I Was A 38-Year-Old Black Woman Who Couldn't Swim. Here's What Finally Got Me In The Pool.

The day I decided to learn how to swim was uneventful. I was at home nursing my then-14-month-old daughter when I came across a video on social media of a mom blogger I follow. In the video, her 2-year-old was jumping fearlessly into a pool as an instructor waited nearby in the water to catch the kid. The kid didn’t need catching. The child popped up to the surface of the water just as fast as he jumped in and stayed afloat by treading. “Wow, I hope my daughter can do that,” I thought. This thought was immediately followed up with, “Wow, I want to do that.”

I was a 38-year-old woman who couldn’t swim.

Over the years, I’ve concocted a lot of reasons for not learning how to swim, but the truth is it was never a priority. I grew up in Chicago where outdoor activities like going to the pool were limited to warm months.

Even then, swimming wasn’t on the list of things to do in the summer for us. Were my friends and classmates and their families going to the pool? Probably, but if so, I didn’t know about it. And taking a dive in often-contaminated Lake Michigan wasn’t a thing.

In high school, Swim 101 was a mandatory course for all freshmen. But, as my luck would have it, the pool was broken my freshman year. To think about it, I don’t remember even seeing the pool my entire four years of high school.

It’s important to note that I’m Black. For most of my life, I fit right into the stereotype that Black people can’t swim. Unfortunately, the stereotype has some truth to it. A national study conducted by USA Swimming (the U.S. governing body for the sport of swimming) and the University of Memphis found that up to 70% of Black/African-American people can’t swim, compared with roughly 31% of Caucasians who can’t swim.

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