Private Pool Club Kicks Out Minority Kids Who Might "Change The Complexion" (VIDEO)

A potentially upsetting story coming out of Philadelphia: a group of 60 young campers, many of them minorities, were told to leave a private swimming club apparently because of their race.

Some of the disheartening details:

"When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool," Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. "The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately."

The Creative Steps Day Camp's membership was suspended by the swimming club and the money they paid to join was refunded.

Watch a report from NBC Philadelphia.

Comments

[BrwnSknGurl4]

If there is anyone reading this with an affiliation with the University of Pennsylvania (my alma mater), can you try and contact someone at the school to see if the children could use a facility on campus??

Please!

[PAposter]

kev1000 I'm a Fan of kev1000 I'm a fan of this user permalink

Okay, this makes me feel a little better:

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Campers__Complexion__No_Problem_for_New_Pool_Philadelphia.html

Sorry about the ad in the beginning, but what can ya do?

[WowJones]

That's great

[wijg]

Great news for those kids. Thanks!

[KMan1]

Good news!

[barackobama4prez]

Thank the Lord!

[hadassah23]

This is wonderful news. I know someone there would step up. I was just waiting to hear.

[randman2009]

Funny. Im sure the college kids at Penn would be thrilled to have a busload of these kids pull up while they were hanging out by the pool.

[BrwnSknGurl4]

Yeah, this is the color-blind society the Supreme Court seems to THINK exists... Wake up, Clarence, Sam, John, and Antonin -- WE ARE NOT THERE YET!!

We need to march in the streets against this MADNESS!!

[cyoohoos]

Folks, Senator Arlen Specter, D-PA has gotten involved in this. Stay tuned...

[PAposter]

Oh swell, I'm sure he has a few buddies at "The Club".

[qdog112]

What a great message to send to the world after all we had to say about Iran 2 weeks ago.

If this had happened abroad, the GOP would be calling for President Obama to denounce such behavior in no uncertain terms.

Nice of the other pools to offer help, but they should be leading demonstrations against the private club. Everyone talks about which cities something like this could happen in. The fact is, happen everywhere in America.

What would happen if the Obama girls tried to get in? The cure for RACISM is SUNLIGHT. (pun intended) WHATCA GONNA DO AMERICA?

[Tanyars5]

not one thing.....­..
Funny how those who were/are sympathizers of those poor Iranians have a hard time seeing injustice right here in the good ole USA

[GravitonX]

It hits a little too close to home. It's easy to cheer revolutionaries in a far off land. No, we won't see 100,000+ posts on this topic. in fact, it may not even get mention on the most "progressive" cable news channel, MSNBC.

[Kaila]

Oh yeah Tanya as far as I know you have a pretty hard time seeing injustice yourself.

This is a terrible disgrace and a stain on the integrity of our country, but how is this different from denying equal rights to gays? equality is equality, or do you prefer only equality for some?

[robXdion]

Obama will keep telling Holder to hush up because he doesn't want to scare white voters. Then we'll all keep living in this fantasy of harmony while more Oscar Grants are created and point fingers at Iran, Turkey, China, and anywhere else to help Ahmurika feel good about itself.

[bowthai]

Disgusting. Sad.

[deepfreezevideo]

Y'all can swim in my pool ANYTIME, kids.

[vinestip]

so much for the myth that racism exists only in the south.... philadelphia, boston, chicago...­. some of the most racially-divided cities in the country, and bitterly so.

[GravitonX]

It's always been a myth, part of the great web of denial that founds White America's conception of racism.

[dibabe]

I have heard the n word more in NYC than my native ohio

[NCIndependant]

Thank you.

[Waitaminute]

I remember visiting Chicago in the sixties. Blacks were literally attacked physically for crossing 71st, cicero and pulaski streets. I know because i was one of those attacked. I recall Martin Luther King stating while marching in gage park in Chicago saying something similar to this "I have been to alabama Georgia and missisippi and this is the worse i have experienced" He was attacked also. White people were in trees throwing rocks and bricks. We were called every racial slur known while being pelted.

