the stereotype, unfortunately, it is often true that Black Americans cannot swim, particularly in urban environments. Therefore, this essay will examine how such stereotypes originated, stemming from the transatlantic slave trade and continuing into segregation, and how Moonlight reclaims the image of Black people’ s in and with water.
From a historical perspective, the pre-Atlantic slave trade, Kenin Dawson’ s article,‘ Enslaved Swimmers and Divers in the Atlantic World’, lifelong explores how swimmingwas a crucial part of everyday life for African tribesmen before the Transatlantic Slave Trade. African children learnt to swim at a very young age, either ' right after learning to walk between the ages of ten to fourteen months or after they were weaned at approximately two or three years of age.'( Dawson, 2006, p. 1335) Learning at such ayoung age reduces the risk of drowning in adulthood and suggests African parents did not fear the water or the possibility of their children drowning. ' West Africans... used variants of freestyle, enabling them to incorporate into many daily activities.'( Dawson, 2006, p1330) Such activities included setting fishing traps meaning the ability to swim, gave Africans access to a food source.
On the other hand, White Europeans considered swimming to be ' a hopeless struggle against mother nature '( Dawson, 2006). African ' s ability to swim was seen as animalistic by westerners as ' animals instinctively knew how to swim( but) it was unnatural for humans to swim without logical instruction.'( Dawson, 2006) Many white westerners did not learn how to swim and devalued such skills in African tribes people. They concluded that since swimming was a natural ability in animals, the African tribesmen must be less developed and used this as their reasoning for enslaving them. Enslaved Africans were then prohibited from swimming as slave owners saw swimming as an escape from the coastal plantations. By being denied access to an activity that was once integrated into their daily lives, Enslaved African could not pass on their tribal traditions to their enslaved children born in America.
In the 20th century, racial segregation meant
Black Americans were prevented from learning to swim in public pools. Black people were discouraged from using public swimming pools as white stereotypes of Black people‘ as diseased and sexually threatening served as the foundation for this segregation '( Wolcott, 2019). This stereotype justified white managers refusing Black Americans entry to pools due to a ' fear of disorder '( Wolcott, 2019). They believed fights would break out if African-Americans were permitted on the premises. In 1964, pool manager James Brock went as far as to pour acid into a swimming pool after civil rights protesters jumped into a‘ whites-only pool’. The racism and segregation African-American’ s have faced has denied them the opportunity to learn how to swim, which has continued into modern-day society. Many African Americans believe that swimming is a‘ white activity’( Dawson, 2006, p. 1354), meaning a majority of African Americans do not learn how to swim. In the United States, the responsibility for a child learning to swim lies with the parents, and if the parent cannot swim, they are unlikely to teach their children to swim. Furthermore, a 2010 study conducted by Carol Irwin found that‘ Fear of drowning or fear of injury was really the major variable’( Rohrer, 2010) as to why many African-American parents did not teach their children to swim. The cause and effect of denying a generation of African- American’ s in the Civil Rights era entry to pools means they were never able to participate in recreational swimming, so it never became a part of African-American culture.
All things considered, the transatlantic slave trade denied African ' s the chance to pass down their swimming abilities to future generations meaning something that is a part of their heritage is met with fear rather than celebration. The forceful separation of African Americans from the water has led to the image of Black people’ s bodies and water accumulating negative connotations, and there have been multiple news stories of Black adults and children drowning in swimming pools. ' Some 70 per cent of African-American youth cannot swim, and drowning rates for young Black( people) are far higher than for whites '( Diaz- Duran, 2017). This statistic demonstrates how the stereotype has, unfortunately, become real for a majority of the Black Americans and
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