Jacqueline L. Scott

Meet the Black snowshoers who walked 1,000 kilometres across Canada in 1813: U of T expert

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 18 Feb 2020 14:43:04 +0000

Meet the Black snowshoers who walked 1,000 kilometres across Canada in 1813: U of T expert

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 02/18/2020 - 09:43

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John Marrion was part of the 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot. The 104th soldiers once snowshoed over 1,000 kilometres in about 50 days during the War of 1812 (Beaverbrook Collection of War Art/Canadian War Museum/CWM 19810948)

Jacqueline L. Scott

Topic

Our Community

Advertising

Black

Diversity

Graduate Students

Indigenous

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Sport

The Conversation

Snowshoeing in the woods on a sunny winter’s day is my idea of fun. When playing in the snow, winter seems to pass faster.

Over two-thirds of Canadians participate in outdoor recreation, according to Statistics Canada. Some 13 per cent of these nature fans enjoy snowshoeing. Compared to skiing, snowshoeing is low-key, inexpensive and easy to learn. And it can be done anywhere as long as there is snow.

Snowshoe walks and races were once the most popular winter sports in Canada, long before hockey seized that prize. A century ago, snowshoe clubs were scattered all over the country. The most important was the Montréal Snowshoe Club, formed in 1840. It organized professional and amateur races.

Lord Stanley of Preston being “bounced” as a member of the Montréal Snowshoe Club in 1866 (Wm. Notman & Son/McCord Museum /VIEW-2425
)

Some Black men once snowshoed over 1,000 kilometres in about 50 days. The epic trek took them from Fredericton, N.B., to Kingston, Ont. Unlike us, these men were not doing it for outdoor recreation.

The men were part of the 104th New Brunswick Regiment of Foot. The regiment left Fredericton on Feb. 16, 1813, and followed the banks of the frozen Saint John, Madawaska and St. Lawrence rivers until they reached Kingston. They arrived in April.

The 600 or so soldiers of the 104th trekked across the country to bolster Canadian defences against an impending United States invasion. This became known as the War of 1812, even though the conflict was spread out over the next two years.

The Black men in the 104th included Harry Grant, Richard Houldin and Henry McEvoy. They are a minor footnote in the War of 1812 and are usually ignored in accounts of the conflict.

The 104th is an under-recognized military march on par with great marches in history. Here the route is mapped out (Drew Kennickell/The St. John River Society)

Indigenous technology

The erasure of these Black soldiers of the 104th follows the usual pattern of deleting Black people from the mainstream history of Canada, as their presence or absence raises questions about race and empire, and genocide and slavery.

When Black people are acknowledged, it is usually in reference to the Underground Railroad, and the fugitives’ flight from slavery to freedom in the Great White North. The focus on this part of history ignores the 200 years of slavery in Canada, and how living in its wake continues to shape Black lives today.

The 104th long march was possible as the army used Indigenous technology and techniques to survive the winter slog. For example, a pair of men each pushed and pulled a toboggan loaded with their food and gear. The toboggan was a traditional Indigenous mode of winter transport.

The men wore moccasins. These Indigenous shoes are perfect for walking on ice or snow as they are light, warm and waterproof.

Then there were the Indigenous snowshoes. They were essential winter gear as they were the easiest way to move in thick snow – if you were a hunter, soldier or just out for a walk.

With just boots on, with each step, one would sink up to knees or hips in the white stuff. In a different situation, this could be lethal. Cold legs are prone to frostbite and frostbite can end in amputation or death. Snowshoes spread the body’s weight so that one can walk and not sink into the powder, and can travel further with less effort.

Lithograph on wove paper of ‘Snowshoeing Club of Montréal.’ Several men are depicted walking in the snowy woods with snowshoes (Henry Sandham, 1842-1910/Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. R9266-1432.CC BY-NC)

On a recent snowshoe hike, I passed through a strand of cedar trees, brushing a few twigs as I trudged by. The trees released a perfume that was fresh and invigorating. In my mind, it is the smell of Christmas.

