‘Black Folk Don’t…Swim’ features on AfroPoP Digital Shorts

Black Public Media (BPM), a Harlem-based national nonprofit that has funded and distributed films about the Black experience since 1979, is making a splash this summer.

Amid the Summer Olympics in Paris and in honor of the USA’s swim team, BPM is going back in the water with “Black Folk Don’t…Swim”, a short film, which is a part of its earlier, irreverent series “Black Folk Don’t”, featured in Time magazine’s “10 Ideas That Are Changing Your Life”.

 “Black Folk Don’t…Swim”, which comically examines some of the biggest myths and stereotypes about Black people, is featured on BPM’s AfroPoP Digital Shorts. 

It’s the perfect story if you are looking to wet (OK, “whet”) your appetite for a way into an Olympics story via the arts. 

Featuring writer, television personality and podcaster Touré and writer, educator and media figure Melissa Harris Perry, “Black Folk Don’t…Swim” explores whether Black people have taken to the aquatic sport. 

But with Black swimmers Simone Manuel and Shaine Casas competing in this year’s Olympics — and Anthony Nesty becoming the first Black US head swimming coach, leading the men’s team — maybe the answer is a resounding yes. 

Film critics say it’s an important topic because as many as 70 percent of Black people do not know how to swim, and Blacks, ages 5 to 19, reportedly drown in pools at 5.5 times the rate of whites. 

“Black Folk Don’t…Swim” is directed by Angela Tucker, an Emmy and Webby award-winning filmmaker, working in scripted and unscripted film and television. 

Recent work includes “Belly of the Beast” (director Erica Cohen), a New York Times critics pick; “The Trees Remember”, a Webby-winning branded series in collaboration with REI Co-Op Studios; and “A New Orleans Noel”, a Lifetime holiday film starring Patti LaBelle. 

Tucher’s newest film, “The Inquisitor”, about political icon Barbara Jordan, will be broadcast on PBS. 

Tucker is a Sundance Institute Women’s Fellow, a recipient of Firelight’s William Greaves Fund, and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 

The founder of TuckerGurl, Inc., a boutique production company, Tucker said she is “passionate about stories that highlight underrepresented communities in unconventional ways.”

“Black Folk Don’t…Swim” is now streaming (for free) on BPM’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwUKfbq-vGs.