If it's just a matter of access to swimming pools, than I would think that income would have a larger influence than race. In general, we're past the point of overt discrimination against blacks for access to pools (in the 1950s, NYC master builder Robert Moses specifically installed unheated pools in black neighborhoods, thinking that they wouldn't swim in cold water). Of course, as you pointed out, there are still legacy issues of poorer minorities living in dis-invested areas.

Social reproduction might also play a factor. Parents who never learned how to swim might not sign their kids up for swimming lessons, just because it doesn't seem important to them. Much like how parents who never skied might be less likely to get their kids up in the slopes.

While I basically agree with the class analysis, we do have to keep in mind that the classes and privileges have changed over the years. I learned to swim at a large lake about 10 miles away from my house. There was a summer school program that bussed us to the lake (every day for 2 weeks, as I recall). The lake had a county facility with bath house, docks dividing various depths, various diving boards, etc. My sister and I went for several years. We were in grade school -- 4th, 5th, 6th grade probably. The 2-week sessions may have been held multiple times during the summer. I remember 10-20 busses of students (not all full, of course) during our sessions. From the swimming places, we get see the boats racing and people skiing under the watchful eyes of the houses around the lake that we knew we could never afford.

So, we were lower- to middle-class who paid a little on top of what was government (county/school) subsidized. There were no school pools then and only a few municipal pools in the major city near us. There were no blacks in our schools, but there were at the swimming lessons because they came from other schools in the city.

Things were much different in the late 1950s -- not all of it bad.

I was one of those kids that grew up at the pool in the summer and my brother swam year round for a while and while anecdote isn't data I find the gender disparity to be very weird. I've never experienced swimming as being male dominated at all. I wonder if males (of both races) are just more likely to report being able to swim even if they are just marginal swimmers, while females with the same level of ability would count themselves as non swimmers. Maybe I'm wrong though.

I will say that some of the most overt racism I ever witnessed as a child was at the pool. I wasn't particularly conscious of race matters back then, but I was shocked and upset that adults I knew would say bluntly that they didn't like when black people came to "our" pool. It was like they believed that black people would contaminate the water or something. I bet those kinds of country club attitudes play a part in discouraging black people to learn to swim as well.

I would believe those numbers. I lifeguarded for 3 years at a busy city waterpark/pool and it was a sad reality that you had to watch non-whites more carefully. While income is definitely a factor, I don't remember ever having to save a white teenager while I personally had to save at least one black teenager (a 16 or so year-old girl). In our cases, those most likely to drown arrived in groups with leaders, not parents, and for many probably didn't get many chances to swim. But sadly, they were also foolhardy. This girl that I saved jumped off the diving board and when after I rescued her, her friends asked her why she had jumped when she didn't know how to swim! Perhaps it was showing off or she was embarrassed that she couldn't and thought she would get away with it, but either way, deep water is not something I would mess with if I didn't know how to swim. Yes, this was just one case, but she wasn't the only one, just the one I most clearly remember.

I would agree with Ben (#1) that it probably has partly to do with whether or not their parents swim as there were many poorer white children whose parents carefully taught them to swim while that was a rarer sight among other minorities. The pool also was frequented by hispanics (though not in the same numbers as either blacks and whites) and I would hazard that on average they were more likely that whites to need rescuing but less likely than blacks.

Incidentally, I looked at the pdf from the International Swimming Hall of Fame and want to point out that this pool was in Minnesota, listed number one as having the most black deaths from drowning, most likely due to the huge number of lakes.

If you look at natural bodies of water and the racial disparities between urban and rural areas, this can come into play as well as far as not having access to open water.

I can't vouch for other areas but in mine, access to water front is definitely a class issue as more and more waterfront property is either bought up by firms building luxury condos or by cottagers building summer homes.

I'll chip in on the hair thing, as a half-WOC. Yes, it matters a lot. In chlorine pools, even natural Black hair is rendered very, very dry (stripped of oils) and damaged. At least that's my experience. It seems to take a few washings (therefore maybe a week) to get it back to normal, straight or curly. I don't think I'd hesitate about a dirtier natural body of water compared to a chemical-filled pool.

