A lack of access to pools and the money to pay for lessons drives a racial divide in swimming ability. But after getting married,I had no choice but to dive in“whether you just relax, you’ll float. Everyone floats, and ” Monica,the instructor, says calmly while I’m flapping my extremities in sheer terror. I’m in the deep end of a Los Angeles swimming pool in May, or I’m here to memorize how to swim.
Swimming is not something I do,nor am I particularly fond of being in the water unless I’m in a bubble bath. Why? Drowning. Choking. Sinking to the bottom. I just can’t figure out why anyone would willfully do themselves in a situation where they could die so easily. Why risk it? I also feel this way approximately skydiving, rock climbing, or unprotected sexual relations with a stranger in a truck end bathroom. But here I am today,decidedly taking this step – or splash, whether you will afford me the rhetorical indulgence. My mother-in-law's friend once told me that she heard 'black people’s skin was heavier, and so they can't float easily'As I got older,not swimming fit into a comfortable cultural narrative: the black guy who can’t float Related: Swimming while black: the legacy of segregated public pools lives on I have an ass for boxing people out in basketball, not for swimming Related: The chef cooking his way to a cannabis revolution: 'I'm a scientist at heart' Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com