The men of the 104th also liked the cedars. And not just for the scent. They used the branches to make a bed each evening, as they huddled in a makeshift teepee made from saplings and insulated with branches and moss. A blanket and a fire in the middle kept them warm in the sub-zero nights.

‘We were made for this’

Ten years ago, Canada hosted the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. The Hudson Bay Company, our iconic retailer of Canadiana, made a marketing campaign with the tagline, “We were made for this.”

In the images of the campaign, pioneers and later athletes skiied, hiked and tobogganed in a winter wonderland. Almost all the people visible in the advertisement are white. Thus it made an explicit connection between race, winter and outdoors recreation. It reflected two dominant nationalist mythologies of Canada – as the “the Great White North” and the “great outdoors.”

There are many issues with the advert, but I am interested in how it whitewashed Canadian history and outdoors recreation. What has changed in the past decade?

Snowshoes are cheap to rent at ski resorts and parks and from outdoor recreation stores. Snowshoeing is marketed as a truly Canadian winter sport that is accessible to different age groups, fitness levels and abilities.

It’s a great way for families to spend a winter day outdoors. The marketing photographs are filled with happy white people, in bright neon-coloured jackets, romping in the snow. What is missing from the images are Indigenous, Black and other people of colour. Snow is free, but race plays a role in who is wanted and who gets access to snowshoeing.

John Marrion, depicted here, was part of the 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot (Beaverbrook Collection of War Art/Canadian War Museum/CWM 19810948-008)

The joy of the outdoors

On my snowshoeing ramble, other people were racing through the woods. They were snowshoe runners, dressed in light running gear. Lots of lycra and colour. They shouted greetings as they sailed by.

Something was drilling in the woods. I followed my ears, swivelled my head, and spotted a hairy woodpecker getting its lunch of grubs out of the bark of a tree. The little patch of red on the back of its head was a bold splash of natural colour in a landscape of white snow and beige trees.

I snowshoed about six kilometres on my minuscule trek that day. And then I was done. Tired, ready for hot chocolate and cake in a warm café.

The Black soliders and and their fellow 104th snowshoers would have taken about two hours to do that distance. They had 1,000 kilometres to snowshoe. One day I plan to recreate their historic feat as part of my project of mapping how race intersects with outdoors recreation, geography and adventure travel.

Jacqueline L. Scott is a PhD student at the University of Toronto.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

'Do white people dominate the outdoors?' U of T expert on race in outdoors advertising

noreen.rasbach — Fri, 26 Oct 2018 13:22:08 +0000

'Do white people dominate the outdoors?' U of T expert on race in outdoors advertising

noreen.rasbach Fri, 10/26/2018 - 09:22

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There is a long history of "visual apartheid" in the advertising of the outdoors industry – an absence of Indigenous, Black and racialized people (photo by Esther Wiegardt/Unsplash)

Topic

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

The Conversation

"Do white people dominate the outdoors?”

David Labistour, CEO of Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC), asked that question. As Canada’s iconic retailer of clothing and equipment for the outdoors, what MEC says matters.

In his post on the company blog, Labistour says: “Historically, the models we’ve used in our catalogues and campaigns and on our website have been predominantly white.” Labistour apologizes for this.

He goes on to say: “As CEO of MEC, I promise that moving forward, we will make sure we’re inspiring and representing the diverse community that already exists in the outdoors.”

There is a long history of visual apartheid in the advertising of the outdoors industry. What I mean by this is the absence of Indigenous, Black and other racialized people in the ads.

“We’ve let our members down”: Collage of MEC catalogues

Do a quick internet search for “outdoors recreation advertising,” and you will find mostly white people in the images. Whether it is canoeing, skiing, bicycling or camping, Black faces are not there.

Harriet Tubman was a wilderness expert

In reality, Black people have a long history of being in the outdoors in Canada. This history has been whitewashed, not just in outdoors advertising but also in conservation, outdoors education and environmental education.

Harriet Tubman is one of my inspirations for researching Black people in the Canadian outdoors. As a historical figure, she is associated with bringing fugitive slaves from the United States to safety in Canada via the Underground Railroad.