Growing up with a white mother, I learned how to swim both through her and lessons. However, having a white mom also meant I didn't go through the rigors that black girls usually do about having hair put into twists or other popular hairstyles for children. I just had a short, curly head of hair she didn't know what to do with. So, swimming wasn't really an issue then other than the fact it damaged my hair. It dried it out, for certain, but there was no visible change in style.

However, since high school, things have been different. The styles I have chosen at one time had me relaxing my hair, though now I just wear a bandanna to get it to a wavy point instead of loose curls (think orphan annie). Either way, this means that I haven't gone swimming, like with my head submerged, since maybe 5 or 6 years ago in high school. I'm a very good swimmer (or at least I'd like to think so), but even I haven't had in practice in the past 5/6 years because swimming means A) a lot of hassle for my hair, and B) having to worry about looking silly with a ruined head of hair for the rest of that day (usually around company).

In addition, I've turned down saunas I've been invited to, water rides at amusement parks, and other humid/wet activities.

Only recently Colorlines seemed to poohpooh the idea that hair was a factor in black women's lack of swimming ability.

http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/07/black_women_dont_swim.html

Not all black people are poor or dependent upon public swimming facilities to learn to swim. Many, though not all, black women and girls do not like to swim or are not allowed to because of the trouble it takes to redo the hair afterwards. And many women just feel unattractive when they are out swimming and have on swimming caps and other women "look cute",with their hair pulled back or worn loose.

While the hair thing may not be the only issue and may not be a deterrent from ever swimming, there is no doubt in my mind that in many quarters the inconvenience of doing hair greatly reduces the frequency that black women swim. When it takes 2-3 hours to dry, flat iron or press hair after each washing things that require the frequent washing of hair are going to be avoided. If you are a parent with 2 or 3 daughters, thats an entire day of hair combing, only to do it again the next day?

Heck, a lot of kids mom's wont even let them run through the sprinklers or take showers (as opposed to baths) for fear of the hair "reverting".

I think learning to swim should be mandatory in public education. It's a survival skill.

I'm glad to see that so many people are bringing up the hair question - in my experience, many women from all groups dislike getting their hair wet, especially women of African origin, and especially in chlorinated pools (and with our germophobia and general distrust of un-controlled nature, as well as the lack of access to bodies of water to swim in other than swimming pools, that's where most people are swimming these days in the US). Hair-related concerns were the first thing I thought of when I saw people considering race-based differences in swimming ability.

Also, though, I do have to wonder whether our lack of exposure to water, and thus water-related dangers, has contributed to more people no longer considering swimming a necessary life skill? I mean, a lot of people don't spend their summers by a swimming hole, lake, or other body of water, certainly not one without treated water or lifeguards; most people also don't seem to be exposed to water on a regular basis, and so they don't seem to consider flooding, falling in water, drowning, etc. to be any kind of a serious threat.............. Familiarity might breed contempt, but lack of familiarity apparently breeds complacency.

Then again, there is a gap between white men and white women too, so perhaps there is a more complicated gender story here.

I wonder how much of it might stem from women worrying they're not "attractive" enough to go swimming? With all the "beach body" "get ready for swimsuit season" hype every year, all the pressure to be "worthy" of wearing a bathing suit, simply going to the pool at all could be extremely anxiety-inducing, let alone being very physical (jumping in, splashing around, etc.) to gain proficiency in the water. So maybe some women avoid that and thus don't have (or feel that they don't have) swimming skills they can be confident in.

I went to a university that requires undergraduates to pass a swim test. (It's possible to get an exemption for disability.) Somebody who cared a lot about students not drowning gave the university a lot of money and made them write it into the graduation requirements. I noticed that the introductory swimming classes seemed to have a great many African-American young women. I wasn't in the men's locker room, and don't know if the same kind of grouping was happening there. I overheard a lot of complaints, across several semesters, and got a strong impression that African-American women resented the swimming requirement because it was so very inconvenient to deal with getting their hair wet.

Just another anecdode, for what it's worth

Of the blacks I know who do not know how to swim, their entire families do not know how to swim and they live in areas where free or nearly free lessons are available. So while I think the hair notation is worthy, I think it's also a possibility that families socialize their children to not swimming, or not learning to swim.

This comes as no surprise to me. We live in a small southern town were the train tracks still divide the white and black part of town. The city has allowed the pools in the black side of town decay, shut them down repeatedly with promises of repairs, only to shut them down all together. Mercifully there has been a near universal outcry, but I hardly doubt that this is limited to my small corner of North Carolina.

