Why A Swim Cap For African American Hair Matters: A Personal Story

Here's a short personal story on why a swim cap matters.

When we were very young, about ages 7 and 9, my sister and I nearly drowned trying to reach our stepdad, who was standing far out at the deep end of the ocean on the Atlantic side of a Panamanian beach. So eventually, our parents decided to put us in Red Cross swimming classes on our military base.

Let me tell you what that meant. 

It meant that unlike girls who didn't have Black hair, we had to wear swim caps. Our hair, even with expensive French perms (which  were awful to suffer through btw) braided, and wearing adult women's swim caps, were a headache-induing tight fit. So in order to learn how to swim, we had to endure swim cap-induced headaches.

My sister eventually dropped the courses. I improved swimming elsewhere, in lakes and rivers, the result being my returning home  from my summer forest service job with my hair badly damaged and sun bleached a brownish red.

It sent my mom into fits, and would take her months, black hair dye, and a great deal of care to repair it.

But of the three of us siblings who grew up together, I am the best swimmer.

My hair, despite now being not dyed to cover summer damage and a mixture of ancestors' italian, indigenous, and 4C hair, is still prone to discoloration and breakage in pool water. So imagine being a black female, with natural hair, having made the Olympic team, and being told your choices are to endure the headache, allow the cap to pop off, or chop off your hair enough to fit a swim cap because that cap is made to fit straight, much thinner, hair.

Oh yes, because Afro hair is delicate, it takes time and effort to grow to any length. So this repeated humiliation of attacking Afro hair in sports is further  dehumanizing in that the traumatic aftermath of being forced to chop it (or chemically alter it) in order to compete in sports events lasts for months and years after the initial trauma of being told to force it to conform to an unnatural standard or be blocked from competing.

Can you understand a bit more what a big deal a swim cap made for our hair means? And why, so many people are disgusted by the Olympic committee decision to ban a swim cap that gives no advantage in the pool but is made to comfortably cover Black hair?

I'm glad to see Fina has decided to reconsider their terrible decision.

Peace