Viewed another way, Tubman was also an expert in outdoor survival skills. She made some 20 treks across the border, some in winter, using different routes to avoid the slave catchers. She was successful as her level of wilderness expertise was phenomenal.

Arctic exploration

The outdoors industry likes to suggest an adventurous lifestyle in its advertising. For winter activities they could seek inspiration from Matthew Henson, an Arctic explorer. A colleague of Robert Perry, Henson spent more than 20 years trying to reach the North Pole.

The quest to be the first person on that spot was a holy grail of white explorers for two centuries. Few expect a Black man to share that prize. Henson writes about his adventures in his book A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. Published in 1912, Henson makes it clear that the explorations depended on the expertise of the Inuit and their knowledge of the land.

Canoeing is an iconic summer activity in Canada. And Black people have always been there too. The voyageurs, paddling along the rivers and lakes of the country, in the fur trade with Indigenous people, is part of Canadian outdoors history.

Canoeing is a classic Canadian activity (photo by HB Mertz /Unsplash)

Missing from that picture are the Black voyageurs and fur traders. For instance, there was George Bonga, a Black and Indigenous fur trader in Montreal in the 1800s. On the other side of the country, there was Joseph Lewis, a Black fur trader and explorer in Edmonton in the early 1800s.

Cowboys

Cowboys riding across the prairies, under the great big blue sky, is another mythologized image in the outdoors history of Canada. And once again the myth excludes Black cowboys such as John Ware.

Black cowboys helped to create the ranching industry in the prairies in the 1880s. The Calgary Stampede is part of their legacy. Canada Post honoured John Ware on a stamp in 2012.

(Left) John Ware and his family in Red Deer river, Alberta, c. 1896. (Right) John Ware stamp, 2012 (Glenbow Archives/Canada Post)

Advertising dollars

It makes good business sense for MEC to include Indigenous, Black and racialized people in its advertising. They are becoming the largest segment of the population. The myth of Canada as a white nation is crumbling under the census numbers. If the outdoors industry is to thrive, it must reflect diversity in its advertising.

MEC video explains why they changed their advertising to better reflect their members

MEC has taken a step towards increasing racial diversity in the Canadian outdoors. Let us hope that other organizations such as parks, nature conservancies and environmental groups follow their lead.

However, it is too easy for the first step to be the only step. A commitment to diversity must be internal as well as external, and move beyond simply expanding a customer base, to employing Indigenous, Black and other racialized people and supporting their access to the great Canadian outdoors.

Jacqueline L. Scott is a PhD student at the Ontario Institute for Studies In Education at the University of Toronto.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Melania Trump's pith helmet is not just a hat. It's a relic of colonialism, says U of T expert

noreen.rasbach — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 23:06:00 +0000

Melania Trump's pith helmet is not just a hat. It's a relic of colonialism, says U of T expert

noreen.rasbach Mon, 10/15/2018 - 19:06

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First lady Melania Trump looks out over Nairobi National Park in Kenya on Oct. 5, during a safari guided by Nelly Palmeris (photo by Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press)

Topic

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

The Conversation

United States

Sometimes a hat is just a hat. But not when it’s a pith helmet worn by a white politician visiting Africa. Pith helmets are relics of colonialism and its big game hunting tradition. So why would Melania Trump wear one?

On a solo tour of Africa, the United States first lady stopped in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Egypt. She went on safari. The pictures of her in a pith helmet and looking rather inscrutable went around the world. Although the first lady said: “I want to talk about my trip, not what I wear,” it is impossible to not talk about the ways race and space collide in this image.

This, of course, is not the first time Trump has been challenged on her clothing choices. After she wore a jacket that said “I really don’t care, do u?” while en route to an immigrant child detention centre, many claimed her choice of clothing was carefully scripted.

Safari is a multimillion-dollar industry in Africa. It is most often talked about in terms of tourism, conservation, poaching and big game hunting. Let’s add race to that mix.

