Swimmer Blair: Influencing Change

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2023 issue of SwimSwam magazine. Subscribe here.

“I would like to say that everything started at the George Floyd incident, but it actually started when my parents took me to the African American History Museum.”

I would say that everything started way, way before. Cornelius, from Philly, and Kara, from Queens, fell in love and lived together in Atlanta for a long time. From their love was born Blair.

“Blair started swimming when he was 13 months old. I was a lifeguard when I was 15 and an aquatics director for several years. And when we had Blair, I could only think of teaching him water safety because that’s the most important thing to us. My wife is from Queens, New York, and she wasn’t a swimmer. We’ve been married for 20 years, and I’ve been trying to teach her how to swim, but she’s still a turtle after all these years. But she knew the importance of Blair learning how to swim.

“I taught him how to freestyle and breathe. By the time he was four years old, we had moved to Florida, which was even more important for him to be a good swimmer because we’re surrounded by water.  He started swimming on a swim team when he was 7.

“I remember the first time in the water with Blair was in a pool. Prior to Blair, I taught thousands of kids how to swim. So, I felt comfortable teaching. And it’s also a great way to make little kids go to sleep if you put them in the pool. They will go to sleep and take a nap. So, it was very important for him to swim every day to help him go to sleep.”

This is what Cornelius tells us.

Learn to swim for your own safety, to be able to sleep well at night. But, also, to learn the culture of sport and swimming in particular. But what does swimming mean for Blair, who is now 13?

“A lot of people think swimming is boring because you just swim up and down, stare at a black line. But I honestly think swimming just makes me feel good. Whenever I get into the water, I feel refreshed. I feel energized for a long time. I swam every day before school, and I felt like I’d do better on days I swam before I went to school. It makes me feel awake, active. The water, I guess for a long time, the water has just been a part of me. I love swimming as a sport and team-wise.”

Now that we know a little more about Blair and his family, let’s go back to the African American History Museum:

“I changed teams from when I was 7 to today. In Panama City, of 175 kids, they only have three kids of color on the team. What I experienced on that team is kind of what helped lead me into something for a change.

“Then George Floyd happened. I would like to say that it started with the George Floyd incident, but it actually started when my parents took me to the African American History Museum in Washington, D.C. So, when I went there, I saw it firsthand. I was 10. I learned and I saw what happened to people who looked like me just because they looked different. What they had to deal with. I saw images of people throwing bleach into pools because we weren’t allowed to swim because we would dirty the pools. We weren’t allowed to walk on certain sides of the road. We weren’t allowed to look people in the eye. As a 10-year-old, I was just saddened because I was wondering how someone could do that?”

Cornelius explains why they took Blair to that Museum:

“Blair was born in Atlanta, and we moved back to northwest Florida to give him a different environment out of the city, and to be a beach kid. But also knowing that, where we were moving to, was going to be challenging because of the lack of diversity. We’re fortunate that Blair is a very highly intelligent person. So, we started to make sure that we were educating him on how to be a good citizen, even if there were days he was coming home from school sad because there weren’t that many kids of color. Blair went to school with about 865 kids, and maybe five of them were black in his entire school. Then also, being in the swimming world, we had to make sure that he felt good about himself and knew his self-worth and his history. So, when we took him to the African American History Museum, just because it was new and for him to get a bit of history, it kind of woke him up about what’s going on and how sometimes he’s treated just based on his color. For him to understand, while we were at swimming meets, how there weren’t people who look like him and just to reassure him that it’s okay, it’s okay, just know who you are.”

Then George Floyd’s case started civil unrest, which of course, had a significant impact on Blair’s sensible heart.

“When George Floyd happened, I was just angry. I didn’t know what to feel. And I saw people protesting. I wanted to go march because there was a rally somewhere out of town, and my mom was going to go. And I wanted to go with her to show support. My mom told me, ‘No’ because they didn’t know what was going to happen. It could be dangerous. So, my dad took me to the pool because it was summertime and we were just training, and I asked him to let me make a video. I feel like I was doing it for my own purpose because I wanted to make a difference. I did mine for Black Lives Matter, and other people I asked did it for their own causes that were dear to them, like climate change, global warming, or Black Lives Matter.

Everyone has their own personal issue. And I felt like it wasn’t fair to make one thing more important than the others because everyone should be equal. I hope one day in the future we will not talk about the color of a person’s skin, whether that makes them good or bad. I feel like in the swimming community, too, you shouldn’t be like, ‘Oh wow, there’s one black person here. It should be, oh wow, that person is doing pretty good. Look at their times.’ No matter what race or what color they are or gender they are. They’re not judged based on what they look like.”

A pool, a simple video, a message. Sometimes that’s all we need to make a difference. And we can make the difference starting from a place that we can call home, our safe place, like the pool for Blair and Cornelius, who taught Blair that a pool is consistent when you need stability.

“Prior to George Floyd, we lived through a hurricane. We survived Hurricane Michael. When he touched down in Florida, he actually went by our building and our condo where we’re living. And when that happened, we took Blair to the pool to keep everything consistent. Because one thing that is consistent with swimming is that the black line is always there and you can swim. Laps are always the same distance from the wall. And that’s it.”

Blair:

“During the COVID emergency, a lot of college athletes came to our pool. People were coming down to swim because our pool never shut down. I met people, and I was well. I tried to convince them, and I did convince them to do something for a change, with me. And then I kind of got more recognition and more recognition. And right around that time, when I made my first video, Leah Neil and Jacob Pebley did their Swimmers for Change. And I thought, hey, someone else wants to do this to try and make a difference. So, we had swimmers from around the country coming to our area, and that was an opportunity for me to meet so many people from other pools, other states.”

A lot has been done, and a lot needs to be done. Blair, aka Swimmer Blair, is now a swimmer, a content creator, and a boy with a mission.

“I don’t really have that many role models. I don’t have heroes. I just have people that I know and people that I admire. I know a lot of people that I strive to be like. I look up to Cullen Jones because he’s a mentor to me. So, I look up to him a lot. I also look up to David Curtis and to Shaine Casas.

“I do look up to LeBron James, too, because he does use his platform to get messages out there. I don’t necessarily think it is an athlete’s job to get messages out there. But if it’s like an issue and it’s an ongoing issue, I feel like you should do something about it. I’m an athlete with a mission. I want people to swim. I want people to learn how to swim because it is a lifesaving sport. I want more people with different backgrounds. I want more people not to be afraid of the water.

“I think you don’t learn something without someone teaching you. You don’t learn how to swim without someone teaching you. And you don’t learn hate if someone didn’t teach you to hate, and you don’t learn fear — someone instills that in you. You have a fear of the water because your parents don’t teach you because they never learned how. And they’re afraid of the water because their parents might not have taught them. And I’m grateful that my dad taught me how to swim. That’s the main thing because people should know how to swim. People shouldn’t be afraid of anything, really.”

Follow Swimmer Blair on Instagram here.