Reports that six black teens drowned in Louisiana recently and overall three times as many black teens succumb to drowning than whites have resurrected the question of blacks' swimming ability.There are a number of hypotheses floating around (no pun intended): blacks think that swimming is for white folks,blacks do not have access to swimming pools,an inborn fear of water and the deep,and anatomical and physiological factors. Personally I do not buy all those hypotheses.Remember when there was no black quarterbacks in the NFL,no tennis champs,or golf champs? I am still waiting for a black in NASCAR to win the Daytona 500. My personal explanation re the swimming variable is that the black brain is land based,and that the white brain has had to traverse aquatic environments based on the Eurocentric geographic landscapes of ice,moubtains,and rivers and oceans. In other words,the archaeological archetypical,and the collective unconscious of whites and blacks differ in the symbolism of swimming abilities.The same could probably be said of snow skiing. Not too many blacks skiing on Mount Kilimanjaro,but lots of whites on the mountains in Europe.Interestingly enough,some Europeans trained a Jamaican bobsledge team and they came close to winning in one of those winter olympics.
Michael "omnicentric" Sylvester,PhD Daytona Beach,Florida --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=3988 or send a blank email to leave-3988-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
