Learning to Swim

I am a true west coast girl. I was born in Inglewood, California, raised in Redondo Beach and graduated from high school in Manhattan Beach. It wasn’t until my family moved to Omaha, Nebraska, in 1999, that I realized how important living near the water is for me. I felt landlocked. I never realized I had taken living by the ocean for granted. It is so much different than being around a manmade lake or a river. I don’t remember my mom taking us to the beach or swimming often, but I was able to connect to the water during my time growing up, especially during my high school years attending a school less than two miles from the beach in Manhattan Beach, California.

While visiting a friend one day this past summer, we stumbled on a conversation about Black Americans and swimming. At first I joked about the fact that a lot of Black people, at least women, don’t swim because of our hair.

I’ll be the first to admit I had a hard time doing anything to mess up my “do.” I’ve heard all kinds of analogies of why Black women straighten our hair to look “White” and other types of reasons why Black women do what we do with our hair. My grandmother began taking me with her to the beauty shop when I was five years old. From Shirley Temple curls to the pressing comb to clippers, getting my hair done by a professional is what I’ve always done. Coko from SWV (Sisters with Voices, a 90s R&B group) was my inspiration for my “flat iron do” with a part down the middle. So when it came to getting my hair wet, um, no thank you. I just got my hair done and it’s still “fresh.” Even going to the club was reserved for Friday nights before my weekly Saturday appointment. It didn’t matter what I looked like when I went to bed because I was going to be in my beautician’s chair at 7 am the next day.

But this is about more than just hair.

I am one of the few people living on the north Oregon coast with direct ancestry to slavery from Africa. Fewer than two percent of the north coast population is African-American. I love living here on the coast. In fact, I’ve never felt more at home anywhere else, even my birth place in southern California. I don’t offer my opinion as the voice of Black America, but as a Black woman in America who has often pondered the direct correlation between my inability or desire to swim and the passage of troubled waters my ancestors experienced on the slave ships that disconnected, dispersed, and drowned a whole race of people.

According to USA Swimming (the national governing body for the sport of swimming in the United States), 69% of Black children and 42% of White children have minimal or no swimming ability. As a result, Black children drown at a much higher rate than their White peers. When we look at most athletes of color we see them on the football field (70% of NFL players are Black men). We’re not surprised to see them on the basketball court (74% of NBA players are Black men). In contrast, the U.S. swimming team released its official report on the demographics of their 2014 year-round members and only 1% were Black. The movie Pride tells the story of James Ellis, who in 1971 formed the PDR (Pride, Determination, Resilience or Philadelphia Department of Recreation) swim team. As you can imagine, having a Black swim team in the early 70s was no easy feat, considering this was a time when “Whites only” signs were still posted over public swimming pools. This was the first African American swim team and was located in Nicetown, Pennsylvania. This program has now sent swimmers to the swimming trials for the U.S. Olympics every year since 1992.

So again, why don’t Black people swim? Could it have anything to do with slavery and needing to reconcile with the waves and shores of its passage? Even after slavery was abolished, the laws of segregation around the country, like Jim Crow laws and the Declaration of Constitutional Principles, made it illegal for Black people to have access to water via public pools and beaches. This was an interesting concept my friend and I pondered out loud. Let’s consider this notion together.

Millions of people watched in awe as Jamaican Alia Atkinson became the first woman of color to win a world swimming title in 2014. We then watched again in 2016 when Simone Manuel became the first Black woman to win a gold medal in swimming at the Olympic games in Rio. I consider my own upbringing and taking swimming lessons at Jesse Owens Park in Los Angeles (where I also learned how to play tennis) and coming close to drowning at Seaside Lagoon Water Park in Redondo Beach while on a school field trip. Growing up close to the beach didn’t get in me in the water. As a matter of fact, I am just now beginning to enjoy the “beach life” on the coast even though I still only get knee deep.

We can follow the trail back to the era of segregation. Black people (or Negroes back then), were legally denied access to swimming pools. Yes, it was against the law for Black people to swim or learn how to swim. It wasn’t until 1970 that the YMCA was forced to desegregate recreational facilities as a result of a ruling by the U.S. courts. The Southern Poverty Law Center had filed a lawsuit on behalf of Vincent Smith and his cousin Edward Smith for being denied entry into the YMCA’s summer camp program in Montgomery, Alabama. During the lawsuit, it was discovered the YMCA had an agreement with the city back in 1958 to outline a plan to maintain institutional racism.

The Atlantic slave trade began transporting Africans across the Atlantic to North American soil in the 16th century. Millions of lives were lost in the waters that were once considered safe and life giving. Before being separated from their homeland, many of those captured had to be swimmers, right? The coast land was the home for many who were enslaved. They were native to the culture of living on the coast: swimming, diving, and fishing had to be the normal way of living until the waters offered the imminent threat of death in what was once a source of life.

Could it be the effects of slavery have prevented Black people from wanting to swim? I believe the answer is yes. Generational relationships and curses are real. We see it with examples of abuse, alcoholism, mental illness, and hereditary diseases. Not all generational relationships are bad. I come from several generations of singers and ministers. Others have family lines full of service men and women, or teachers or doctors and lawyers. Somehow, unbeknownst to us we are tied by generational relationship to both the triumphs and tragedies of our ancestors. My conclusion is instead of the love of water and life the ocean gave to my forefathers and foremothers being my dominate trait, this was instead reseeded by fear and lack of resolve, which has been passed down generationally through my bloodline.

A new friend recently introduced me to the word epigenetics. In digging online, I also discovered the idea or theory of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. I’ve concluded this means the effects of something can be passed through the bloodline without attaching itself to our DNA. As it pertains here, I will define it as the fear of water, from the effects of slavery, being passed on to me from my ancestors even as the love of water is in the construct and very essence of who we are. I know it sounds like a stretch, but is it really?

Consider the possibility of how the final and absolute destruction of racism could in fact restore the love of water for a nation of people who have never had the opportunity to find resolve with one of earth’s basic elements. After all, our bodies are 60% water, and 71% of the earth’s surface is covered in water. Mothers know the sign of birth when their “water” breaks. Since racism (systemic oppression) seems to also be the effect of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, can we now find our way past the darkest parts of our bloodline and finally kill the root of our intolerance? I am hopeful the answer is yes. Coming into the knowledge of such a profound yet hidden obstacle at the core of our being is the beginning process of finding our healing back at the sea shore. If you’d
like to meet me there, I’d be willing to join hands as we release the angst of the ocean and embrace the love it desires to breathe into our very existence. The waters brought peace before they were known to promote conflict. It’s time for all of us to connect back to our roots, when water was our friend and provided sustenance, not anxiety.