Texas Toast/Atman wonders how people don't know how to swim

[Ralph Wiggum]

Atman (26,022 posts)

Watching MSNBC...how does one not know how to swim?
 
Last edited Thu May 16, 2013, 02:59 PM USA/ET - Edit history (1)

It is primal. It is survival. You don't have to be an Olympian, you can thrash and splash, but how does one not know how to "swim?" I guess I'm ignorant. We taught my little sister to swim at 6 months old by throwing her into the pool (in a certified class, don't worry). Humans, like dogs and cats, instinctively know how to swim, for pure survival. We don't all have to do the back stroke or the Australian crawl. But we can swim. What is this bullshit about black people not knowing how to swim?

GeorgeGist (9,493 posts)
1. I've known several people including my mother who didn't know how to swim.

You might feel more comfortable at a website for narrow minded people.

 

Atman (26,022 posts)
4. You might feel more comfortable at a website for narrow minded people.

Jesus Christ, I watched a tv "news" segment and I asked a question. That makes me "narrow minded?" I bow to your superiority. Your mother's swimming ability has nothing to do with it.

Enrique (22,574 posts)
2. i learned in a pool

my mother doesn't know how to swim. I've been to the village she grew up in in Puerto Rico, no pools there. I've been to the neighborhood she moved to when she came to NYC, no pools there.

NYC_SKP (48,689 posts)
3. I have known adults who seemed absolutely incapable of swimming or even floating.

One young man, very lean, just sunk like a rock.

CBGLuthier (8,815 posts)
5. I don't know, what is this bullshit about black people not being able to swim?

I don't have cable and would not watch that channel if I did so I do not have a clue wtf you are talking about. Is that the topic of the day?

That's the entire thread.  Some people just never had the opportunity to learn to swim, Atman.  Maybe you think we need universal government paid swimming lessons?

[GOBUCKS]

Responsible parents should find some way for their kids to learn to swim. Period.

There's really no excuse.

[wasp69]

I love seeing McGrath's punk ass get slapped around.

[jukin]

Thus proving the broken clock rule. For lurking DUchebags this refers to an analog clock...wait, i'm talking to DUchebags, it the clock with two rotating arms (one longer than the other).

I should try harder to gear my advice to them at a first grade level.

[zeitgeist]

Once upon a time several of the folk on our sister tug had had enough of the stench put off by one of the snipes and threw him off the fantail.  Sank like a rock, the dirt just drug him down we figured.  Took their whole crew to haul him out (not only was he the duty scrounge, he was also the duty chow hound).  There was an upside to the whole episode, he began taking regular showers and no one was busted for the incident (suspicion is that it was the Chief who recommended the dunking). 

Tugs are not known for being spacious in messing and berthing compartments, odiferousness does not go unnoticed nor unchallenged.  Not all sailors can swim as this lad proved nor do they float.   

Oh, and for the record, he was lily white, from Georgia, and, could work miracles with a diesel. Soap and water was his only nemesis until the impromptu dunking. 

[Tess Anderson]

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Response to Cirque du So-What (Reply #6)

Thu May 16, 2013, 03:15 PM

 Atman (26,034 posts)

22. That is an excellent article. Thank you for posting.


Ironically (?), I was found at the bottom of a swimming pool when I was a toddler. I had wandered off and fell in the pool. I thrashed and splashed, but still sunk to the bottom. Fortunately, I was found before it was too late. I grew up to love the water. I surf, I sail, I've scuba dived...
 
I admit, my perspective might be skewed.

 

[franksolich]

Sounds to me as if Atman got some oxygen deprivation while laying on the bottom of that pool.

[98ZJUSMC]

CBGLuthier (8,815 posts)
5. I don't know, what is this bullshit about black people not being able to swim?

I don't have cable and would not watch that channel if I did so I do not have a clue wtf you are talking about. Is that the topic of the day?

Every black guy in my platoon at MCRD had to be taught to swim in remedial save one, who learned in the Army*.  In truth, it was just learning how to tread water without being terrified.  And, they were, (D)Ummy.  Deny it if you like, like everything else.  

* - Prior service (even Vietnam time) doesn't/didn't get you out of Boot Camp.

[ColonelCarrots]

I'm Cuban, we know how to swim. How do you think we get here?

[delilahmused]

Every black guy in my platoon at MCRD had to be taught to swim in remedial save one, who learned in the Army*.  In truth, it was just learning how to tread water without being terrified.  And, they were, (D)Ummy.  Deny it if you like, like everything else.  

* - Prior service (even Vietnam time) doesn't/didn't get you out of Boot Camp.

That's exactly what my son said when he was there.

Cindie

[Chris_]

Urban ghettoes don't usually come with fancy swimming pools.

[miskie]

I think everybody needs to know how to swim. The planet has far more surface water than dry land, so simple logic suggests that everyone is going to end up in the drink unexpectedly at some time in their lives.

As for Atman's point- I have no idea if there is any statistical correlation suggesting that blacks often lack the ability to swim. If there is, it must come down to priorities in education- or in this case, lack thereof.

[miskie]

Urban ghettoes don't usually come with fancy swimming pools.

That may be true, but when one considers where minorities in the US are concentrated, the majority are live beside major bodies of water.

[JohnnyReb]

I learned to swim in a farm pond, no fancy pools back then. The only hazards in the farm pond was cotton mouths and floating cow chips....don't know which was worse.

[Duke Nukum]

There goes Toast displaying his White Male Privilege Racism in from of God, Dog, and Everyone.

I learned to swim in water, Toast, not everyone is a privileged as we are to have water.

[GOBUCKS]

Urban ghettoes don't usually come with fancy swimming pools.

Every democrat hellhole is littered with public pools, rec centers, and other taxpayer-funded facilities to give the 0bamaites something to do between drug deals.

They may not have poolside bar and snack service, but they have enough water to swim.

[zeitgeist]

I'm Cuban, we know how to swim. How do you think we get here?

'48 Merc  inboard?




 

[thundley4]

I went to one of the local park district pools when I was young.  You would have thought that the pool had an invisible segregation line most of the time.  Rarely would blacks go past the 5 FT. marker,  and you never saw them go off the diving boards where the water was much deeper.

[GOBUCKS]

You may recall that Queequeg sank.

[ColonelCarrots]

'48 Merc  inboard?




 

Those are "rich" Cubans. The 1%ers if you will.

[zeitgeist]

 

Those are "rich" Cubans. The 1%ers if you will.

[Dori]

I practically grew up on the beach.  Very rarely do you ever see black people there, which I was always curious about. 

 

[Delmar]

You wouldn't be able to tell by looking at him, but this guy was a heck of a swimmer, back in the day.

[dandi]

I had to insist my sister get swimming lessons for my niece. Living in Florida I knew when she got older she and her friends would be spending a lot of time around the water, and I couldn't bear the thought of something happening to her for lack of a simple skill like swimming. Now she's grown and swims like a fish. Just a couple of weeks ago she called and told me she was going "swimming with the manatees" down near the mouth of the Homosassa River. lol

[JakeStyle]

Every black guy in my platoon at MCRD had to be taught to swim in remedial save one, who learned in the Army*.  In truth, it was just learning how to tread water without being terrified.  And, they were, (D)Ummy.  Deny it if you like, like everything else.  

* - Prior service (even Vietnam time) doesn't/didn't get you out of Boot Camp.

Same here, not commenting as a racist, just reporting the facts (this was in 1983).