So I guess black people can't swim?

[RummyTheDummy]

Ahh....the wonders of Florida never cease to amaze me. What will they come up with next?



North Miami PD Drops Requirement In Bid To Recruit Blacks

NORTH MIAMI, Fla. -- The North Miami police department dropped a swimming requirement for applicants, saying they need new officers and want to encourage blacks to sign up.

North Miami police say they are dropping the requirement for a year. They say few departments require swimming and their officers rarely save people in water.

"Our swimming requirement may give the false perception that we are not serious in our efforts to hire Haitian police applicants," police chief Gwendolyn Boyd-Savage wrote in a memo explaining the decision. Boyd-Savage is black.

"They have been intimidated because they don't swim, very few of them swim," said Mayor Joe Celestin, who is Haitian-American. "They have the ability to learn how to swim, but many of them are not that great of a swimmer as the standard, current requirement that we have. We want to bring them in and give them a chance to learn."



http://www.local10.com/news/3030870/detail.html

[whistle]

1. Geeze, the North Miami police have been resisting this...

...for the past four years. It's about time. Another example of republican code for racism.

[DANDI]

2. So, the mayor is Haitian-American

and the police chief is black, but it's racism?

[Dark]

16. Welcome DANDI!

[the Kelly Gang]

3. don't think they can vote either in Florida !!

[MinnFats]

4. reminds me of that L.A. Dodgers exec (can't remember his name)

so he must have been pretty forgetable.
he was on night line with koppel, discussing why there were few blacks in management positions in major league baseball....

guy said, roughly...'maybe the don't have the requisite skills! (pause) They can't swim!"

a firestorm erupted.
he was fired a couple days later.

[theboss]

20. Al Campanis

He had actually been influential in originally signing Jackie Robinson so his slip-up was extremely unfortunate.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. I hear there's a direct correlation between access to swimming pools

and the ability to learn to swim at an early age. But, I may be going out on a limb here...

[The Zanti Regent]

14. I remember segregation too well

As a kid in Ambridge PA back in the early 60s, I still remember how Blacks and Jews were barred from swimming in the borough pool.

Yes those were the "RESTRICTED" days that Christians like De Lay want to return us to...

[Bombtrack]

6. Actually black people have a much higher percentage of not learning

to swim than white people. Think about the ratio between whites and blacks in terms of origin. Most whites come from the suburbs and rural areas where swimming is a much bigger part of growing up than black people, who have a dramatically higher percent of urban origin.

It isn't racist at all. If anything, the law that was lifted was more racist.

If anyone here watches the Real World, I can think of 2 different black people who couldn't swim, the black guy from this season and from New Orleans.

[bearfartinthewoods]

17. IT'S NOT THAT THEY CAN'T SWIM!!!!

what a stupid idea. anyone can learn to swim. it's that they either don't want to swim or haven't had the opportunity to learn.

[noonwitch]

19. All the people I know who don't swim are black, except my grandmother

My best friend will wade in the shallow end, but will never go into deep water. I invited a coworker to go swimming last week and she doesn't know how. When I was a teen, my sister had a friend who didn't swim and would sit next to the pool and watch the rest of us swim. All three are black.
I do know black people that do swim-Detroit has city pools, and plenty of kids and adults take advantage of them. I don't know if the three people I know are a fluke or a trend. We need our black posters to respond.

[Blasphemer]

31. It's not just an American thing...

I have family and friends from the Caribbean and few swim. The ones that do are younger and more "americanized". I agree that it's not racist. There are cultural differences.

[Guaranteed]

7. I've never understood this phenomenon,

whether it's true or not.

[Bombtrack]

8. Read my above post

It's perfectly understandable when you think about the differences between urban and/or less affluent upbrining and suburband and rural and/or more affluent upbringing.

[Guaranteed]

9. I grew up in a somewhat urban area

in CA (Stockton) and went to summer camp with a lot of black kids. We went swimming every day. And I always see black kids in the pools at the parks during the summer when I walk past them.

:shrug:

I think you're right, though- practice, from a young age, is the main factor in swimming ability.

[Bombtrack]

10. Yeah, and less black kids go to camp. I only got to go to camp

because of help from more wealthy relatives, it's more expensive than we realize when were kids

[bleedingheart]

11. I think your right about affluence playing a factor

You won't see children of less affluent backgrounds in sports that cost more money to participate. Swimming isn't as costly as some but it requires access to a pool and if the school or community don't offer access then it can be costly to join a club..etc
I live in a predominately white community and there are many kids who don't swim because there aren't many public pools and many of those have fees that are in the range of $150 a season and for some parents its too much....plus they have to find a way to get the kids there...

Now if you want to look at expensive sports...hockey, tennis,gymnastics, and golf are pricey...you have to pay for time on the ice/court/gym/course, uniforms, rackets, clubs...etc you won't see the less affluent play those sports often unless a parent is working to provide the opportunity...

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bearfartinthewoods]

18. crap...the question isn't whether they can float

it whether they are able to learn to swim.

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

23. I was a camp counselor at an inner-city Y

We would go to different swimming pools around the city. Most of the kids could swim, but a few of the African-American junior-high boys did have trouble floating. I would try to teach them, but I had no knowledge of swim instruction. I would show them how to float, but they would just sink like a stone, so I think there is some truth to that.

