“Blacks Can’t Swim: Rewind” Set For Global Release On July 4th

The third move in the “Blacks Can’t Swim “documentary series, Blacks Can’t Swim: Rewind, is set to be released globally on July 4th.

The film series, produced by Black Swimming Association (BSA) co-founder Ed Accura, initially took a look at Accura’s own fear of water in the first movie before highlighting some harrowing statistics regarding the percentage of minorities that aren’t able to swim.

Both films highlight the issue that 95% of Black adults and 80% of Black children do not swim. Additionally, BSA says that 93% of Asian adults and 78% of Asian children do not swim, according to data from Sport England.

The third film puts an emphasis on the racial bias that’s involved in the sport.

“In this third film, we hear the harrowing recount of an 8-year-old child about their lived experience swimming in school,” the BSA press release says.

The boy speaks on how the caucasian and black students at school would be separated when it was time to go to the water.

“In class… we would get sectioned and then the Caucasians go on one side and they go to swim, and then the Black people go and do football or dodgeball, and they think because we are Black we can’t swim, but we can swim.”

“Barriers to swimming include racial bias and predisposed systemic discrimination, even at the primary  school age; the BSA wants to act as a bridge with communities and the aquatic sector in order to dismantle racial bias, inequitable access, and lack of inclusion within swimming and aquatics. Inclusion for all not at the exclusion of some must be met by acknowledging and catering to the needs of the most marginalized groups,” the release continues.

Accura said the film documentary has already superseded its expectation and propelled it to another level:

“The aim was to continue highlighting the issue of a disproportionate number of African, Caribbean and Asians that do not swim, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that it has already given the youth involved the motivation, direction, and hope to seek a better life.”

The BSA, founded by Accura, Seren Jones, Danielle Obe and Alice Dearing, says:

“Swimming is for everyone, and swimming is the only sport that is also a vital life skill. The BSA was established to highlight the value of swimming as a vital life skill to prevent drownings by tackling previously unaddressed inequities and under-representation within the aquatics sector and ultimately increasing visibility and participation in aquatic sports. Since then, we have amplified the voice of the African, Caribbean and Asian communities and taken tangible action, with our work having direct relevance to over 6.9m people of African, Caribbean and Asian heritage in the UK who are currently not aquatically active or water safety aware.”

Dearing was the first-ever Black female swimmer to represent Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympics.

The BSA has established partnerships with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), the London Marathon Charitable Trust, Community Leisure UK, Speedo, Hackney Council, Sport Wales, AfPe, Active Black Country, and Leeds Beckett University, along with other aquatic and water safety partners.

The film will be available globally on VOD via blackscantswim.com on July 4.

You Can Watch Three Trailers for the Movie Below: