More pool drama
It’s getting to the point where I want to buy a beer for every black person I see because I’m so ashamed of what they have to endure on a daily basis.
It’s really giving a new meaning to this gif:
Black people: No water for you.
What was the old meaning, that they can’t swim?
Yeah, playing off the stereotype that black people can’t swim.* I think it was a vine. Since it’s a bunch of guys just having fun it’s pretty funny. If it was a joke PSA from the alt-right, then it would be inflammatory and terrible.
* which is actually a stereotype which I didn’t learn until I was in my late 20s or early 30s. It took me a lot of “what!?” and scoffing before I finally just flipped that switch in my brain that goes “oh, yeah, stereotypes are stupid, of course they don’t make sense”.
Also, I just want to say that even though I’m joking around with this stuff because it’s so absurd, it’s absolutely not funny at all that there are large minority groups that can’t just do normal “life stuff” without having to worry about douchebags harassing them. What a crock of shit.
I learned about the percentages around 10 years ago. Dunno how this article holds up.
Just under 70% of African-American children surveyed said they had no or low ability to swim. Low ability merely meant they were able to splash around in the shallow end. A further 12% said they could swim but had “taught themselves”.
Yeah it’s crazy that it sort of wraps around. Black people in large numbers don’t swim because they weren’t allowed in pools. Black people are getting yelled at for going to swimming pools still. Ergo, fewer black people will still learn how to swim. Stupid racism causing shitty results. Maybe that should be the motto for the 2016 election.
A lot of black Americans don’t swim because they had no opportunity to learn, because no one builds public pools for them in their neighborhoods. Those of them that do have access to a pool get chased off when frightened white people call the cops.
Yeah where are the kids in the middle of big cities going to learn to swim? It’s not just access to water either, it’s something you have to learn, to be taught. YMCA is not cheap, and the swimming lessons for some communities are hugely expensive if, if they even have pools to do it in.
I learned to swim at a public pool in WA when I was young, classes and everything. I have no idea how my mom paid for that, or if she did. We were pretty poor.
Same reason you are seeing so few black baseball players today. Other sports require less equipment and space to play.
I wonder what the level of swimming ability is across the population as a whole?
We really need a justice with a public defender background on the Court.
A quick survey shows that, roughly, 44% of Americans can’t swim. Or, rather, do not possess strong swimming skills (the study term used). That income and race are strongly correlated. That a poor kid is more than twice as likely to be uncomfortable in even a shallow splash zone where you don’t need to swim, as a child from higher income.
However this differs from the reported (those numbers are from the Red Cross study of performance, and compared to survey questioning), where 86% of Americans claim swimming ability.
I mean I wouldn’t say I possess strong swimming skills, but I’m not likely to drown unless conditions are bad either.
And I had swimming lessons when I was a kid.
I have a pool with a lot free access for people and there kids. Seriously, anyone that knows me knows they are able to come use it. I do frequently argue with parents about their kids swimming abilities though. Kids who are not strong swimmers or under a certain age cannot be left in the backyard without an adult watching them at all times.
To some paren, a kid keeping their head about water is “swimming”. My standards are a lot higher than that. Heck my nephew was required to have a life-jack on even though grandma and mom claimed he could “swim”. No he could not, could barely get to the side and certainly not just float for an hour if he was in trouble.
Aka, people claim they can swim because they don’t drown in five minutes, in placid water and while they are not panicking.
Well they define it in a specific manner, the most strenuous being can you swim 25 yards
are the ability to: step or jump into the water over your head; return to the surface and float or tread water for one minute; turn around in a full circle and find an exit; swim 25 yards to the exit; and exit from the water. If in a pool, you must be able to exit without using the ladder.
Which is actually referred to as critical safety skills, or water competency, not strong swimming skills as I said before.
Yeah. You can’t learn to swim when your summer is spent playing in the water from a fire hydrant. With or without spray caps. The spray caps would allow you to get wet without the water pressure throwing you across the street.
I had some lessons as a kid at a public pool which I think were run by the Red Cross or something. I was probably around 9 or 10 and that would have been 1970 or 71, in Cincinnati.
BTW, if not completely free (to my folks), they must have been nearly so. My dad was a poor grad student working on a PhD at the time. My mom was basically running an unofficial day care because my dad’s stipend was going entirely to pay alimony and child support for his kids from a previous marriage, and he had 3 of us with my mom and a 4th was on the way.
It was a required course in my High School. Of course we had a pool.