NEW YORK (AP) - Nearly 60 percent of African-American children can't swim, almost twice the figure for white children, according to a first-of-its-kind survey which USA Swimming hopes will strengthen its efforts to lower minority drowning rates and draw more blacks into the sport.

Stark statistics underlie the initiative by the national governing body for swimming. Black children drown at a rate almost three times the overall rate. And less than 2 percent of USA Swimming's nearly 252,000 members who swim competitively year-round are black.

The high drowning rates are due to the playful nature of kids.
When a white kid gets dunked in the pool, it is usually just a harmless action where the result is just a wet head of hair......If a black kid gets dunked, his buddies usually run at close to full speed, bounce him off the ground two or three times, jump as high as they can and slam him into the pool as hard as they can. Dunking has a completely different meaning.