If baseball’s America’s summer pastime, then swimming’s its younger, more generous cousin. You don’t even need equipment to partake in the sport, just large amounts of standing, hopefully clean water. Maybe a towel and a swimsuit, but we’ve all found ourselves in situations where the latter was unnecessary. But that’s an issue for a different article.
(The new faces of terror in America.)
But even more than a sport, it’s a group activity, one of the most inclusive and fun in the dog days of summer. “Everyone into the pool/lake,” etc. Well, inclusive and fun… until the dreaded Afro-Americans show up!
Take it away, NBC PHILADELPHIA:
The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers’ first visit to the pool suggested otherwise.
“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.”
C’mon. No way. This isn’t the 1950s. No way it went down like that. People aren’t that overtly ignorant about race, right? Right???
“There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club,” John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.
Oh you have got to be f–king kidding me.
Okay, look. We’re about to grant a rather unusual concession here, but it’s important to get the ball rolling a little bit when it comes to thawing things out. It’s okay to be scared or skittish around black people. It’s all right. Black people often feel the same way about white people. Well, if they’re cops, at least.
What’s not okay, though, is to treat black people like walking sticks of dynamite and “doing something about it” before anybody does anything wrong. They’re people too. And rest assured, if your name’s ohIdunnomaybe Murphy, your ancestors were going through the same stupid s–t a hundred years ago. A little empathy might go a long way–certainly farther than “HELP GET MY WHITE KID AWAY FROM THESE NEGROES HELP HELP,” anyway.
5:21 pm on July 8th, 2009
OMG what’s next, the dreaded Hispanics? That’ll get those Negroes out of the pool.
5:49 pm on July 8th, 2009
Dat them negroes don’t shower before swimming, ain’t right.
6:12 pm on July 8th, 2009
It’s either the Asians or the Sand Negroes that’ll kick the Hispanics out. Who owns this Valley place, anyways, Senator Byrd? I didn’t know the KKK was active in Philly.
7:09 pm on July 8th, 2009
quickly!…queue the next Jesse Jackson rant in the Chicago Times or whatever trash he spews in. this was bullsh*t for sure, and all it’s going to do is raise more racial tension. the NAACP should hold their next conference there. that’ll scare the sheets (and hoods, most likely) right off of those ‘club’ owners.
7:48 pm on July 8th, 2009
Black people swim?
8:11 pm on July 8th, 2009
When they left, did a member say to staff, “I want the entire pool scrubed, sterilized, and disinfected!”?
9:52 pm on July 8th, 2009
I live in Minnesota, and I used to be a police officer in a larger first ring suburb of Minneapolis. It never ceased to amaze me that the most hate hatred towards black people came from Somalians. Go figure…but this story, if true, is just wrong.
10:57 am on July 9th, 2009
Get with it. There are still restricted clubs in the U.S. Less than 10 miles from Harlem, there is a country club in NJ that forbids African-Americans. It’s called Knickerbocker CC in Englewood, NJ.