There's a lot more to the 'black hair' thing than simply 'not wanting to get their hair wet.' Black hair tends to react differently to chlorine than white hair. For most white people, basic care will keep the hair in its natural state if they swim only occasionally. Black hair, however, requires significantly more care to keep it from breaking off and causing significant damage, especially if it's chemically treated. While this isn't THAT big of a deal (comparitively) for a younger child, where how pretty their hair is is mostly vanity, for adult women, it's a huge deal. Black women are already constantly criticized in the workplace, and in society in general, no matter what they do to their hair. Many businesses will tell black women who don't perm or flatiron their hair that natural curls, no matter how neatly kept, are 'messy,' 'too distracting,' and 'unprofessional.' A few businesses (American Apparel, I'm looking at you) represent the other side of the coin, and ask their black female employees NOT to perm their hair, because straight hair on black women looks 'trashy,' no matter the quality of the perm or how well she keeps it up. Braids and dreads, which would allow swimming AND healthy hair, are seen as too ethnic or 'hood rat,' again, no matter how well the styles are ACTUALLY done. Not to mention society's (specifically black men and busybody white feminists) obsession with telling black women what to do with their hair, and what they should and shouldn't put in it, and which styles look trashy or classy, and which products may or may not be crushing them under the heel of the white oppressor/patriarchy. For black women over grade school age, it ceases to be 'if I put my head in the water I won't look cute anymore,' but turns into 'will I be able to keep my job or function in society if I put my head underwater.' Not to mention....even in this day and age, several swimming pools FLAT OUT DENY ENTRANCE to blacks of all ages and genders regardless of hairstyle. Why? Because 'black people put things in their hair that clog the drains' and similar excuses. The 'black hair excuse' is used just as much by racist pool owners as it is by black women.

And anecdote about pool availability: I live in a cluster of suburbs that is working-middle class. No one around here is poor. I live in a town that is about 80% black. There IS a pool nearby, but it's poorly maintained. Having lived here 20 years, it's probably only been open about half that time. For a long stretch when I was in elementary and middle school, it had an easily correctable defect that was never fixes, so the pool lay unused for a couple of years. They fixed it, but for a couple MORE years, it was open only to children who went to camp at the park and their counselors, because they had no access to lifeguards (the counselors were, I believed, trained to handle the situation if something happened). Since then it will be only open on days they can get a lifeguard in. Meanwhile, the neighboring towns that are mostly white or have a more even distribution of races (and remember, very similar levels of income) not only have well maintained and staffed pools, but pools that resemble water parks, with slides and fountains and snack bars stocked with candy and pizza. The neighboring town that is nearly all black, for the record, does not have a public pool at all to my knowledge. So, with the nearby pool defective or closed half the time, the lake currently being unusable due to lethal levels of e. coli, and the water-park type pools in neighboring towns costing upwards of ten dollars for entry and being at least a short car ride away, how are these kids going to learn to swim? I did, but that was because my mother drove me clear into another town to use the YMCA (which also costs plenty of money). If middle and working class kids with a pool three blocks away from their homes don't even have access to swimming education, how should we expect kids who don't have a pool in their neighborhood or money for swim lessons to learn? Especially when half the pools won't let the kids in because for some reason, black hair conditioner is more toxic and corrosive than white hair conditioner?

Class may well be an issue now, but I believe this hasn't always been the case. Racism has, and continues to play a great role, in access to adequate swimming facilities, instructors, etc.--in addition to socioeconomic status, the monetary and parental considerations due to getting your hair wet, and the perception that swimming was something for white people.

I grew up in Southern Illinois and watched the powers-that-be in Cairo,Illinois close a public (for whites only) swimming pool and let kudzu take it over rather than allow blacks to swim in it. I now live in a university town--Carbondale--which has never built a public swimming pool, I suspect, for many of the same reasons that Cairo closed theirs. Of course, the university folks, many of whom proudly wear the tag of progressive liberal, would never consider that their own subconscious racism plays a role in this.

Perhaps there's another little spoken of, more primal reason for us not to actively seek out swimming lessons. Slavery. How we came to it--across water--and how many of us were driven to escape across water. It's a wild, really out there, thought, but I have to wonder. By the way, I know how to swim--barely. My children, both grown, can swim relatively well. I learned to swim in rain-swollen ditches. Took them to the city pool to learn.

