, because presumably people didnt want their kids swimming with black kids, so more community pools shut down and more people got private pools.
Nowadays that’s all in play. My high school was a predominantly white high school and required passing swimming class to graduate. I not think that’s the case for every school. Also, there’s some generational knowledge in play. My father taught me how to swim. For others whose parents don’t know how to swim can’t teach their kids.
In other words, past (and present) racism recreates itself.
Anti-blackness.
During the civil rights act public pools. were shut down across America. Generally speaking anytime blacks in America tried to access white spaces (eg beaches, public pools) they were legislatively and/or violently removed.
Because of lack of access black people have had less opportunity to learn to swim and the associated culture. This compounds over generations.
Fast forward, Everyone forgets and/or pretends it didn’t happen and make up myths about why blacks don’t swim (eg thick thigh bones)
Fast forward today and you elect a president who appoints officials to remove black history from the military, sports, and the like and everyone looks down rheir noses at black peoples and our “culture” etc
That stereotype is old, tired, and kinda insulting. But once you know the history, it makes a lot more sense why it even exists. The real reason behind the stereotype is history and access. Back in the day, black people were often straight-up banned from public pools and even beaches. And when integration started happening, there were violent reactions. It’s not about not wanting to swim, it’s about not having the same chances to learn.
Hippos are live in the water and will kill you.
Swimming is passed down through families. If your grandparents swam chances are your parents did and you do.
If you own slaves one way to prevent them from escaping your plantation is by not allowing them to learn how to swim. No family tradition of swimming means fewer swim.
Ancestral trauma
People are talking about cost, costs less for a lesson than to go to a waterpark.
Yet you see people who obviously can’t swim all the time in the wave pools.
I don’t think some people see it as a priority despite being one slip from drowning.
In America, when segregation ended, they didn’t want to share their community pools with black people and would pour bleach and acid in them to prevent black people from using it. Most white people had the means to afford their own pools and the ones who didn’t refused to share them with black people. It actually led to many pools being closed down and behind paywalls. Black people didn’t have the resources to get swimming lessons, and when they did, they were barred from classes, denied the facilities to participate, etc.
When you say “is it a true stereotype?” That question has two meanings: 1, is it true that this is a widely believed stereotype? Or 2, is this belief that black people can’t swim really true?
Anyone who’s been to an island full of black people, like say the Bahamas, knows this stereotype is nonsense.
However here in the US I have often noticed a strange aversion or fear of swimming among black children when I was growing up. I myself an African American and I never understood where all this is coming from. Three is a also widely held belief that black people can’t float. Don’t know where that’s coming from either.
It is no accident that during the waning days of Jim Crow, the first public accommodations to close rather than desegregate were the municipal swimming pools. I was a child then, but I remember a lady telling my mother at church (my family was white) the nasty racist trope that you could catch an STD from swimming in the same pool as black people.
A lot of these answers mention segregation but all the Jamaicans I know can’t swim or weren’t able to swim when I first met them. Their reasoning was just “never learned to”. What else could it be there?
My parents grew up in the ’60s and even though they lived in coastal towns didn’t have access to pools or beaches until they joined the Marine Corps. No negroes allowed on white beaches, even in Charleston. They never taught me to swim. I learned in college. I put my children in swim team when they were toddlers. Most black people can’t swim because we haven’t historically been allowed to.
USA dumb stereotype duebto segration and poverty
I heard in my childhood (from the admittedly somewhat bigoted religious types that raised me) that Black people have more muscle density and less fat, and therefore don’t float as well.
white people use to throw acid in the pool if black people got in
Because they sink. I once met a guy in swimming pool and asked me to teach him. I said, so easy, just keep the head up and it will be close to his mouth but never completely. I slowly let go and he sank. Somehow their bone is heavier of something.
I think OP was asking why it’s a modern stereotype or situation. It’s no surprise that 95% of the comments here are from people mentioning conditions in the 1900’s, but I think the OP is entitled to be given reasons why it’s an issue in 2025.
That said, the answer sometimes or often may have to do with the past- for example, kids’ parents today may not know how to swim because their parents didn’t know how to swim…and that was the case because their parents’ parents didn’t know how to swim because of segregation and economic circumstances, and so on.
