Congradulations Gold Metal Winner, Cullen Jones, You Give Us All Hope For The Future! Yes We Can!
Black sterotypes allow those who have them to feel a false sense of superiority. We still hear them today. Included in that list is " Black People Can't Swim." Meet olympian and world record holder Cullen Jones.
Study Finds Stark Gap In Minority Participation
Nearly 60 percent of African American children can't swim, almost twice the figure for white children, according to a first-of-its-kind survey that USA Swimming hopes will strengthen its efforts to lower minority drowning rates and draw more African Americans into the sport. Stark statistics underlie the initiative. Black children drown at a rate almost three times the overall rate. And less than 2 percent of USA Swimming's nearly 252,000 members who swim competitively year-round are black. To alter the numbers, USA Swimming is teaming with an array of partners -- local governments, corporations, youth and ethnic organizations-- to expand learn-to-swim programs nationwide, many of them targeted at inner-city minorities. One of the key participants is African American freestyle star Cullen Jones, who hopes to boost his role-model status by winning a medal at the Beijing Olympics. USA Swimming's motives are twofold, Executive Director Chuck Wielgus said. "It's just the right thing to do -- making an effort so every kid can be water-safe," he said. "And quite frankly it's about performance. We're something of a niche sport and for us to remain relevant, considering the changing demographics of the population, it's important we get more kids involved at the mouth of the pipeline." USA Swimming commissioned an ambitious study recently completed by five experts at the Department of Health and Sports Sciences at the University of Memphis. They surveyed 1,772 children age 6 to 16 in six cities -- two-thirds of them black or Hispanic -- to gauge what factors contributed most to the minority swimming gap. The study found that 31 percent of the white respondents could not swim safely, compared with 58 percent of the blacks. The non-swimming rate for Hispanic children was almost as high -- 56 percent -- although more than twice as many Hispanics as African Americans are USA Swimming members. Among black children, the study found that girls overall had weaker swimming skills than boys and were less comfortable at pools. Irwin said this might justify experimenting with single-sex swim programs, comparable to single-sex academic programs now spreading through some schools. The minority swimming gap has deep roots in the United States' racial history. For decades, many pools were segregated, and relatively few were built to serve black communities. The findings will be used by USA Swimming to fine-tune its steadily expanding Make a Splash program, in which it teams up with local partners to offer lessons and water-safety classes. -- From Washington Post News Services
Cullen Now Joins The History Books With Other Great Black Olympians Who Succeeded Despite The Odds!
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