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Black People Swim! Travel! Camp! & Enjoy the Outdoors!

Tracey Friley · Monday, May 17th 2010 at 2:15PM · 499 views
I wrote a blog post once about the myth behind Black people and swimming. For years, I had been hearing idle chit chat from both Black people and non-Blacks about how the density of our bones keeps us from being able to float. As recently as last month, a White boat captain told me that she believed the myth to be fact. Deep sigh.
I own a travel camp that specializes in waterfront activities and all of my adult (Brown Girl) counselors are swimmers, including me. One of them was the first lifeguard on Los Angeles County Beaches and the other is a triathlete that has been swimming since she broke both of her arms at the age of 7. The other is a natural born athlete that has been swimming since she was a kid.
Last month, we took 10 Brown Girls on a learning adventure to the US Virgin Islands and some of the onlookers asked me if the girls were traveling on a grant. "What makes you ask?", I would respond. So first we don't swim, then we don't travel, and we definitely don't camp or enjoy the outdoors, right? (Not.)
Do you swim, travel, camp and/or enjoy the outdoors? Tell me about it...

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Tracey Friley Bay Area, CA

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Comments (2)

C
Christopher Cherry Monday, May 17th 2010 at 3:47PM

Great blog. First their are many misconceptions of who we are and what we do {Black People, haven't figured what you mean by brown people.} , It serves to show how little we know about one another. I'm the Captain of an All Black Men {CRT} Critical Response Team. Not only do we swim , we paratroop, snorkel, hike, train in jungle warfare and ocassionally skinny dip,lol. We are not the Navy Seals but we are the Next Black Thing..

Tracey Friley Monday, May 17th 2010 at 4:29PM

An all Black CRT? That's awesome! You should check out OutdoorAfro.com...
My definition of Brown can be found on OneBrownGirl.com.

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