Jamaica here….. We have many people that can swim of course.
But as well as the cultural and wealth aspect of access to pools etc
i have heard that Black people have an added challenge to say swim to a “competitive ” level?
because they generally have a denser or higher muscle to fat ratio? Which is less buoyant?.
Of course this is advantageous when sprinting..
It’s like the white people can’t dance stereotype. Mostly true, but not completely true.
Black people also are more likely to have negative buoyancy due to higher bone density
Same reason there aren’t a lot of black hockey players. A pool is a resource that costs money to maintain. If a municipality doesn’t fund public pools in black communities, which they historically have not, there’s nowhere to learn how to swim.
Lookup cement pool policies too
It’s cuz they’re reasonable people who recognize that water is scary as fuck.
Because most of them can’t.
It’s not a stereotype; it is so qualitatively true as to be safely considered statistically true. The RAND corporation did a study on why Blacks were underrepresented in Special Operations Forces in the US Military. Blacks consistently fail the swim qualification portion of selection (all SOF selections have swim qual, not just the SEALs). Their conclusion was traced back to, you guessed it, the lack of public swimming pools made accessible to Black kids. These pools were available to white kids during segregation and closed down after integration. The net result is Black kids grow up playing basketball and football and not swimming due to lack of infrastructure. Basketball hoops are cheap, and football fields can be any empty lot (many of those in predominantly Black areas). The Navy solves this by teaching every Seaman-Recruit to swim as it is worth the investment to them and they have ubiquitous access to swimming facilities and qualified instructors. All SOF candidates are expected to meet minimum qualifications prior to arriving at selection, therefore if you aren’t a competitive swimmer (not just a rookie) your selection scores such as they are, will suffer accordingly.
When I was in Marine Corps boot camp 10 years ago the drill instructors would call all the black recruits iron ducks. I thought it was a dumb stereotype until literally every black recruit failed the swim quals. I was the only black recruit to pass, but I don’t look black at all (I’m 25% Hispanic) so it didn’t matter lol
Where I am in the Caribbean black people acccess beaches all the time and the sea is close at hand in dozens of island countries but barley half the men can swim and hardly any women at all.
Everyone gets told the sea is deadly, that black bones are too heavy, and most scarily, “there is no back door in the ocean”.
Very very slowly changing.
Or bobsled. Oh wait that’s Jamaican.
Critical thinking ain’t easy is it
I’ve been to Africa. Getting in water is a really bad idea there, call it genetic memory
Pools and beaches used to be whites only=no safe place to learn
A lot of people are saying it has to do with segregation, which may have played a part but I doubt that’s the main cause. In the Marines we swim qual annually and in my experience the “dark green” Marines struggle a lot more than any others. Maybe because they tend to be leaner than average. I’ve asked and been told it’s because they’re more muscularly dense.
Just my two cents.
Lack of opportunity and access, and it’s not seen as cool or trendy.
I met a lot of Jamaicans in Jamaica who can’t swim.
We all saw Joe Frazier almost drown on battle of the network stars back in 1977 lol
It’s truth
There’s nothing biological, there are cultural and historical reasons in certain places. One thing to remember is that black hair is different and many black women do not want to get their hair wet. This may or may not be communicated to you as anything other than “ I can’t swim” or “ I don’t swim” but what it really is, is something more specific. Working at a largely white summer camp, I had to be subtle and teach a bunch of white kids why their female black counselor was serious when she told them “do not dump that bucket of water on me!”
Higher testosterone = higher bone density so it is harder to float
I think it’s just a matter of access. They probably don’t ski, paddle canoes, hike, or play tennis as much as white people. (Yes, I know about Venus and Serena Williams.)
Look up why this segment on Mr. Rogers was such a big deal when it aired https://misterrogers.org/videos/sharing-a-swimming-pool/
they literally can’t
I’m 36 and I’m black and I can’t swim. Had swim classes in high school and the water terrified and I didn’t like the gritty feel of the floor after coming out of the pool. Plus I never liked deep water so I failed swim class and never learned how to swim. But it’s often a socioeconomic issue.
