Pennsylvania Swim Club Accused Of Racism To Ask Minority Kids Back

PHILADELPHIA — A private suburban swim club accused of racism after it canceled the memberships of dozens of minority children says it will seek a meeting with the kids' camps to work out an agreement for them to return.

Amy Goldman, a member of The Valley Club, said those able to attend a hastily called meeting Sunday afternoon voted unanimously in support of reinstating the memberships of the Creative Steps day camp and two other camps as long as safety issues, times and terms can be agreed upon.

The Creative Steps camp had arranged for 65 mostly black and Hispanic children to swim each Monday afternoon at the gated Huntingdon Valley club, which is on a leafy hillside in a village straddling two overwhelmingly white townships. But after the group arrived June 29, camp director Alethea Wright said, several children reported hearing racial comments and some swim club members pulled their children out of the pool.

The camp's $1,950 was refunded a few days later.

The president of the swim club's board of directors, John Duesler, has said the decision was made out of safety considerations, not racial concerns.

"We have near-unanimous approval from our membership, so at this point we'll be figuring out ... how to approach all the camps and see how we can move forward," Duesler told WPVI-TV at the club's entrance on Sunday.

The swim club has claimed it has a diverse, multiethnic membership, but Goldman, a member for two years, said she couldn't remember seeing a black member this year.

Goldman said members were told that the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, which has opened an investigation, is to make a fact-finding visit to the club July 30. U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., said Friday he had asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate "to determine what action, if any, is warranted by the Civil Rights Division."

Others to criticize the club include the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the United States' highest-profile black swimmer, Olympic gold medalist Cullen Jones, who said Thursday that "hearing about what's happened to these 65 kids is both disturbing and appalling."

Chuck Wielgus, executive director of USA Swimming, the governing body for the U.S. swim team, said he was stunned by the accusations against the club.

Wright, the camp director, didn't immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Sunday evening. She said earlier that other institutions had offered to host her group at their pools for the summer.

Camp parent Silvia Carvalho said she hadn't heard about the club's action but didn't believe her 9-year-old daughter, Araceli, would be willing to return.

"She has already said so," Carvalho said Sunday night. "She doesn't want people to look at her the same way."

Comments

[yodaveg]

While I am completely in favor of "multi-cultural clap-trap." I think you may have a point. So may of us are of mixed race that the labels are growing meaningless, as well as divisive--and not a little awkward (what do you call a Canadian African-American?). Skin tone is simply like hair color. Some of us are light-skinned, other medium-skinned and some dark-skinned. And if you want to talk about your heritage, fine, but that's a different issue.

[tangomeydl]

I am the producer and co-director of a documentary film-in-progress on this topic. It is called Parting the Waters, and it follows five African American and Latino swimmers over the course of three years, from the neighborhood pool to the Beijing Olympics. Over the time we filmed, we found the topic to be subtle and complex. Rarely in this era, 40 years after the Civil Rights Act, have we seen examples of overt discrimination like we have seen this month in Pennsylvania. For more information on the film and the production company, please visit www.DoTellProductions.com.

[EvieEve]

I wouldn't want to return if I were the kids.

[jemiltd]

Too late to make up. They have already filed suit. And if the club is sticking to their original story, aren't there still too many children? The picture on CNN, of the Club members in the pool on Saturday, was worth a thousand words.

[springsm]

AH but the telling point is will the sign tell who it is...which will immediately stop the lily whites from entering or will the kids in the pool mix. You tell me what you think. I wouldn't say yes to it but then you do have to think of the children who did not hear remarks and who still wonder "WHY". Do they think their is fairness coming back? What about future contact with these kids in school, church, the drugstore, whatever? Will future contacts be civil and helpful. What the pool should have done is to allow that school to come in shifts. 20 at a time or two shifts 30 at a time. The smaller number would have allowed mixing and I think most of the kids would adjust. I don't think this excuses what went on but it would have been wiser. White kids were probably brought up to fear. Some things take several generations of education, decency and every other social issue you can think of to overcome the prejudices of grandparents, g grands and parents. I would have hoped we were further along than this. But PA is a backwards state of alot of poverty...the pecking order is still this.

[onepotatotwopotato]

I have nothing against minorities joining the majority but I do strongly oppose the multi-cultural clap-trap we hear. The German minority in America accepted majority status. General and President Dwight David Eisenhower was always considered an American and not a German-American or a "Nordic" or an "Aryan". So why do Black Americans continue to call themselves "African-Americans" or Americans of Spanish origin call themselves "Hispanic"?

[badtimes]

Why do many Italian-Americans refer to themselves as Italian?

[noudidnt]

Why do Irish-Americans have parades? Why do Italian-Americans, Serbian-Americans, and Irish-Americans (Kelly Club) have private social clubs?

The answer is

because they want to.

[thehoopoe]

Because you call us that.

