Good Monday morning everybody! It's warm weather time in the global North and the "wet season" here in the Caribbean.
In times before 2020, this would have signalled a lot of beach and river bathing in Trinidad and loads of people headed to Tobago to enjoy the more attractive beaches there. Now, beach-going and sea-bathing are restricted as part of the current national State of Emergency. 
With those thoughts in mind, that may explain why this recent article from an African American mother about teaching her son to swim caught my attention. While some of the content may be more contextual for African Americans, it is true that there are large numbers of people on some of our Caribbean islands who do not know how to swim.
The author cites alarming statistics of Black American children drowning, including in the bathtub. According to the CDC, "Black children between the ages of 5 to 19 are 5.5 times more likely to die by drowning in swimming pools than white children are. Drowning is a leading cause of injury-related death for all children and toddlers, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. But those dismal statistics among Black children may be a result of intergenerational trauma surrounding Black people and swimming."
What stood out also was the following statement, as it ties in with Caribbean history as well as that of African Americans - "Water has represented life or death for Black Americans as far back as the Transatlantic Slave Trade. According to the Slave Voyages Database, which documents voyages from 1514 to 1866, of the more than 12 million African people put onto slave ships, nearly two million people did not survive the journey. Some chose death by drowning over enslavement, while others succumbed to conditions aboard and were tossed overboard. Water became synonymous with survival or perishing..."
She linked all of this nicely when she wrote, "Mariel Buqué, a psychologist who focuses on intergenerational trauma, said that for Black people, water represents “one of the largest collective traumas we have experienced in the Western Hemisphere.”
I trust I have sufficiently raised your curiosity and encourage you to read the article at this New York Times link - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/0...ildren-swimming.html
If you do not have a subscription to the NY Times, read the article or a significant part of it here - https://simplesmentesantos.com...y-black-son-to-swim/
No shame if you do not know how to swim, friends. However (Spoiler Alert), you can do what Jay Z did and overcome that challenge, as stated in the article.
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