Cullen Jones

Cullen Andrew Jones (born February 29, 1984) is an American former competition swimmer and Olympic gold medalist who specialized in freestyle sprint events. Quotes George Floyd’s death is a catalyst for me, Just emboldens me to do more. I always kept it very corporate, I was always very neutral. You would never see me hanging out with my friends drinking, because I worked with kids. That wasn’t the image that I really wanted to put out there. When it came to my political ideals, I never really put it out there because I wanted my platform to be very straightforward, clean cut so that when companies want to align with me they know they’re aligning with a safe brand. But, after George Floyd’s death, I was of course enraged and upset. Many times we’re expected to be athlete first, and then Black second, (Neal and Ervin each have one African-American parent. Ervin’s dad is three quarters African American and one quarter Native American.) We need to keep our mouths open about things that are going on because we are the faces of what USA Swimming is in diversity. We need to make sure that these young people, as they’re coming up, they understand that they can look to us. Crips and the Bloods, gun shots, everything, that’s what I grew up around, I leave my house, and I don’t wear certain colors because I don’t want one side to get upset. It can take as little as 20 seconds for a kid to drown,I was under water for 30 seconds. I was not instructed to speak out at the time, I was instructed to work harder and not let anyone get in my way. That determination is what led me to the podium at the Olympic Games. The guy looks, and he goes, oh, you’re that Black swimmer that went to the Olympics. OK, well you have a good day. Took off, There’s so many different ways that this still happens today. If I wasn’t 6-foot-5, muscular and Black, I don’t know that you would have necessarily turned around. You definitely wouldn’t have asked me twice if everything was OK by me walking my dog, I had to verbally disarm him by telling my vast -- not so vast -- knowledge of dogs so that he would feel comfortable with me, even though he’s the one with the gun. And I’m going to have to teach my child [11-month-old Ayvn] how to do that. At the same time, you had this water safety prevention initiative that was there, screaming, i.e. me, that it’s important to get kids to learn how to swim, So to see those numbers drop in my lifetime, I did not even expect that, let alone to see it in about eight years. I got out of the pool, I went into the bathroom, and I just started crying. I thought, ‘I get it. This is what I need to be doing. As Cullen Jones leaves Olympic-level competition, his mission is amplified, July 02 2020 External links Category:Olympic gold medalists Category:Swimmers Category:1984 births Category:Living people Category:Sportspeople from the United States Category:African Americans