"They took our beautiful black bodies and threw them into the sea like trash. And memory of that pain is what keeps our brothers and sisters out of the lakes, rivers, and even swimming pools to this day," she said.

Jackson, a Pulitzer finalist and author of nine books, also described an incident where a bottle of water triggered a memory of ancestral bondage.

"That water, that blue death, swirled and mocked me in its plastic shell, calling for me to join the others in its cold grip," she said. "And I looked and said no, give me a Diet Coke instead," she added.

http://blackvoices.org/stories/feature/black-bodies-in-white-water-htm

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4552352&forum_id=2#40352249)

doctors consider this information a lot when performing surgeries

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4552352&forum_id=2#40372310)

So until the 1970s or 1980s when desegregation was fully in place, blacks couldn't even go take swimming lessons.

So how were they supposed to learn how to swim? And parents who can't swim are going to think swimming is not worth spending $$ on, so they won't take THEIR kids to learn. So you have a culture of non-swimmers that can almost entirely be explained by overt racism.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4552352&forum_id=2#40372287)