The legacy of safari hunting

Most safari tourists, like Melania Trump, are white. The people driving them around, carrying their bags and doing their cooking are mostly Black. Visually, not much has changed since the colonial days of explorers and big-game hunters in Africa.

In the old days, white people had the guns and wore the pith helmets. Trump’s choice of headgear continues that tradition.

Trump has another link to colonial big game hunting. Six years ago, her stepsons – Eric and Donald Trump Jr. – bagged an elephant, leopard and water buffalo on their African hunting safari.

Donald Trump Jr. on a hunting trip in Zimbabwe (photo viaYouTube/Hunting Legends)

At the time, the Trump men argued that it was a legal trophy hunt and that trophy hunting like theirs provides funds to help communities with conservation. For example, this summer a white woman from Kentucky, Tess Thompson Talley, killed a giraffe in South Africa. Was the dead animal sprawled at her feet a testament to her prowess as a hunter who’s comfortable in the bush and knows her way around a gun? Talley said her hunt was legal and that the money she spends “hunting in Africa goes towards local wildlife preservation.”

The trouble is the line between legal and illegal becomes blurred when dollars, pounds and euros are at stake. Let’s not forget Cecil the Lion, where the legal lines are more clear. In 2015, Cecil was lured and killed outside of a protected conservation park by Minnesota dentist and avid trophy hunter Walter Palmer.

These are some infamous examples of American trophy hunters. Their main competitors in the African safari kills are the British and Germans. A German hunter legally killed one of the largest elephants in Zimbabwe in October 2015.

Big-game hunters like to pose with their kill on social media. These kill shots are popular. It’s a way of bragging that the hunter was rich enough to go to Africa to hunt. In this context, it becomes just another version of conspicuous consumption.

Black people are rarely featured in these kill shots, and when they are, they don’t have the guns. Those are in the hands of white people. To me it’s the same old story that has nothing to do with conservation; it is race, power and privilege on display.

Theodore Roosevelt and unidentified man standing over a killed hippopotamus. In the background are African workers who will skin the animal. July-December, 1909, during the Smithsonian/Roosevelt African Expedition of 1909-1910 (photo via Shutterstock)

Poaching for ‘medicine’

Trophy hunting is just one factor driving the extinction of rhinos and elephants in Africa. Poaching is the bigger issue. Race and the history of colonialism are factors here too.

The road to extinction is driven by demands for horns and tusks in Asian countries like China, South Korea and Vietnam. African animal parts are used in traditional medicines to cure a whole range of supposed ailments. The cures do not stand up to modern medicine. The rotting carcasses littering the African landscape seems to be a small price for a dubious elixir.

African governments are complicit in not enforcing anti-poaching laws. While this is true, it also ignores the legacy of colonial economics in Africa.

African poachers killing the equivalent of their golden goose are at the bottom of the food chain; they receive a few dollars for a horn that will resell for thousands in Asia. The continent continues to be a key source of raw materials for the rest of the world. The trade in rhino horns and elephant tusks fits the colonial pattern of exploitation.

The ivory and horn trade is ancient and has been going on for millennia. The trade was sustainable when they were a rare luxury item. The scale of the trade has exploded along with rising incomes; the Asian middle class can now afford it. Africa does not have a limitless supply of animals to slaughter.

My African safari

Long ago, I too went on safari, in Tanzania and Zambia. I saw the much fabled big five – lion, elephant, rhino, leopard and buffalo. I shot them with my camera. As a Black woman, I was the rarity among the foreign safari tourists. The Africans called me the Black mzungu. In other words the Black white woman.

Former U.S. first lady Michelle Obama and her family ride their safari vehicle in Madikwe Game Reserve in South Africa in June 2011 (photo by Charles Dharapak/Associated Press)

Camping in Ngorongoro Crater, I had to remind myself that the setting was real and that the animals could kill. This was necessary because false romantic images from movies like Born Free and Out of Africa were stuck in my head.

A Kenyan safari guide, in fact, told Town and Country that Melania’s pith helmet made them smile, adding “we haven’t seen that look in East Africa since Meryl Streep was filming Out of Africa 30 years ago!”