Sigh.
I dunno. Maybe I'm just touchy or something, because I'm a black woman who grew up with relaxed hair, in the "inner city" and I love to swim. But frankly, I'm a bit surprised, disappointed (and TBH, annoyed) that Black Women And Their Hair was ever even introduced here. Et tu, SocImgs?

I wonder, too, if the disparity between black women and men is due, in part, to the stigma of “black hair.” Because we have racist standards of beauty, some women invest significant amounts of time and money on their hair in an effort to make it straight or wavy and long. Getting their hair wet often means undoing this effort. Then again, there is a gap between white men and white women too, so perhaps there is a more complicated gender story here.

As I commented over at ColorLines (which also randomly introduced the Hair Hypothesis), white women spend a lot of time and money on their hair too, and many avoid swimming (or, getting their hair wet) to avoid: damage, dye loss, color change and yes, even texture change (eg: undoing a blowout, perm, style, etc). But that seems beside the point— obviously most people learn to swim at a very early age.

No, what bums me out, is that the hair explanation is just so... out of left field. Shoehorned, even. It's a non-sequitur. Especially since
1) "African-Americans say that a lack of access to pools, the expense of swimming lessons and the idea that recreational swimming is a culturally white activity are factors that inhibit them from learning how to swim, according to the study ... The most common reason cited... however, was a fear of drowning" seems pretty straightforward to me [why not believe them?], and
2) looks like the graph above shows a larger gap between white women and white men than between black women and men. [And btw, that's the largest gap out of the four possible comparisons.] Since "why are black USians less able to swim than white USians" is pretty much asked/answered/obvious, my question is, "why do the women of either race swim so much less than the men, especially the white women"? [wait, is it their hair?! /sarcasm] But instead, half the thread takes the bait and goes off on an "oh, that's plausible; black women would totes rather die than mess up their hair" tangent. Yeah, 'cause that's a stereotype that doesn't get nearly enough play.

At this point, I'm kind of like, enough already. Get over it, everyone-in-America.
Can't we focus on something else (like, I dunno... whiteness?) for 5 minutes and give BW (and our freEeaaakky hair) a break?
Please?

Oops. That last one was me.

Wow, I'm taken aback that swimming lessons aren't compulsory at USA primary schools. In New Zealand, where I grew up, I believe they are: at least all four of the primary schools I attended (we moved a lot) required them. We only had a school pool at one of those, but at all the others, summer meant twice a week the whole class went to the town pools (outdoors, cold, ugh) for lessons. At one of the schools, we were walking distance to the beach, so lessons happened there.

Although having said that, I never really learned to swim. (I used to keep one foot on the bottom during school swimming lessons, and with so many children to watch, I don't think my teachers noticed.) I can float, though, if I have to, and dog paddle a bit.

I wonder, though, whether feeling confident about swimming, but not having much experience in rivers or the ocean, could also be a problem with drowning. The drownings I know of all happened to people who could swim, but who didn't know how to read the surf, or the tides, and got washed off rocks, or dragged out by strong currents. At least I'm too chicken to ever go into water I can't stand up in.

I'm white, but I have a black cousin and aunt (courtesy of my uncle having a baby with a black woman). My aunt is TERRIFIED of water. She rarely swims, and when we go to the lake will only *wade*, if we can get her in the water at all, and particularly doesn't like to get her face wet. Her daughter used to be the same way, but for some reason has overcome that fear. From spending time with my aunt's family, and with my high school best friend's family (who are also black) I have noticed that *most* of them were afraid of water, to some degree. I've always thought was weird that so many of them felt that way. Like someone posted previously, I've also wondered about the connection between the slave ships and the modern-day fear.

Also, I want to point this out: I only know how to swim KINDA. I've never had formal lessons because as kids we were all just taken out to the lake, where we played. My parents never taught me, because they don't *formally* know either. I can float, I can swim underwater short distances, and I do this breast-stroke-like thing that's not very efficient, but can get me where I want to go quicker than my usual mode of water transportion: the dog paddle. And virtually ALL of my peers in my little rural Arkansas town learned to "swim" the exact same way.

The death of these teenagers is heartbreaking, but I really do not think economical class had anything to do with it.