[Lady President]

33. Floating is different

Many children, especially jr. high age boys, have trouble floating because their body-fat level is very low. It has nothing to do with race, only lack of practice and body build. There are ways to teach almost anyone to float.

[qb]

13. The police chief and mayor refer to Haitian applicants who can't swim.

It makes sense given the context. The headline writer is an idiot to make it sound like "blacks can't swim".

[PfcHammer]

15. gawd darn. y'all don't no nuthin. it's genetical.

blacks got big, dense bones that makes em sink.
brown people got bones that make em sink less.
good moral, christians got perfect bones thats float.

[pebbles1]

21. Ma state troopers in the 70s

not only lowered their height requirement and swimming status,but also broke us down into 3 groups. White men who had to score like 99 to even be considered for an interview,(my husband got a 94 and was never called) women whose agility test was much easier and I got an 88 on my test which put me in the running for an interview and last but not least minorities, who had to just pass the test and I don't know what their agility test was like. I do know they didn't take it with the white guys.

I agreed with all of this. All workforce places not just state and local jobs need to reflect the population. If in FLA the minority population is 30% then 30% of the police force should be minority and if that means reconstructing the rules then so be it

[newyawker99]

27. Hi pebbles1!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Samurai_Writer]

22. When I was on the swim team and water polo team...

... in college, I took the PE swimming course every semester. There were always just a couple of black students taking the course, and none of them knew how to swim before coming to class. Also, I learned that blacks have higher bone density, which makes it more difficult for them to float. To pass the course, we had to 'vertical float' for 20 minutes. Some of the blacks had a really hard time doing that. So perhaps it is a mix of not having the opportunity, not having the desire, and if they do try, it might be more difficult for them physically.

Now, as a fat chick, I could float for days. Who says being fat doesn't have it's advantages?

[never_get_over_it]

24. I have three bi-racial nephews

ages 10, 5 and 2. I taught the two older boys to swim. They come to my house in the summer for a month and love to because we go swimming almost every day. The 5 year old who was 4 last summer got good enough to jump off the diving board and swim to the ladder in FIVE days....so I have to think it is more the access to swimming that makes the difference not their race...unless it is their white half that makes them such good swimmers - NOT - actually I told the five year old he must have been a dolphin in a previous life because he is such a good swimmer at such an early age!

[Stockholm]

25. This is of course a question of environment not

genetics, but man what a clumsy chief of police...

[theboss]

26. Unless black comedians have been lying to me . . .

. . . and I have no reason to suspect they are . . . black people don't swim or do all kinds of other whacky things that we white folks do.

[Karenina]

28. Like ice dance.

:eyes:

[cmf]

29. Good Grief

Man, you bring up race on this board and you hear all sorts of crazy things. :eyes:

I'll start off by saying that I am Black and while not a stong swimmer, I know the basics. I probably could not pass a police test though.

Yes, there are a lot of Black people who don't swim. I don't believe that it is a body-type thing (bone density or otherwise) as much as a cultural and economic thing.

Access to Pools or other Bodies of water - Go to any inner city that has public pools and you'll see tons of black people swimming. Obviously they can learn. But most public pools were off limits until the last few decades.

The Hair Issue - This is what keeps most Black women from learning how to swim. Most Black women relax or press their hair. It gets screwed up when it's wet and they take care in only getting it wet when they're washing it, because it's a time consuming PITA to fix it again. Not wanting to get your head wet precludes learing how to swim.

Passed down culture - if your parents never learned how to swim because of one of the above issues, then chances are they are not going to invest a lot of time and money in making you learn how to swim. It's just not seen as very important.

[Karenina]

34. Yeah, I can swim.

W-A-Y-B-A-C-K in the wayback I humiliated a bunch of white boys with my technique and speed. Sis was on a collegiate diving team. It has to do with ACCESS, culture and YES!!! The HAIR Thing was a BIG ISSUE.

[AspenRose]

35. But even the hair stuff isn't what it used to be

Get braids or cornrows, as the recent Survivor casualty (Alicia) can attest to. She seemed pretty strong in the water to me.

And yes, she's biracial, but still....

Oh, and by the way: BLACK PEOPLE DO SUNBURN. It may take longer sun exposure, but YES it HAPPENS. :eyes:

[GiovanniC]

30. Remember That Guy From Survivor?

I forget his name, but last season he had to be "rescued" because he couldn't swim. Very muscular, very fit, very athletic black guy. Couldn't swim.

Not sure why that was.

Now, I can imagine all the jokes about HAITIANS being able to swim. I'll leave those to the xenophobes, though.

[Blasphemer]

32. Survivor...

That guy was Osten. Season One has Gervase. They both learned to swim specifically for Survivor so they didn't have much experience and weren't very good. On the other hand, during Season 2, there was Nick who was An Army officer and Law student who was a very good swimmer.

[TheDonkey]

36. many blacks cannot swim due to socioeconomic reaons, and physical reasons

Of course the availability of swimming pools if a big factor to why many blacks cannot swim. There communities and schools have less pools than white communities.

Also African Americans bone density is different and they cannot float as well as other body types. We learned tha in Physical Anthro can vouch for it's validity but I know I have a problem floating (I'm AA).