[CherrySpring]

My mom grew up in Chicago around then. She raised me just outside Chicago. Believe me, it's not a whole lot different now. It's just almost as segregated now as it was then. 40 years and only an ounce of progression. What's wrong with America?

[GravitonX]

Tell that to Chris Matthews. A week ago during his "Apology for Slavery" segment he went on a outraged rant about the North and it's "sacrifice" for fighting to end Slavery and how it shouldn't have to apologze for Slavery. Then, someone had to remind Mr. Matthews that Slavery (for over a century) existed in all of the Colonies.

Myth usually crumbles when faced with facts.

[WowJones]

Remember the N azis had a headquarters near 71st and Western.

[GravitonX]

The question is what will Obama do about the worsening racial climate in this country, especially with regard to Blacks employment attrition reaching stratospheric levels, as whites push Blacks out the door first. Is he going to keep his head in the cloud and "dream" even as half the country is intractably hate him and everything he is or will he realize the dirty reality that is America and take a stand?

[Tanyars5]

You bring up a great point. He is in a no win situation. If he stands up for Black people white people will see him as giving blacks preferential treatment. All along white people lobby for their causes like dogs.

[snork]

Interesting, the racist manager appears to be a person of colour. What's to be made of that?

[CherrySpring]

What color?

[PAposter]

May I have a link...tha­t's very interesting!

[wijg]

I thought I saw him earlier. He was old and white. Do you have a link?

[KMan1]

What's your point? Does it somehow take away from the fact that these children were turned away because they were African American?

[babyboomerorig]

When will these racists stop their horrors?

[Waitaminute]

In 1967 my friends and i while protesting the lack of funding for the black community so we'd have a pool, and paved streets, were dragged out of a whites only pool in Mississippi and jailed. The white kids got out of the pool in what seemed to be the same time we hit the water. Pool was drained and cleaned with clorox. Minority kids young enough to be my grand children are treated in a similar manner In 2009 and IN THE NORTH!!

As i have said many times, thing are going to get much worse. This hatred runs deep.

[GravitonX]

It would seem almost senseless to argue the facts about the problem of racism in virtually every aspect of American society. But, Northern whites constantly try to paint northern states as some kind of racial utopia, as if racism only happens in the South or in rural areas. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of the worst race riots occured in the North. And, the North is just as segregated as the South. I could name you about a dozen large schools in my city alone that are 98% white.

[tsand19151]

Agreed....­Check into Philly's racial history...­...it ain't so "brotherly".

[Tanyars5]

Ceveland Ohio was once labeled one of the most segregated places in the country. Not much has changed from what I can see.

[KnowzyRowzy]

So true

[Ponderus]

madatnewsmedia: "She continues her rant, because she is a lesbian!"

Yeah, them straightpeople, they never rant!

Pathetic.

[Disuberence]

Here's just one example! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OyjXE7OhSk

[Tanyars5]

D I have to give to you on that one. That was a rambling rant.....Y­IKES
funny

[Pyfagorus]

Reminds me of those who've described Tchaikovsky's music as "hysterical," as if Tchaikovsky was some curlers-haired suburban housewife constantly on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

[blackfriday1978]

Americans are getting funnier by day, all these backward movement or more like non-movement - refuse to step into the year of 2009 (now, the present)..­. what's in the water?

[Ponderus]

Hatred is in the water.

[jonnai]

I hope creating steps day camp sue them

[WowJones]

Private club, no loss of money for services refused.

[GravitonX]

Doesn't matter. It's a criminal offense which caused emotional distress. It's a textbook case.

[wijg]

Tanyars5, did you see this? Another horrible story Rachel Maddow didn't report on today. What do you think?

New Mexico Teen Girl Tasered In The Head By Police Chief (VIDEO)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/08/new-mexico-teen-girl-tase_n_228280.html

[Tanyars5]

Did you read what this article is about?

[wijg]

Yes, I commented on it earlier.