In the UK, all children are taught swimming in elementary school (to a basic level). In my area at least, there is a very noticeable difference between white and Asian children of similar socioeconomic status in ability to swim when they start lessons and are initially assessed. I have been told by instructors that relatively few Asian children take lessons outside school apparently because swimming is not valued greatly as a skill or ability relative to other activities that take time and money, such as language classes.

I should add that in the case of Asian families in the UK, an additional factor for some may be the consideration of modesty (e.g. for Muslim families). All of the children I have encountered have been permitted to swim, but perhaps it is considered less important for them to learn to swim because, when older, they may not be able to use public pools because of modesty requirements.

A few pools have made concessions, especially those in areas where many Muslim people live, such as women-only periods with all-female staff, but this is still rare and many do not consider that the provisions meet their needs.

For those fascinated by black women's hair, watch Chris Rock's documentary (non-comedic), "Good Hair".

I've had white women who wanted to touch my hair and one British colleague, who when I said that I was cutting off my dredlocks, asked me for one! You can only imagine my reply.

However, I don't think the hair discussion is a wedged-in dialogue. Perhaps generational differences need to be taken into account: pre-1980s. I'm over 50, which means pre-variety of ways to treat the varietal types of black hair.

I've been enjoying reading this site for a while now... many of the entries are really enlightening.

But I have one slight problem here and thats the preference of the term 'Blacks' (or 'whites' for that matter), over 'Black people'. Its unintentional I'm sure on such a site as this... but I find that jettisoning the word people has the effect of literally dehumanising the race you're talking about. I think it sounds quite derogative, perhaps in a similar way to using the term 'coloured', but not as blatantly racist.

I grew up in Shreveport, the city where this happened; I went to high school and college there. I'm honestly not shocked at the disparity in swimming abilities, and I think you've hit on one of the major issues when you discuss access to swimming pools and lessons as a class-based issue. (I'm very dubious of hair playing a significant role in this disparity).

I went to public school in Shreveport, and I can tell you no public school in the city has a swimming pool, and definitely not a swimming requirement. If you learned to swim, you took classes or private lessons through an organization like the YMCA or at a private pool. Of course, many parents cannot afford these lessons. 20 years ago or so, Louisiana built public pools in many cities (including NOLA, where I live now) run by public recreational departments. But years later, after budget cuts have wrecked what was left of public recreational programs, most of these pools have been abandoned and have fallen into disrepair. There are a few exceptions, like the Querbes pool in Shreveport, which is actually in a middle-class neighborhood. The pool there charges $5 a day or so per person, so it's still unaffordable for some. I definitely think the placement of this pool in a middle class, mostly white neighborhood is part of why it is still open and publicly funded; most of the others, especially those in low-income neighborhoods, are closed.

Growing up in Mississippi and Louisiana, I remember being aware of this disparity really young. We always lived near rivers (and the Red has a very powerful undertow, so it's not really a safe place for any child to swim) and lakes. I wish I could say Shreveport took this issue seriously and actually plans to help teach kids to swim, but, if I remember correctly, the primary response in the Shreveport newspaper's comments online was "someone should have taught these kids to swim." Well, no kidding, but if they don't have access to that privilege, then these kinds of tragedies will continue.

This article New York Times article, "National Parks Reach Out to Blacks Who Aren’t Visiting," notes that there is low minority attendance at national parks. I wonder if, particularly in the South, with its history of lynchings and racial violence, the avoidance of rural parks is due not only to a fear of racist "hillbillies" but also of the danger of being caught relatively alone in an isolated part of the woods with people who might wish to do one harm. Of course, such violence is less frequent than it was a generation ago, but the legacy of the violence that targeted the Civil Rights movement is within living memory. Of course, national and rural parks aren't the only places to swim, but in addition to class and access, I think there may be a correlation to how activities get coded as being safe or welcoming to different groups.

I'm very annoyed that, every time this discussion comes up at the thought of a white women, it has to be thrown out that "lol black women and their hair."  That's not why the discrepancy exists, and it's pretty insulting.

I defintely think hair, access, and wealth are all major factors that work together.

