Phyllis is just plain wrong.

Pretty much anybody can learn how to swim if given the opportunity. Obviously it is easier to get that opportunity if your parents can swim and understand that it is important. Some CULTURES value swimming more than others and those cultures may be predominantly occupied by certain races, but there are plenty of other factors and people responsible for making sure they or their children can swim.

Angela stated the reason why many African Americans didn't learn to swim!
RACISM!

I's time Caucasians STOP using the term "minorities"!
It makes you feel superior!
TRUST ME.....YOUR NOT!!!

To Alice from Staten Island (and all other "Sinkers")

I am also a 'sinker.' However I learned very early that we all have immediate access to inflated floating devices to prevent sinking. These devices are free and they are built in to every human. They are our lungs.

A good swim instructor will always concentrate on proper breathing technique before a beginner gets in the water. Because the instructors where I learned knew I was a sinker, they would call on me to demonstrate how breathing and holding air in my lungs would prevent this. It was cool to let out all my air and sink to the bottom, then push off to reach the surface, take a BIG BREATH and float on top again (yes my legs always tended to sink if I wasn't kicking - BUT my head and shoulders would ALWAYS be at the top if I had a lungful of air). Being a sinker should not prevent anyone from learning to swim or being a very good swimmer - when I was a teen I was a NY State champion swimmer in many events in spite of my sinking without enough air.

If you want to try to learn again, make sure you work with an instructor who teaches proper breathing. It's like water Yoga.

Good Luck

Parental fear of water(aquaphobia) seems to be a running theme here. In fact parental fears seem to greatly influence their children's attitudes about so many realms (math, dogs, leaving home, whatever)

But consider this - there are around 3000 drownings per year as opposed to 30,000 auto related deaths per year. How many of us would try to prevent our children from learning how to drive, or worse, ever getting in any vehicle, or walking anywhere near moving vehicles?

American Red Cross water safety programs save lives and teach us not only how to swim but also how to avoid risky situations in or near the water. How many drownings would be prevented if we all learned to be safe?

I'm a 33 yr old African American girl who grew up on Long Island and I'm so thankful that my parents put me in swim lessons (as well as sending me to camp every summer), as a very young girl. I love the beach, and very much enjoy swimming and being in the water. I think it's so important to learn how to swim for safety AND for fun. And let's face it - to brave the waves on Long Island's south shore, you'd better know how to swim! (...Even though it's often, more like fighting for your life than swimming with those waves!)

I grew up very insecure about the water and never could manage much more than a doggie paddle. In undergrad at the urging of a swimmer friend I decided I would try to learn. When I first started I couldn't make it more than half a length! I stuck with it and with his help finally feel like I can hold my own in the pool. Now I am a regular at the Mcarren pool and I love it. Swimming has given me a confidence boost and is a great way to get exercise.

i was a competitive swimmer my whole life, but this year one of my New Years goals was to do an ocean swim. I have a fear of deep water. This past weekend, I completed the RI Save the Bay race under the Newport RI Bridge from Newport to Jamestown RI. I just tried not to think about how deep it was. I still have a fear, but was able to get past it to complete the event and train for it in the open ocean for the months prior.

I'm 71 years old. For 65 of those years I've been petrified of water, due to a childhood trauma. I've tried red cross courses and swimming instruction but none of them dealt with the underlying phobic condition. Last year, i met a swimming instructor who was also a psychologist and teaches by dealing with the phobia first. A year later, I swim laps. It's a miracle to me, almost like learning to fly.
I'm not alone. Aquaphobia is a real condition affecting an awful of of people. It can be dealt with but it takes the right teacher and a lot of work. Most swimming programs don't recognize this and fail phobics.

I've been an avid swimmer for most of my 58 years, and a daily swimmer for most of my adulthood. I have my mother to thank for this love of swimming, and some of my best memories are of swimming laps with her in the evenings after work. This is still my favorite time to swim and remember those special times with my mother. Swimming is perfect for the mind, body and spirit. I always feel better in every way after I swim, and my swimming friends have become such an important part of my life. Although swimming is an individual sport, our group of morning swimmers has turned into quite a community. We've seen each other through good times and bad, and I always know that I can count on my swimming friends. Although pools are not always convenient, it's worth the effort to find one and learn to swim!

I'm Bi-racial. My mother, a first-generation German American, was a medal winning swimmer, and passed that love of the water to us children. As a teen in a major US city, I was usually the only non-white enjoying our lakes and rivers at social outings. In the city pools, there were usually black guys enjoying themselves, but black girls and women, were noticeably absent.I asked my black friends why they wouldn't join me in the water, and wouldn't even go to rivers and lakes, and I was told that they didn't want to get their hair wet. Doing their hair was a time consuming affair, and they weren't willing to un-do all of that work for a swim. Because I had "good hair" (argh!), I didn't have that concern. The lakes, rivers, and as I later learned in life, the sea, were sources of fear for my friends. I am 47 yrs old. I'd really hoped that with the changes in hair care for black women, and the passage of so much time, that those stark differences between the races and swimming would have changed. I'm sorry to see that, for whatever reasons, that difference is still so glaring.

