Did Private Pool Turn Away Minority Kids?

Pa. Investigating Claim of Discrimination and Racist Comments at Swim Club

(AP)  Members and officials of a private swimming pool in a Philadelphia suburb reacted to a visiting group of minority children by asking them not to return and pulling other kids out of the water, a day camp director said, and the state is investigating.

The Creative Steps camp in northeast Philadelphia had contracted for the 65 children at the day camp to go each Monday afternoon to The Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, camp director Alethea Wright said Thursday. But shortly after they arrived June 29, she said, some black and Hispanic children reported hearing racial comments.

"A couple of the children ran down saying, 'Miss Wright, Miss Wright, they're up there saying, 'What are those black kids doing here?"'

Wright said she went to talk to a group of members at the top of the hill and heard one woman say she would see to it that the group, made of up of children around ages 5 to 13, did not return.

"Some of the members began pulling their children out of the pool and were standing around with their arms folded," Wright said. "Only three members left their children in the pool with us."

Several days later, the club refunded the camp's $1,950 without explanation, said Wright, who added that some parents are "weighing their options" on legal action.

The swim club denied any racial discrimination. In a statement posted on its Web site Thursday afternoon, The Valley Club said it doesn't have the capacity to deal with outside groups and returned funds to more than one camp.

The club called its membership diverse and said any comments that may or may not have been made by members were not shared by its board.

The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission will immediately investigate, chairman Stephen A. Glassman said Thursday.

"Allegedly, this group was denied the use of a pool based on their race," Glassman said. "If the allegations prove to be true, this is illegal discrimination in Pennsylvania."

The investigation was requested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The state NAACP president, J. Whyatt Mondesire, who serves on the Human Relations Commission, said in the statement that the commission can hold the club accountable if it is found to have discriminated against the campers.

"The law simply does not allow discrimination based on race," he said.

Sen. Arlen Specter issued a statement calling the allegations "extremely disturbing" and said he was looking into the matter.

Club president John Duesler told Philadelphia television station WTXF that several club members complained because the children "fundamentally changed the atmosphere" at the pool, but that the complaints didn't involve race.

The gated club appeared closed Thursday afternoon, and the guard station at the entrance was unattended.

A club member told a newspaper that she understood the problem was the size of the group, not race. But Wright rejected that explanation, saying the club covers 10 acres with a "nice-sized" pool and a separate pool for younger children. The board, she said, knew that her group included 65 children, and none of them had misbehaved.

"We were not welcome, once the members saw who we were," she said.

Wright said that the children were upset, and that she was looking for a psychologist to speak to them next week. Some have asked her whether they are "too dark" to swim in the pool, she said.

"I'm not going to validate this behavior by adults," Wright said. "It's unacceptable. This is preposterous, and I won't stand for it."

Wright said Girard College has offered to host the children for the summer.

[jabwhitaker]

Our city, South Bend, Indiana once had a pool closed to African-Americans but was supported by taxes dollars. After a lawsuit it was open to Blacks only one day a week. Eventually discrimation was ended. Years later the pool was closed in early 1980's down. Today, it is being rennovated and rehab and will house a "Civil Rights Heritage Museum"

see link to youtube to review the new "Natatorium produced by IUSB.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2eT-z9m0zI

Jessie Whitaker

[South-of-Heaven]

There really is no excuse for this,
BTW wasnt it near there that a group of teens Slaughtered an immigrant?
says allot about the mentality of the place.

[waffledogs]

Rich people + money do not = Brains hahahaha

[acehanlon]

And as to the "evil on evil" person, where do you pull justification out of? You too are guilty of vilifying people you don't agree with and stoke the flames are racism in this country. You and people with your mindset do more to harm minorities than any one. Shame on you, shame on you intellectual peers, and shame on CBS.

[Oregon_State_OSU]

Its amazing how White Trash wanna be Hoidi Toido white people just dont get it in 2009. Grow Up and Be Adults.

[koko98-2009]

I'm so glad the Supreme Court decided that the racial revolution is over in America and nothing more needs to be done to combat the racism that no longer exists in America.

I also wonder how many Latinos belonged to that club?

[hockeymom441]

It's funny to me that any time something bad happens to a black person, it's racially driven. No one cared about the white daycare centers that were asked to leave. But - as usual, any opportunity to get angry or media attention, is passed up before considering all of the facts in a situation. I find some people can't even practice the open-mindedness and fairness that they preach!

[acehanlon]

You are on the mark here, thanks for your keen observation.

[Club_Ams]

brian a wrote:
It is a PRIVATE POOL. End of Story.

I do agree that this story even being discussed is an example of how discrimination is alive in America. I bet none of you heard about what happened in neighboring Ohio. Here is an exert from the story as posted on ohio.com

"Akron police say they aren't ready to call it a hate crime or a gang initiation.

But to Marty Marshall, his wife and two kids, it seems pretty clear.

It came after a family night of celebrating America and freedom with a fireworks show at Firestone Stadium. Marshall, his family and two friends were gathered outside a friend's home in South Akron.

Out of nowhere, the six were attacked by dozens of teenage boys, who shouted ''This is our world'' and ''This is a black world'' as they confronted Marshall and his family.

The Marshalls, who are white, say the crowd of teens who attacked them and two friends June 27 on Girard Street numbered close to 50. The teens were all black."

How many of you heard about this story? Yet every major media is reporting about kids getting kicked out of a pool. YES - RACISM is alive and well in America.

[6591Hou]

But Wright rejected that explanation, saying the club covers 10 acres with a "nice-sized" pool and a separate pool for younger children. The board, she said, knew that her group included 65 children, and none of them had misbehaved.

"We were not welcome, once the members saw who we were," she said.
Wright said that the children were upset, and that she was looking for a psychologist to speak to them next week. Some have asked her whether they are "too dark" to swim in the pool, she said.
===============================================================
Aside from the fact that we do not have all of the information, how many young kids do you know would ask questions formatted like that? i.e. 'are we too dark to swim in the pool'.....that part of the story sounds questionable but apart from that my kids and their guests were kicked out of our subdivision's pool because the vice-president of the HOA, who happened to be at the pool at the time, felt that they were making too much noise (imagine teenage kids in a pool in the summer making noise!). The HOA and I resolved that issue after the fact, but at that time the kids left as they were told. Now move from 5 teenagers to 65 kids and imagine the noise, activity, and how many adults were with that large a group? I don't know how big of a pool it was but 65 kids is a lot of kids to inject into a pool that, apparently, had other people in it. I gathered from the story that whoever booked her group did not follow through with anyone else, the reason I say that is because if you book a room - you don't have anyone else in it when you get there, I would expect the same if you book a pool. So the club is at fault for that at least, they took the money and made the reservation, I find it hard to credit that they were ignorant of the ethnicity of who handed them the money or that they maliciously made the group bus out to their club just to score some points in sending them away. Those factors make no sense. Punish as the law allows the guilty, but let's first find out what all of the facts are.

[tautomer]

Posted by ToldYouSo29 Of course all races can discriminate, --but imagine another race being in power--not the white race......
___________________________________________________________________

Oh you mean like Obama and Eric Holder?