Most white people learn to swim at a very young age, often before they start primary school-- when they're old enough for their parents to take them along to the beach or the pool. Keep in mind this is not "top level at the Y" swimming, but "won't drown" swimming. I won't drown but I haven't taken a swim class since I was 12 or younger, and haven't gone in a chlorinated pool in 5 years or in any other body of water in 3 years.

I think black families lack easy access to free or cheap bodies of water, whether oceans, lakes, or pools; they may lack the money for things that would neccessitate swim lessons (summer camp, boat trips, etc), and also, the parents don't swim themselves because of their hair.

A child under the age of 7 rarely has significant relaxers, perms, whatever-- parents tend to avoid spending that much money and do rows or braids, something easy that fits under a cap-- but their parents DO, and thus won't want to spend time at the beach or the pool, and thus won't bother to teach their very young kids to swim. Whereas a white parent will often think of the beach first in the summer, a black parent won't, because it's simply too much of a hassle. And thus swimming doesn't come up.

Offering classes in schools, having easy access to free pools or other bodies of water, and encouraging kids to swim for fun would probably solve this problem, though. I don't think black parents don't want their children to learn to swim. I think it's a lot like how my parents never bothered to teach me to drive a stick shift.

As for men vs. women-- that, I think, comes down to confidence. Likely many white women respondents could save themselves from drowning, but are not strong confident swimmers because they rarely, if ever, swim due to the hassle, the access issues, etc. Whereas men are more likely to swim as a hobby/sport (they don't have to wait for their hair to dry) and more importantly, are more likely to interpret "I can keep my head above water and not die" as knowing how to swim.

Whereas a white parent will often think of the beach first in the summer, a black parent won't, because it's simply too much of a hassle

 
I'm not sure what you mean by "it's simply too much of a hassle".
 
With regard to your comment about swimming in the ocean, I'm from Atlantic City, New Jersey. When that city's only public high school was integrated, the school district closed the school's pool so that it wouldn't be integrated. This happened decades before I attended that school. By the time I attended the school in the 1960s, the girls' swim club and boy's swim club used a pool at one of the local hotels. I recall that there were a few African American females and a few African American males on those teams, but most of the African American females that I knew (including myself) didn't know how to swim. There's a new public high school in the city now. I'm guessing that it includes a pool, but I'm not sure about the swim clubs, or if students can take swimming classes.

Fwiw, I don't think the ocean is a good place to learn how to swim. Mostly, we waded in the water or jumped smaller waves. I don't ever recall seeing anyone, regardless of race/ethnicity swiming in the ocean. And no one swims, or at least no one is supposed to swim in the bays.
 
Also for what it's worth, my adopted hometown closed certain public swimming pools to avert those pools being integrated. But that was decades ago. Now there are a number of public swimming pools in Black neighborhoods of that large city, and in the area's many parks. I know that a number of African Americans frequent those pools. But it's an open question whether many of the African American children, teens, and adults actually swim in those pools or just play in the water.
 
Also, fwiw, as an relatively young adult, I took some swimming lessons. But I can't say that I really learned how to swim. I'm ashamed to admit that I stopped taking lessons because I was afraid of the water. Since then I've gotten in pools during motel stays, but I only stand in the shallow part. My children (females and males) also took swimming lessons at local Ys or community centers, and they do know how to swim. However, my daughter (whose hair is permed unlike mine) usually only goes to the pool at the fitness center she joined when she's in between hair appointments.

So many comments :)  I'm white, and I dated a black girl for a while, and was always told not to touch her hair.  She would get mad at me.  Another girl who was black would let me poke her hair -- she had a fro and I used to play with it.  She didn't mind.  However, I learned from the girlfriend to stay away from a black girls hair, unless I have permission.

I would bet that 99% of the reason why this discrepancy exists is not due to the hair of the person who is or isn't swimming.  ALthough, that could be part of the reason that less girls swim than guys, regardless, since I do know a lot of girls of all sorts of ethic breakdowns who don't ever want to get their hair wet.

I wonder how much of the difference between men and women has to do with the fact that swimming ability is self reported.  It could be that men think - hey I can flail skillfully enough to keep
from drowning... that counts as swimming, right?  Where as women think -
I can only tread for two minutes max and doggie paddle a bit... that's
not enough to count as swimming.

It is well documented that high school girls both underestimate their math skills relative to objective measures like test scores and over estimate the amount of skill needed to major in engineering.  The boys on the other hand overestimate their math skills relative to objective measures.