Literal bone and muscle structure makes it harder for them but it’s not impossible. People do play into it a bit.
Access to swimming pools. So many deaths could be prevented.
I had a pool with mandatory swim lessons at my school when I was growing up. I thought that was standard, but found out that is not the norm. It is especially rare in schools in poor neighborhoods.
People who had swimming lessons can swim, those without swimming lessons may or may not be a quick study
Go to the Caribbean, You will be surprised at how few black people don’t know how to swim. Despite living near the ocean. I am sure its true of Africa as well.
Danny L. Is That You ? 👀
it’s more of one of those joke stereotypes people make jokes about when they’re talking to their friends and making risky jokes, not a true stereotype that people believe i think
While many of the comments here about swimming pools and lack of access are possibly part of it
I always thought the stereotype came from the fact most great apes fear water they can’t wade through. Thus why zoos can use moats to contain the chimps and gorillas
Wow, this might upset some people but, I invited one of my best friends and his wife with me to go to a local swimming hole. They asked if their son (17m) could also attend. Of course!
Please don’t be getting upset about stereotypes but, no one informed me that they couldn’t swim. They are black, I am white, my wife is half and half.
It wasn’t until we were chest deep that they started to become alarmed. Apparently none could swim. At all. This was the point when they confessed. ALL but my friend who insisted he could tread water. So I carried their gigantic varsity football son across the river princess carry, while me and my wife tried to assist the other two. Wtf?
So we proceeded to splash around in the shallows for a while before I decided to go down the rapids. At the bottom of them it becomes seriously deep, for about 20 feet, there’s a strong current which will dump you out at the end but it’s DEEP. Then immediately calf deep. My friend decided to follow.
I went first and I waited for him in the shallows. He came off the rapids and disappeared into the deep. And did not come back up. I was panicking. I was a former lifeguard and I was panicking. I waded in and managed to catch him sputtering and boasting about how he “had it.” Never fucking again. Full stop.
For God sakes tell folks if you can’t swim!!!
Stereotypes are stupid until they aren’t. I almost killed my friends
All these anecdotes are truck but there’s not really an excuse for this generation to not know how to swim. There’s no stigma anymore, there’s state parks, water parks, YMCAs, etc.
I’m from Florida. The way we learn to swim is going to the beach when we are bald little babies and floating in the salty sea. Then getting our chubby little cheeks and noses filled with water and gagging/coughing like a chain smoker.
I learned to swim when I was 1 or 2. I never needed lessons. Just water.
Its not really a stereotype..mostly due to segregation and discrimination and also economic issues..Lots of black people in the U.S really can’t swim.
I mean, it’s fairly true. High black population area don’t generally have a lot of pools, or they can’t afford to go to them.
Black athletes win most of the sports in the Olympics except swimming. Simone Manuel was an exception. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Manuel
Everybody here points to segregation of swimming pools, the same segregation that ended over 50 years ago. That’s not the reason anymore
I think it’s more of a cultural thing. Maybe black folks just aren’t interested in swimming. Stats proof that out. Nothing wrong with not being interested in swimming
White men can’t jump
Poor people from the inner city don’t typically have access to swimmable water. Pretty sure that’s it.
Every person I know that lives in the country can swim.
Both statements seem to be true regardless of color.
So many comments in this thread are proof of
and
Just in my experience. In order for something to be considered a stereotype there needs to be some truth to it and it needs to be decently common. And alot of black people cannot swim.(I know this from personal experience)
When I was in the military in the mid 60s I noticed most couldn’t swim or tread water…..they were called “rock fish”
Redlining. Back in the day they would segregate towns and make poor areas of the town, then make education and other funds come from income taxes. So rich people had better schools and government funded things. The problem would compound more and more over time. Often times cities have publicly funded pools. If you were black you’d be put in an area with low enough income that a city pool isn’t in the budget, aka no swim lessons. So it became cultural to not really do swim lessons. “My dad didn’t do swim lessons so he never put me in lessons”
This doesn’t apply to all black people but it is a common reason
It’s true. As a rule inner city folks can’t swim and HATE snakes.