4 Reasons Why I Suspect Many Black People Don’t Bother to Swim

And how that’s beginning to change

I’m inspired to write this after reading Jeffrey Kass’s exceptional story Why Are Black People Afraid of Swimming: Understanding generational trauma. If you haven’t already read it, please do so as he shares some important history lessons many — especially White people — may not be aware of or hardly think of in terms of generational impact.

Before we get started, I just want to say that my list would’ve originally shared six possible reasons why Black people don’t bother to swim. However, Jeffrey’s article already highlighted two very good ones which I won’t rehash, such as:

• America’s racist history of prohibiting Black people from swimming in public pools
• African ancestors thrown overboard by the psychopaths who trafficked them from Africa to the Americas

Both of these reasons, I believe, have had a tremendous impact on CHOSSA (Children of Stolen & Sold Africans) who either prefer not to swim, have never learned to swim or who actually fear swimming. You’ll have to read Jeffrey’s full story for more detail surrounding these points as I’m not going to expound on them here. Instead, I want to add four more observations which may explain why so many Black people avoid swimming in pools or the ocean.