I thought I had seen it all - or very close to all. The Associated Press reminded me this morning that I have not seen it all. I woke up this morning and followed my daily routine of reading through the news in the US and around the world. I discovered that 6 children drowned in Louisiana. As I perused the article, my sadness turned to stark horror and then outrage. I was outraged over the racially charged statements made by the reporter writing the article. The article stated the following.

Shreveport Assistant Fire Chief Fred Sanders said he believed the victims, ages 13 to 18, included three brothers from one family and a sister and two brothers from another.

“They were out here with some adults. But unfortunately, neither the children nor the adults could swim,” he said.

Swimming skills can be scarce among African-Americans like the teens in this tragedy. A study commissioned by the sports governing body USA Swimming found 69 percent of black children had low or no swimming ability. Segregation kept blacks out of public and private pools for decades and the disparity continues because many poor and working class children have limited access to pools or instruction.

Sanders said victims’ names may be released Tuesday, after the department is sure relatives have been notified.

The teens had started playing in a familiar area but ended up at a spot in the river where the bottom fell suddenly and that’s where divers found the bodies, Sanders said.

What????? The comments on Yahoo under the article were as bad, if not worse, than the article itself. Now I am all for freedom of expression, but to state that “swimming skills can be scarce among African-Americans” in a news article is just far beyond unacceptable. Do people of other ethnic backgrounds not drown? I would never have thought that an article about the death of 6 children would be a place where racism and racist attitudes would show its ugly head. I guess I was being very stupid in this case. This reporter needs to be reprimanded for not simply reporting the news. The addition of information on the presumed swimming skills of African Americans is just woefully out of place. It draws attention away from the tragedy and makes the writer look like an uninformed racist perpetuating stereotypes - in my opinion. This also takes away from the fact that white people - both adults and children - drown all the time. I’m not sure if the reporter would add something like this to an article about white people, but the fact that he or she added it to this article is just unacceptable. I have seen lots of articles about drowning. Never once have I seen a quote about the swimming abilty of white people. Have you?

The Associated Press and this reporter should be ashamed for putting this out into the world. It is wrong, unncessary and hurtful and it feeds into the entire racially stereotypical view of blacks. I think the way this story was written by this reporter is just very, very stupid.

Here is a link to the article so that you can read it and the comments people made about it on Yahoo. I have also included it here just in case it gets removed before you have a chance to read it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100803/ap_on_re_us/us_teens_drown_louisiana

SHREVEPORT, La. – Six teenagers wading in the shallows of a Louisiana river drowned in front of their horrified families after falling into deep water. None of the teens or nearby adults could swim.

A seventh teen, a 14-year-old boy, was rescued. Officials scheduled a news conference Tuesday to release more details about the deaths Monday in the Red River, in a popular recreational area where sand bars give way to 20-foot depths.

“They had one lifejacket here. As you can imagine, everybody started yelling for help,” said Caddo Parish sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindy Chadwick.

Shreveport Assistant Fire Chief Fred Sanders said he believed the victims, ages 13 to 18, included three brothers from one family and a sister and two brothers from another.

“They were out here with some adults. But unfortunately, neither the children nor the adults could swim,” he said.

Swimming skills can be scarce among African-Americans like the teens in this tragedy. A study commissioned by the sports governing body USA Swimming found 69 percent of black children had low or no swimming ability. Segregation kept blacks out of public and private pools for decades and the disparity continues because many poor and working class children have limited access to pools or instruction.

Sanders said victims’ names may be released Tuesday, after the department is sure relatives have been notified.

The teens had started playing in a familiar area but ended up at a spot in the river where the bottom fell suddenly and that’s where divers found the bodies, Sanders said.

Marilyn Robinson, a friend of the families, told The Times of Shreveport she watched helplessly as the victims went under. She said a large group of family and friends, including roughly 20 children, were out at the sandbar to barbecue and have a good time. They frequent the area and were familiar with the water, Robinson said.

“None of us could swim,” she said. “They were yelling ‘help me, help me. Somebody please help me.’ It was nothing I could do but watch them drown one by one.”

Sanders said he did not know whether one teen fell and pulled down others, or if they were trying to rescue each other.

It took more than three hours to find all the bodies, he said.

“It’s devastating,” Sanders said. “To my knowledge the city has never experienced an incident of this magnitude.”

Rescue crews were delayed a bit because the accident was reported as near the Jimmie Davis Bridge but was nearly a mile away, Sanders said.

The families were in a recreational area of the Red River that has sand bars, Sanders said. The park is a popular picnic and fishing area and some people do go wading.