The films and television shows are colonial fantasies. In both, the Africans were mere background characters, there to support the latter-day colonial explorers dressed up as conservationists.

Melania Trump’s pith helmet was never just a hat to keep off the sun. It is a symbol of how race and colonialism ghosts shape the African landscape when it comes to safari, poaching and trophy hunting.

Jacqueline L. Scott is a PhD student at the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

That racist caricature of Serena Williams makes me so angry

noreen.rasbach — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 15:45:33 +0000

That racist caricature of Serena Williams makes me so angry

noreen.rasbach Thu, 09/20/2018 - 11:45

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Serena Williams looks at her spectator box during the women’s final of the U.S. Open tennis tournament against Naomi Osaka of Japan on Sept. 8 in New York. (Julio Cortez/AP)

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Serena Williams did something that even President Barack Obama could not do. She got angry and showed it.

At the recent U.S. Open Tennis Championship, Williams disagreed with some of the calls made by the umpire. They argued. Williams became so annoyed that she smashed her racket into the ground.

Another tennis superstar was also famous for smashing his rackets. In the 1980s I watched John McEnroe curse and crash his way through many matches. His confrontational behaviour was legendary. It was expected and accepted as part of his playing style. Williams’ display of anger has tournament umpires threatening to refuse to work with her.

Beyond the obvious differences in the decades between McEnroe and Williams, as well as some changes in tennis rules, I think their demonstration of anger mirrors the power and privilege in society. It matters who gets to show their anger. And who gets to feel the hard edge of it.

What is most interesting is not Williams’ anger but a cartoon that purported to depict it, drawn and circulated by Mark Knight for The Herald Sun newspaper in Australia. The cartoon ignited a wildfire of protest from the moment it was printed.

Serena Williams, right, talks with referee Brian Earley during the women’s final of the U.S. Open tennis tournament against Naomi Osaka of Japan (Adam Hunger/AP)

Decades of racist stereotypes

In the caricature, Williams is shown as an angry woman, jumping up and down protesting the umpire’s decision. The visual language of the Williams character is instantly and culturally recognizable to many. It is just another variation of the mammy stereotype. Only this time she is angry rather than grinning.

The mammy stereotype originated in slavery. She was always a rotund woman, dressed in an apron and headscarf and with a grin as wide as her hips. Its function was to show Black women as docile, dim-witted creatures who lovingly took care of the white household. They were not a threat.

The days of the whip are long gone but the mammy stereotype lives on. In the film world, there is Hattie McDaniel playing Mammy in Gone With The Wind. There is Lillian Randolph, the voice of Mammy Two Shoes, and the object of fun in the classic series Tom & Jerry. And there are the maids played by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer in The Help.

A mammy might be living right now in your kitchen. Pick up a box of pancake mix and Aunt Jemima smiles back at you. Her updated portrait cannot hide her origins in the kitchens of slavery. Or how about a mammy or Aunt Jemima cookie jar for the counter? These are readily available on mainstream shopping websites. Vintage ones costs more because they are collectors’ items.

Strength, anger and stalled careers

In the cartoon, the Williams caricature is almost 10 times the size of the other woman. While this centres her as the dominant figure in the drawing, the scale of the size difference has racial overtones too.

U.S. Open finalist Serena Williams after her final match loss against Naomi Osaka (photo by Shutterstock)

The Black figure is taller, larger and stronger in the drawing as well as in the white imagination. For example, in hospitals Black women get less medication to manage pain as nurses and doctors assume they are stronger and don’t feel it as intensely.

Black women living with mental health issues face a similar racial stereotype about their strength. When therapists and psychiatrists believe that we are so strong, they are less likely to take our suffering seriously and more likely to misdiagnose and mistreat it.

Black women who are assertive risk being labelled the “angry Black woman.” This is a powerful tool for quashing discussions of different perspectives and seeks to silence Black women. It has stalled or killed many Black women’s careers.

The stereotype of being bigger and stronger also affects Black men. In one study they were perceived to be physically stronger than white men and seen as more of a threat based on their size. Police reports of their encounter with Black men stress the size of the men, becoming a justification for the use of excessive force.

Just ask Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Alton Sterling. Well, you can’t ask them because they all are dead. Unarmed. Killed by the police.

Whitewashing Naomi Osaka

Naomi Osaka beat Serena Williams in the U.S. Open final. Osaka is bi-racial with a Haitian father and a Japanese mother. In the cartoon she was whitewashed. She was drawn as a small, slim white woman with a blonde ponytail. The Osaka figure could not contrast more with the Williams caricature. She is in control as she politely and assertively addresses the umpire.

Serena Williams hugs Naomi Osaka, of Japan, after Osaka defeated Williams in the women’s final of the U.S. Open tennis tournament (Andres Kudacki/AP)

The Williams figure is clearly out of control as she jumps and snarls. The baby-pacifier falling out of her caricature lips add another layer of racist meaning. Angry, large and infantile, this Black woman cannot be taken seriously.

The whitewashing of Osaka serves only to highlight the importance of race colouring every aspect of the cartoon. Due to the backlash, the newspaper defended the cartoon, claiming it was a satire that has nothing to do with gender or race. Tons of people did not agree with their explanation. The cartoon made me angry.

Jacqueline L. Scott is a PhD student at the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

U of T expert on the troubled history Black people have had with swimming

noreen.rasbach — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 17:53:34 +0000

U of T expert on the troubled history Black people have had with swimming

noreen.rasbach Mon, 08/20/2018 - 13:53

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The United States’ Simone Manuel, who won the Olympic gold medal for the U.S. in the 100-metre freestyle at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, said she hopes for a day when there are more Black swimmers (photo by Natacha Pisarenko/AP)

Jacqueline L. Scott

Topic

City & Culture

Graduate Students

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

The Conversation

Why did the Black boy drown? Because he couldn’t swim.

And he couldn’t swim because learning to swim is one of those intersections where race, space and class collide. Black people in the United States drown at five times the rate of white people. And most of those deaths occur in public swimming pools.

Jeremiah Perry drowned on a school trip last summer. The group of 33 teenagers and their teachers were enjoying a classic Canadian experience – canoeing in the wilderness. The group stood out in Algonquin Park because most of the kids were Black. And finding Black people in the woods is rare.

The swimming ability of the group quickly became a key issue in the preliminary investigation into Perry’s death. It turned out that half of the kids could not swim.

Jeremiah Perry in an undated photo

Swimming lessons

Swimming lessons are a rite of passage for most Canadian children. But race complicates the splashes, shrieks and laughter in swimming pools.

In Canada, immigrants are less likely to learn to swim or to swim as recreation. Most Canadian newcomers hail from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. Jeremiah Perry was a recent immigrant from Guyana.

In my old multicultural Toronto neighbourhood of Parkdale, some 90 per cent of the kids learning to swim were white. In my new neighbourhood of Regent Park, which started with Toronto’s oldest social housing project, more than half the population are people of colour and recent immigrants. They don’t appear to like swimming because the free municipal pool still overflows with white people. Yet the park around the pool is filled with brown and Black people enjoying the outdoors and frolicking in the sprinkler fountains. For them, taking the step from outside to inside the swimming pool seems to be as hard as trying to swim across the Atlantic Ocean.

‘There are no trees in the water’

Warm seas and golden sandy beaches are standard icons in tourism images of the Caribbean. So too are hotels with deep blue swimming pools. Surrounded by so much water, one would expect Caribbean people to be expert swimmers. They are not.

Most swimming pools in Jamaica are owned by hotels catering to tourists (photo by Shutterstock)

The majority of Caribbean swimming pools are owned by hotels and cater to tourists. Race colours the pools. Most of the people in the pools are white visitors, while those cleaning or serving cocktails at the pool-side bar are Black locals.

