Simone Manuel’s win and its Significance
On August 12th, 2016, Olympic swimmer Simone Manuel won a gold medal after coming first in the 100-meter freestyle event, making her first black woman in history to win a medal. This was a one of the most important nights in swimming history, though the San Jose Mercury News decided otherwise, reporting the event as “Phelps Shares Historic Night with African American”. People of colour often lose credit for their work as it is often shared as ‘made or done by “insert ethnic background”’. Simone Manuel, the first black woman to win a medal becomes an “African American”, and Michael Phelps remains the focus of the story. Sadly, being compared to or upstaged Michael Phelps is a very common occurrence in the swimming industry. Yes, it is very important to note that Simone is African-American, but it shouldn’t be her defining feature. To quote Simone: “I would like there to be a day when there are more of us, and it’s not ‘Simone, the black swimmer’.
Simone Manuel’s win and the fact that she is the first African-American woman to win a medal is extremely important, considering the history of racism in swimming. But before I explain the history of racism, it would help to tell you what racism is. Racism is the systematic oppression of a group of people because they share non-European features. European ideals, morals and standards where forced upon non-European people, so even today, society is built to benefit white people.
For years, black people have been denied entrance to pool areas. Even today, pool areas remain uninviting for black people due to the hostility of white people who go there regularly. It happened multiple times this summer, one example being on June 24th, when a white woman physically assaulted a teenage black boy at a community pool, shouting that he and his friends didn’t belong and that they should “Get out, little punks!”. This type of segregation in pool areas stems all the way from the 1920’s, when men and women were allowed to swim in pools together for the first time. However, white men hated the idea of black men, generally perceived as violent, unhygienic and aggressive, swimming with white women. This is what sparked racial segregation in swimming pools. In the South of the U.S., pools would rather close than let black people swim there. This meant that public pools soon disappeared. In the North of the U.S., pools where kept open for black people, but the attendance by white people dropped by 95%, because they refused to share a space with black people. This sudden drop in swimmer attendance meant that some pools started closing because cities didn’t want to invest money in them. However, white people did not stop swimming. Cities continued to build pools in white neighbourhoods, so swimming was never lost as a recreational activity.
Because of all of this, most black people never learned to swim. In fact, a recent survey revealed that 70% of black people in the U.S. lack basic swimming skills. Another survey showed that the drowning rate of African-American children is 5 times higher than that of white children, showing that there is a link between drowning rates and swimming participation. This is shown in a report in 2014, where they reported the
demographics of the people who attended swimming year-round. In their report, they found that 31% of swimmers where white, 5% where Asian, 3% where Hispanic or Latino and 1% where black, with 55% who did not report. This statistic stays pretty consistent when you look at other groups of swimmers. For example, as of 2012, the US Olympic swim team, consisting of 49 swimmers, had only 5 people of colour in the team. Another example is U.S.A swimming, which has 337,000 members, only 1.3% of them being black. But even when the link between drowning and swimming participation rates has been proved multiple times, people will come up with racist excuses for why so many black people can’t swim and why there are so little black people in the competitive swimming industry. When asked why there are so little black swimmers in the
U.S swimming industry, a lot of people will answer with “they are genetically less buoyant.” It is a very common myth that black people can’t swim because their muscles and bones are denser meaning they are less buoyant, or that they care too much for their hair to get it wet. These myths ignore the fact that black people are less welcome at swimming pools and are less likely to have relatives who know how to swim and can teach them. The small amount of black swimmers in the competitive swimming industry also means that black children have less people to look up to.
This is why Simone Manuel’s win is so important, because despite the odds, she won a gold medal. Black children everywhere can see her and realize that they can be good at swimming if they wanted to. Other groups of black swimmers are also hoping to inspire black children to swim. An organization in the U.S called Black Kids Swim was founded in 2015 to help teach black children how to swim, in a safe, accessible way. The organization sponsors kids to help them take classes and gives information to parents to help them support their children in the swimming industry. This small difference can have a huge domino effect. More black people learning to swim means there will be more black people teaching others how to swim. There will be more black swimmers in the industry to inspire others. There will be a day when there are more black swimmers, and it’s not ‘Simone, the black swimmer.