Page 36 - LionKing

FEATURE
Sadly, there is a small nugget of truth in this statement, but not because of our bone density: the reason stems partly from racism, and partly from a lack of development.”
“
Black
People
Can’t
Swim?!
By Funlola Obe
It is something you hear all the time, ‘Black people can’t swim’. You hear it when watching the Olympics and there
are no black people competing, or while watching a movie where the black char- acter never wants to get in the water - or drowns when they finally do! Or even when you go to a pool party yourself and no one is swimming.
Most people state this and claim it is because black people have ‘heavy bones’ which make us less buoyant. This is a complete myth. There is little proof
or research that supports this, and as some people would say: ‘Have you ever seen a fat skeleton?’. So why is there a widespread stereotype that Black people can’t swim. And is there any truth to this?
Sadly, there is a small nugget of truth in this statement, but not because of our bone density: the reason stems partly from racism, and partly from a lack of development.
HISTORY
In places like the United States (the Jim Crow era South where segregation was prevalent) and South Africa (where apartheid enforced segregation), Black people were denied access to facilities used by white people. At a time where Black people weren’t even allowed to use the same bathrooms as white peo- ple, where certain establishments had a
‘Whites Only’ sign on the door, there was definitely no way that public swimming pools were going to be available to Black people as well as whites. The problem with this (aside from the obvious racism) is that not only were Black people banned from any public swimming pools used by white people, there was also no provision made for facilities to be used by Black
(or ‘Coloured’) people only. As a result, black people had little access to aquatic methods of recreation. And the chances of someone who didn’t have access to these facilities and who lived in an envi- ronment where they had no access to a body of water like a stream or a lagoon, being able to swim, are very slim.
Another aspect is that in many African countries which are struggling with under-development and poor infrastruc- ture, swimming pools and the like are seen as a low priority luxury. As a result, such facilities are mostly available to the middle class and upper who can afford to either build them in their homes or to pay for membership in exclusive clubs which provide them. But most people don’t have the means for the same access, and it is rare to find public pools (at least in my experience as a Lagosian, I haven’t seen many public pools). Where you do find pools open to the public, more often than not they are poorly maintained.
36 | The Lion King | April - June 2019