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How I Learned to Swim Away My Intergenerational Trauma
This fear is an ancestral one, but I wanted to overcome it to know freedom
I have a fluctuating relationship with swimming. As an adult, I gave it little to no thought, and never questioned why until last summer. When invited to a swimming event by hairstylist Felicia Leatherwood, I was forced to address memories I’d compartmentalized for years.
In my childhood, most of my fondest memories took place around water. I would run to the beach shores, jet down slides in water parks, and gladly get drenched during a performance at Sea World. When finding out about family trips, I would burst with excitement when discovering we’d have access to a pool. Around the age of 10, my mom stopped regularly taking me to these activities. Any reference I made was followed with a statement on how I could not swim. The few times that followed, I was never allowed in the water alone, and carried a flotation device to make my mom comfortable.
Her projections seemed that much more valid when she prevented me from swimming with my white classmates. Through taking private lessons, I became insecure about my skill set as I watched them swim freely in a neighboring pool. I was so embarrassed to fit the stereotype about Black people not swimming that I stopped going altogether.
I gave this time period no thought until I attended “Let’s Make a Splash” this past July, an event held in partnership with a Black-owned swimming school called A New Wave Aquatics. For the first time ever, I was able to swim in a safe space. Surrounded by an array of Black women, I learned new skills without judgement. I was one of many clamoring around a pool as we discussed everything from body image to tips on managing your hair to avoid damage from chlorine.
As we unpacked stigmas around Black people and swimming, the movie Amistad came to mind. In this Steven Spielberg movie, one scene showed several slaves being forcefully pulled into the ocean. While I don’t remember most of the film, I can vividly recall this segment. How the slave master attached the anchor to one end of the enslaved. The way it propelled into the sea, and how those attached desperately tried (yet failed) to save themselves from this fatal drowning. During…
