Obviously it is a cultural thing, but just as obviously there is truth to this. My kids are on a swim team, and we attend state meets and meets in the Denver area, Col. Springs, and Pueblo. No matter the ethnic makeup of the neighborhoods, white kids are waaay more than 90% of the swimmers. I’d guess that white kids make up 98% of the swimmers. IIRC, there was one black swimmer on the last US Olympic team.
On an aside, one should also be careful about assuming lifeguards can swim. It was either when I lived in the Philly area, or the Washington DC area, that a set of city pools was busted for having lifeguards who couldn’t swim. In fact, most public pools are so shallow, you don’t really need to be able to swim, but obviously it is a good idea. (This was a simple case of nepotism.)
In one of my jobs, I had a discussion about this with a black, Operations Analyst. He said there are some simple reasons that lead to fewer black kids swimming. He pointed out that he had no urge to hang around at the shore or the pool and get a tan. He also pointed out that with what is called the “basketball” culture mentioned above, and the “football culture” and no “swim culture”, swimming isn’t close to first choice of activities. Clearly there is no genetic disadvantage, as the only demonstrable genetic advantage for every stroke is height.
So, instead of creating a stereotype in my head from the small, questionable bits of information I’m getting from tv, and in an absence of lots of black people in my life to ask these questions of, I come here and ask for a little more hard information - and I’m being accused of what again? I know that black people are people, just like everyone else, but when I hear the same thing from two different sources, I start to question if it has any validity, hence this thread. You have dispelled my ignorance; thank you very much.
For the record, if people thought my OP was satyrical, that’s getting dangerously close to accusations of trolling (posting something simply for the purpose of provoking responses). My OP was an honest question, looking for honest responses.
The OP was asking about whether a given stereotype is true. It turns out that this stereotype does have a cultural basis in fact so your critisism is unwarranted.
The beauty of this place is you can ask questions like this and get an intelligent response from lots of different people. Stereotypes often have a basis in fact and it is perfectly reasonable to know the how’s and why’s. Pretending otherwise means that you are, quite literally, closed-minded.
Well in my case I’m not trying to accuse you of anything, but this whole thread is strange to me. You now know that at least a small percentage of black people swim. Good, ignorance fought and all that. But I just can’t see how someone couldn’t just know that. Now I could see not knowing whether a larger percentage of whites swim than do blacks. This is an interesting question, and it makes sense (imo) to ask it. Perhaps that’s what you were actually asking. If so, no complaints from me. If you really were asking whether or not an entire group of people have chosen to abstain from a pastime, then my black people = people comment fits.
Of course, you can feel free to ask questions and learn. It’s just that I’ve spent my whole life in the position of being various people’s One Black Friend ™ and answering all kinds of weird (to me) questions. Ex: do black people sweat, like dogs, like the snow, darken in the summer etc. The answer to just about any “does blank race” question is always* going to be “some do, and some don’t”.
I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be offensive. I just don’t see how someone can agree that people are people, and still be uncomfortable just assuming the obvious answer to the question in the title.
*not in the case of things like sweating, of course.
So, if two separate black people come on television and say that black people don’t like dogs, I should just assume that they don’t speak for all black people rather than starting a thread to actually find out if there is any truth to what they said? Some of the responses to this thread feel like they’re putting me in a “damned if I don’t, damned if I do” position - I didn’t develop the question about black people swimming out of nowhere. It was black people who said that black people don’t swim.
I’m not a stupid person, or an illogical one - I understand full well that two black people can’t speak for the whole black population, but I did want to know more about where these individuals were coming from that they would say these things, and due to circumstances of where I live and the demographics here, I don’t actually know any black people to ask, and it sounds like it would have pissed you off if someone had asked you that, anyway.
Maybe the simplistic thread title is what is throwing people off. Maybe I should ask a mod to change it to, “Why would two separate black people say that black people don’t swim?”, which is basically what I’m asking here.
featherlou, I’m in much the same boat as you; raised in small-town Alberta and only meeting anyone Black as a much older person. I have been in the situation you find yourself in this thread, and I sympathize. I usually preface seemingly dumb questions with “I grew up not knowing anyone Black. Please tell me ”. It works.
I don’t think it is a dumb question at all. As someone who grew up in an area roughly half black and half white it was just taken as a given that the great majority of black people didn’t swim. The proximate answer was that their parents didn’t teach them (and the reason for that was the same). Some but not most white people had pools but most of us didn’t. We ran parallel cultures in my town and that was just one of the differences we took for granted. I never heard anyone say that blacks couldn’t swim if they wanted to, just that they didn’t.
Oh, I know that you didn’t make the whole thing up. I’ve heard similar things. My hometown doesn’t have any Asians. I met a few at college and became good friends with one of them. But I know that he can’t speak for all Asians. So even if he’d said, that his group doesn’t do something, I’d know he was only talking about the people in his circle. Or exaggerating to make a point. Lots of times people make sweeping comments like that as a sort of a joke.
As for general things like whether or not blacks like dogs, what would you consider to be a satisfactory answer? It would really be this thread all over again, except with folks talking about their pets, or their black neighbor’s (lack of a) pet. That’s just the point that I was trying to make, that you could substitute all swimming references with any other activity, and black with any other race, and you’ll always get the same thread.
No, I wouldn’t be mad. I’m not mad now either. I probably would be thinking “wtf” while answering though. If you were a good friend, I’d tease you about it too. Now, if you’d came and asked the question that you considered changing the OP to, then the wtf thought wouldn’t be there. I’m sure you’re not stupid, but it has never occured to me to think of any comments like that as anything more than a joke. It’s straight out of a comedy routine that was popular in the 90s. You know, white guys can’t jump and are very uptight while black guys are cool, laid back natural sports stars. Or, someone saying Americans are all fat and selfish.
Well you’ve got your answer now, so I personally wouldn’t bother.