[Aesthete]

The extremely high visibility of dark skin immediately labels blacks as "different" in the eyes of those who would discriminate, making it easy to set blacks apart from the rest of society. If one is of German, Polish, Irish, etc. extraction, he or she can easily blend in or "disappear" into a sea of white. MOST BLACKS CANNOT. Even though skin color is very superficial and the least important of racial markers in nature, it's the one people can see and use against blacks and other non-white peoples. Issues of race are greatly complicated by "colorism. " The Irish and other European immigrants were once the victims of discrimination earlier in America's history. However, once they lost their accents and other outward "foreign" attributes, they vanished into the mainstream of "white" so that they are no longer seen as "different." In Europe, people are referred to as German, French, Russian, Polish, etc. In the USA they are simply "white" with all the attendant privileges that accompany that racial identification. As long as the society is unable to get past skin color, there will always be a problem.

[Haditup2here]

Because it is our prerogative. . . .@..hole. Who are you to judge or decide what other people call themselves?!

[Aesthete]

It's really, in one sense, as bad a situation for the white kids as well as the minority kids in terms of future impact. How well will these white kids function in a globalized and changing world, two-thirds of whose population is non-white? Will they become prisoners of their history?

[Haitiana4Obama]

While I understand the feeling of justification at being "invited" back, If it were my child I would most certainly would NOT allow my child back to that place. Why would I patronize a place which openly discriminated based on race and ethnicity? The African American and Latino children are better then that place, and do not need to undergo residual drama at having to step foot there.

[ljmck]

Bear with me; I know nothing about corporate taxes, but I want to know what benefit this club has gotten for their "generosity" in the past.

Does this swimming club get to claim charitable tax exemptions for "letting" childrens' groups come in to swim? If so, could that be what is driving their apparent change of heart?

[trying-to-be-objective]

"as long as safety issues, times and terms can be agreed upon"

Right. As long as we can set a time for "them" and let our bigots know in advance when not to come.

They shouldn't return, unless it's for more picketing.

[ljmck]

Agreed. The kids should not return; they already know this lesson. Childhood is short and so is summer vacation. Let them fight for their rights when they're older and find summer enjoyment elsewhere for now.

Besides, weren't the times and terms "agreed upon" the first time around?

Safety issues? Are there additional safety concerns depending on the color of one's skin? The racism shows through the smoke screen; it's black and white.

[ljmck]

Really? They need to VOTE to reinstate the kids? Pretty much tells you all you need to know about these bigots.

[onepotatotwopotato]

Liberals openly talk about their sexual preferences and practices, so what's wrong with discussing one's racial preferences and practices?

[springsm]

HUH?

[DCCommuter]

They should have discussed that before accepting the camp's $1950.

[robivecchi]

Oh yes, liberals discussing openness and acceptance of different races, ethnicities, sexual preferences, gender expressions, etc., is exactly the same as republicans discussing their distaste for all of the above. Maybe in suburban Philly.

[Disuberence]

Sexual orientations you mean. Sexual preference is like when you climb into bed with mom tonight. Give into a little BDSM and end it with some incest.

[thehoopoe]

You have a lot to learn about sex. And race.

Please don't try to do both at the same time.

[JulieSA]

It looks as if the President of this club, the one who made the "complexion" statement, is a big Obama supporter and peace activist, or at least a guy with the same name is.

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2009/07/geez-that-story-sort-of-veered-left.html

[Haitiana4Obama]

Whether he supported the President or not is irrelevant. When members of that club complained about those children due to their ethnic makeup, and he caved in to their demands to expel those innocent children his voting record became worthless.

[n4m]

There is a research project at Harvard called the "Implicit Association Test".
It tests for biases in over 90 different areas, including race.
I heard one of the project's researchers on NPR.
He considered himself to be free from racism. He took the test and discovered, much to his dismay, he wasn't
You can find out more about the project and take a test yourself here
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/takeatest.html.

[CherrySpring]

I've taken that test three times (one or two years ago) and it always came back neutral, or the results are so confusing they couldn't be quantified, or qualified. I'm disappointed in that result, because it really didn't reveal anything. I think the test is a bit flawed.

[Truelee]

Why would it take an emergency meeting of all the members to reinstate the membership of the day care center but not when the day care center's membership was revoked? If it needs the membership to reinstate, it would need the membership to revoke a membership as well, which would allow the day care center to be present to defend its membership in the private club. I blame the leadership of the private club for cultivating a climate of racism which empowered its management (and members) to discriminate the day care center's children, who are largely dark skinned.

[yemaya]

Ask the kids what they think! if some want to go back, let them! If others don't that's ok too. My first reaction is to say NO. But we gotta start somewhere and I'm speaking about the young little racists in training who got out of the pool when the black kids were there. The parents may be too far gone in their ways, but there's still a chance to change the minds of the white kids.

[JRGris]

No deal with the club can make up for what they did. They need to arrange for multiple days per week some place else and they need to get clubs that have non minority kids to be there on the same days. They need to make the racism go away.

[ritenow]

I am sadden that these kids had to experience this - yet I am grateful for them because the racism and ignorance has been exposed and dealt with.

[edgraham]

Well, exposed anyway.