“Smile Orange” (1976) takes a critical look at tourism in Jamaica (courtesy of Smile Orange/Knuts Production)

Seen through this lens, as shown in the classic movie Smile Orange, hotel swimming pools are the continuation of the old colonial project – white people at play, cooling off in the water, in a country club-style setting. Black people at work, sweating in the hot sun. Not allowed in the pools.

Most people in the Caribbean don’t have access to swimming pools. If they want to learn to swim, they must do so in a natural body of water such as the sea or a river.

As a child in Jamaica, my grandmother forbade us to go to the sea. “There are no trees in the water,” she warned us. Every year some child drowned, going out of their depth, silently sinking to a salty, watery grave.

Drowning in racism

I learned to swim in England, where weekly swimming classes were a standard part of the school curriculum. A report from the Amateur Swimming Association showed that there is a pent-up demand for swimming from Black people in England. Most don’t go to the pool because they don’t see other Black people swimming. The same report indicated South Asians are the least likely to venture into the water.

Swimming and African Americans are not a classic pairing either. Imagine a pool party. The Black people mingle around the pool, while the white people are in the pool.

African Americans’ antipathy towards swimming is rooted in segregation and racism. It was not so long ago that public beaches and pools in the United States displayed “Whites Only” signs. Blacks who entered these beaches were chased off or got a good beating. Pools were drained if a Black person got in. One Black person contaminated the whole thing.

Segregation continues today, but it is more subtle. Most white children learn to swim in pools that are in private recreational clubs in the suburbs. Black children often contend with poorly maintained and over-crowded public pools in the urban centres – if pools exist at all.

If parents can’t swim, it is less likely that their children will learn to swim. Parents' fear of drowning means they are unlikely to sign up their kids for swimming lessons, even when these are available.

Drowning while Black

I like to do laps in the swimming pool for an hour or so. Front-crawl up the length of the pool and breast-stroke on the return. Dreadlocks streaming down my back. Keeping time with the clock. Every so often I will get the look. Whether from a Black or white person, it expresses surprise that I am at ease in the water. Sometimes, it starts a conversation.

How many times have I heard that Black people can’t swim because our bones are too dense? Or we can’t float as our big bottoms drag us down under the water?

Led by the activist Edward T. Coll, a group of parents and children from inner-city Hartford lead a protest march in the 1970s in front of seaside mansions in Old Saybrook, Conn. (Copyright and courtesy Bob Adelman)

These comments attempt to use genetics to explain the low rate of swimming among Blacks. Scientific racism is nothing new when it comes to the Black community. Its original purpose was to justify slavery.

The echoes of past stereotypes continue to shape Black lives. In the case of swimming, scientific racism now claims that Black people are less likely to swim as our muscles don’t twitch at the right speed.

These explanations avoid looking at how swimming and systemic racism intersect. They do so on so many levels in my local pool. The pool’s general advertising reaches middle-class white people from outside the neighbourhood, they drive to it attracted by its award-winning architecture. The pool has done little outreach targeting the Black community, including advertising swimming lessons for its children.

Swimming to the future

Swimming is part of the cultural capital of a middle-class lifestyle. The poorer you are, the less likely you are to learn to swim or visit a pool. The spectre of colonialism lurks. The high drowning rates among Black people is merely another symptom of the after-life of slavery.

Enith Brigitha was the first Black swimmer to win a gold medal in 1976

Olympic swimmers are the apex of achievement in sport. For a long time, Black people were absent from the elite swimming teams. The first Black person to win an Olympic medal in swimming was Enith Brigitha in the 1976 Montreal Olympics. She was from Curacao in the Caribbean and swam on the Dutch team. In 1988, Anthony Nesty from Suriname became the first Black man to win an Olympic gold in swimming.

Each decade the number of Black swimmers at the Olympics Games increases. The latest was Simone Manuel, who became the first Black woman to win a gold for the U.S. in swimming at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Black swimmers at the Olympics give hope that swimming is shifting from a white sport to a more diverse one. As attitudes shift, more Black children should learn to swim and the drowning rate should fall.

Jacqueline L. Scott is a PhD student at the Ontario Institute for Studies In Education at the University of Toronto.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.