My father told me a story about how he learned to swim. He and his brothers built a raft and set it afloat in a pond in South Carolina. When they were in the middle of the pond, too deep for him to touch, his brothers all jump in the water, yelling "water-mocasin, water-mocasin," and set out for the shore. My dad, fearing a snake bite, jumped in and swam after his brothers. It was the first time his feet had left the bottom.

My parents, brother and sister were all swimmers. I was never quite able to learn. In my late 20's I went for lessons at the "Y", only to learn that I'm a "natural sinker." My teacher said she had heard of this, but never actually saw one until me.
Now I'm 67 and still don't know how to swim. My son can't swim, even though I had him take lessons beginning in pre-school, and neither can my husband.
I'd love to learn, even at this late date. I'm a pretty gutsy old broad, so I just may take lessons again this year.

I do believe that all children should learn the basics of swimming and water safety. However, this is an example of socioeconomic issues being portrayed as racial issues. I am Caucasian and grew up poor in an urban area. My parents did not swim nor did very few of their white relatives or friends. The only kids I knew who swam were kids who were sent to summer camps.

I, myself, did not learn how to swim until I was in my 30's at a local YMCA. To this day, although I do swim competently, I retain some fear of the water which was instilled in me during my childhood.

As a hispanic, my mother couldn't swim -- so she took all 5 of us to ARC swimming lessons from a very young age. Two brothers and a sister eventually earned a Water Safety Instructor rating (we're all advanced swimmers) and all of our kids are fantastic swimmers now -- and my youngest at 8 is a DIVER.

As an African American who grew up in the early 70's, I can say that I don't think fear of the water is the reason so many African Americans can't swim. In my experience, though we grew up in the middle class, my parents worked during the summer months and we had no other adult to take us to swimming classes. There were no classes on the weekends, and very few in Annacostia, Southeast Washington, DC. Lets' not forget that swimming was a sport that was "off limits" to African Americans due to segregation until the early 60's - 70's.

Though the high school I attended was very good academically, and has programs such as AP classes and concurrent college enrollment, there was no swimming program. Though things are better now, it can be a matter of the opportunities available to you.

I only learned to swim after a friend literally towed me out to sea in Playa Del Carmen. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest I could hear it. I was in 60ft of crystal clear water - I got back to NYC and enrolled in a swim class at the 'Y' but it sparked something in me and I continued with the water theme - now I'm an avid, advanced diver. By the way, I still swim like a sack of wet sand...it was just a matter of overcoming my fear of the water. These days I'm never more at peace than when I'm diving.

When I was 9 months old, growing up in Miami my parents started taking me to swimming lessons on a regular basis. I have always been asthmatic and doctors agreed it would be very helpful. I am now 29 and consider myself an extremely proficient swimmer, enjoying it for its benefits and feeling as if it comes naturally. My father was raised in a Jewish family and my mother is from a small town in the Midwest. They can't imagine not making sure I was able to swim well, seems like a no-brainer.

I always had a fear of water from my childhood day trips to the Jersey shore.

In my freshman year of college, swimming was required in PE. To pass, one had to follow a pole hand-over-hand to the bottom of the deep-end. I passed, but many years later nearly drowned at an Orlando theme park.

Now I love pools as a source for non-impact arthritis exercise.

I grew up very near Lake Huron, so my swimming lessons began very early, like maybe 5-6 years. My daughter started to swim before she could walk, and swam competitively until she experienced a knee injury on a turn in the pool, pushing off the wall. She has always loved being I the water.

Larry - so sorry that your father was so cruel. THAT is definitely NOT the way to learn how to swim.

Parents - teach your children and yourselves from a CERTIFIED INSTRUCTOR. It is the safest and quickest way to learn how.

When I was five years old my father asked me,"Can you swim yet?"

In the middle of saying "No," my father picked me up and threw me into a lake. I don't know exactly how I survived but I practiced swimming every day after that for the rest of the summer and all summers after that.

My idea to this day when I get in a pool is to do laps and to teach my seven year old daughter and five year old son a kinder way to love being in the water...

I try to give them a break when they fool around, but in my heart I want them to take swimming seriously

Sounds like the fearful parents need swimming lessons too. My parents who were low income and poor swimmers constantly took us (8 kids) to all the free swimming lessons they could find. We all grew up to be very confident swimmers AND we taught our parents and hundreds of kids in our town, how to be confident swimmers too.

Once you learn, you never loose this skill which comes quite naturally to children who learn in a safe and fearless class.

PS - we often encouraged fearful parents to stay away for their kids first lessons.

I can't swim, and I was a deep sea sailor for nearly 20 years.

How many pilots do you know who can fly?