Monday, August 24, 2015

"Swimming while black" in Alabama and environs

     El Guardian, Swimming while black: the legacy of segregated public pools lives on,
     ...In the US, swimming ability is starkly divided along racial lines. White Americans are twice as likely to know how to swim as black Americans.
     The consequences of this can be deadly: according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black children aged five to 14 are three times more likely to die from unintentional drowning than their white counterparts. In the US, approximately 10 people die from unintentional drowning every day.
...
     [Terrell] Goodson, who’s 37 and works in the restaurant industry, ...growing up in Alabama, he was just simply never taught to swim. His story is part of a common narrative, not a singular occurrence.
     In the US, swimming ability is starkly divided along racial lines. White Americans are twice as likely to know how to swim as black Americans.
...
     Goodson says he knows that Montgomery closed its pools years ago to keep black people out. He says he has tried to read up as much as possible on the history of Montgomery, and race relations, but few people in his surroundings want to speak about it.
     “They say I am crazy,” he says. “So now I stay quiet. But I know things.”
     Emmett Till was murdered and drowned, but the drowning of black people without resources to learn how to swim, may be a more indirect form of murder.

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