About the hair thing, I've heard Black women say that is totally the reason they/their moms never learned how to swim, and I've heard Black women say that is total bullshit, an excuse covering up real reasons mostly having to do with class and racism. I've heard White people bitch about "Black Hair" and "Black Hair Products" "interacting" with pool water. And I've known affluent white women who don't swim, or don't go in past their necks, because they have processed hair.

When I read this story, I was reminded of my childhood at international school, where we had mandatory swim class as part of physical education. I remember that most of the students who were in the absolute-beginners' section were students from South Asia and Africa. These were students who came from some level of wealth (and could thus afford to attend international school in Japan), and so the argument of wealth (alone) could not be made. (Incidentally, since it was an all-boys school, I can only make a statement about male students.)

During summers, when there were options to help with swim school programs, the absolute beginners were also from South Asia and Africa. For many young children, it was traumatic to even submerge their heads (i.e., do bobbing exercises) or put their face in the water to blow bubbles. For a 10-year-old kid who grew up in the water from before I could walk, this seemed downright strange to me at the time. However, when I went to India to do fieldwork, I noticed that the culture of swimming was effectively non-existent. Even when people went to bathe in the river (i.e., somewhere accessible to members of all social strata), they rarely went further than hip-deep (this was during the dry season, when the rivers ran very slowly in many cases).

All of this is tangential to the figures shown above, but the things that I grew up observing about swimming ability have shown me that -- internationally -- there are many more dimensions to the story, but there is likely a reason why Olympic swimming and diving events and Olympic skiing events are competitive amongst the same groups of countries (and -- in the case of the US and other multi-ethnic countries -- the same ethnicities within those countries).

I'm curious about how more fine-grained analysis of the numbers would shake out.  Do any areas achieve parity or near-parity in swimming competence?  If so, what distinguishes those areas from areas with large disparities? 

When I was growing up, I think the only black person I ever saw at the pool (which was expensive and private) was married to a white person.  As a kid, I assumed this was because there were not many black people in that particular suburb.  (This was almost certainly not a good assumption, given how much overt racism I became aware of in that suburb over the years; the less-overt racism must be at least as bad.) 
I now live in the city that anchors that suburb, and it is a very different situation; a year-round indoor/outdoor pool membership for up to 4 adults and children in the household costs less than 10% of a summer swim membership in my old neighborhood ($60 vs. $850, plus city pools will give a reduced rate if you are on welfare), and the city pools are well-attended by both black and white residents.  The one we attend with our son seems to have a majority-black customer base, and most of the lifeguards, including everyone I've ever seen in a "head lifeguard" shirt, are also black.  (I don't think hair has all that much to do with it, fwiw. There are plenty of black women at my pool who I don't think are wearing their hair natural-style, and they seem to put a do-rag over their hair and then a swim cap over that.  But obviously I have not gone up and quizzed them about the naturalness of their hair or the exact steps they are taking to protect their hair.)

I would guess that my current city has a lower swimming disparity between races than my old suburb, because of the network of inexpensive public pools and the very visible presence of black people with high swimming competence (lifeguards) at those pools.  But I also think it's probably not at parity, because many of the pools are hard to get to on public transportation, and even the half-price memberships may still be out of reach.

I didn't meet anyone who couldn't swim until I went to college, especially when I lived in Europe. I'm from Texas though, where swimming has a high priority because it's so damn hot! Sure, I knew people who didn't like to do it, but they could at least stay afloat. Lots of kids learned to swim because their parents taught them, not because they went to lessons, at least in my experience.

All the public pools we frequented had really low prices per person per day, and little ones swam for free. Then again, as other people have pointed out, you had to be able to get there, and I grew up near an outdoor community pool. Are indoor pools more expensive than outdoor? As I got older I realized I was lucky to live so close to such cheap pools, rivers, lakes, and beaches. This summer, sadly, it seems like everything but the Gulf of Mexico is all dried up.

I agree with the notion that some people rate their swimming competency
higher than others, even though their skill levels are the same.

Side note: As a former lifeguard I can tell you that all the gunk that comes
off/out of diapers is much nastier to clean up than hair. The biggest
problem was leaves and grass.

I reckon the disparity between women and men who report not being able to swim could be, in part, because men are less likely to admit it.