<p>Bringing in summer camp kids to raise money has been discussed at
my pool, and god knows the board would do just about anything to
raise a buck. But fortunately, wiser heads have always prevailed and
we have never done that. It would certainly change the atmosphere
at the pool. That said, once the contract is signed, you have to live
with it. So shame on Valley Pool for breaking the contract.</p>
<p>[Pa</a>. swim club defends self against race accusation - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090710/ap_on_re_us/us_swim_club_minorities]Pa”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090710/ap_on_re_us/us_swim_club_minorities)</p>
<p>As someone who’s been around summer swim club pools a lot, I think safety was a huge issue. When D’s summer swim team (about 80 kids ages 6-18) had their season-ending pool party, they had to pay for several extra lifeguards to be on duty. And those kids were all able to swim 25 yds of butterfly! </p>
<p>Safety is safety, and this pool manager should have seen what was coming. I bet he did not hire enough lifeguards to handle the situation!</p>
<p>So, it appears that there is a perfectly logical reason other than racism, but the swim club members have now been called racist and there will be an investigation.</p>
<p>Am I the only one who is tired of reading about these types of events - someone had to call the news media about this and, of course, no other reason was even considered.</p>
<p>Only in America. The land of freedom</p>
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<p>There may be a perfectly logical reason other than racism, but that doesn’t mean that the perfectly logical reason was the actual reason.</p>
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<p>This seems to be the only thing mentioned in the article that could be seen as evidence of the racial context of the situation. Any other action, including pulling your kids from the pool when the group came, could be seen in the context of wanting to avoid trouble. </p>
<p>One thing the director of the kids’ group said that made me laugh: the group was 65 kids in number and none of them misbehaved!</p>
<p>^ what sort of troubles?</p>
<p>^Safety issues with not enough lifeguard supervision.</p>
<p>In the above link regarding the club defending itself, there is this:
“Rosenthal said at least half of her 25-member group was made up of racial minorities, and their money was also returned after one visit.” So the management had already experienced a group of 25 and found it to be too big for their facility. Yet they let the group of 65 come any way? Why would they?</p>
<p>If anyone saw the story on the CNN news channel, they did a little on site interview with a little black boy that was part of the group. He, in tears, described the reactions of some pool goers claiming that they were scared of their children being harmed and having their possessions stolen by these black kids.</p>
<p>Another guy came on after and pretty much said the quotes being used to claim racism were taken out of context but regardless of any details the president is simply an idiot.</p>
<p>So to me it seems like the racism came from some pool goers and the stupidity came from the pool staff.</p>
<p>Once again people are blowing this out of the water…The safty issue was that the kids could not swim and that the pool (only 1/3 of it was a shallow end) wans’t big enough to accomidate them.</p>
<p>I am SO sick of hearing about all the racism that is pointed at the black and hispanics. What about the Whites? They are just as bad to them and don’t tell me it doesn’t exist because i’ve seen it. Yet, we almost never hear about it. Why? Because of stories like this.</p>
<p>*Sorry if i offended anyone with my rant…</p>
<p>I used to live in Huntingdon Valley. I spent a good amount of time at the Valley Club as a little girl, though as a guest, not a member. HV is a pleasant middle to upper middle class suburb; it’s not snooty at all. It’s not the Main Line and it’s not old Philadelphia wealth. HV is right next to NE Philly and there’s a lot of back and forth between the city proper and HV.</p>
<p>It’s a very small pool. I doubt it could handle 65 children without appreciably taking away from the experience of the members. I think it’s quite possible that members of this small swim club objected to 65 kids descending en masse, and I don’t blame them. </p>
<p>I belong to a small pool and I’ve inquired about holding parties there for my teens and they only allow X number of kids / teens for parties there, to keep the experience nice for the rest of the members. I totally get that. I think this is quite possible that this is a to-do about nothing.</p>
<p>Sure they had the right and justification to object to the kids entering the pool, but when they started saying things like, “What are all these black kids doing here?” and crap like that… well that’s when things went downhill.</p>
<p>Trivia: Huntingdon Valley is the home of …
Terri Schiavo
Nancy Spungen (of Sid and Nancy fame)
Valerie Plame</p>
<p>It also appears to be the home to some less than tolerant people. OK the pool was small and management should not have even considered having the children there. This does not take away from the reaction of the members to the children. </p>
<p>I am outraged at the reception the kids got. It seems others are outraged because someone made a bad decision to let them even come to the pool. </p>
<p>Poor members, the pool is over crowded…Let’s insult the children who had nothing to do with the arangements. Sure.</p>
<p>Is it automatically racist to ask “Where did all the black kids come from?”</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t say it’s “automatically” racist. After all, the only way it could be definitively labeled “racist” is if a racially derogatory term was used, such as the all-powerful “n” word (which, regardless of their actual views, most people are very careful not to use anymore), but if one’s reaction had absolutely nothing to do with the race of the children, why mention the race of the children? Why not just ask, “Where did all these kids come from?” </p>
<p>Granted, everyone at the pool that day is a unique and separate individual, and it would be unfair to assume that they all had the exact same feelings about the presence of the children. I’m guessing that some people were indeed offended by the presence of all those black children in their “private” pool. Others were simply dismayed and confused, and non too happy about the overcrowding of a facility they assumed would be fairly quiet and uncrowded on a weekday morning, a facility for whose use they pay a substantial monthly fee. Others were probably conflicted and confused. Regardless, the children came away from the experience with the impression that people didn’t want them there because of their race. The little boy in tears broke my heart. I blame the ****-for-brains manager of the club. I agree that if you are going to open up your private club to a group of day campers who are not members, you should send out a notification to your paying members. I know if I were a member of a club (we only have a Y membership), I would steer clear of the pool on any day in which it is scheduled to be occupied by 65 minor children, and I would be somewhat miffed to arrive and find that a quiet swim is now out of the question.</p>
<p>hahahahahahahaha</p>
<p>The people trying to justify and rationalize the pool people’s actions are hilarious… and sad.</p>
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<p>This is less a racial problem, per se (“We hate black people”), than a problem with stereotypes. People who grow up in middle to upper middle class white neighborhoods often get their opinions of what urban black kids are like from the media which often portrays them as violent, drug addicted rapper/criminals who would just as soon prey on the weak. </p>
<p>It may be too late for this, but I hope there might be some outreach from one group to the other. There is a thread about how a roommate of another race helps to decrease prejudice by blasting away stereotypes. I think we definitely could use some help here.</p>
<p>Stereotype or no stereotypes, I can understand members not wanting their environment invaded by 65 WHITE kids, either. The pool that I belong has limits on the # of guests a person can bring. My kids couldn’t bring 65 of their friends, either. The pool area can’t handle it and the members pay for an atmosphere that is relatively calm and peaceful.</p>
<p>Knowing the small size of this pool as I do, I think the club made a mistake in allowing 65 kids to come in, in general, even if they’d been bussed from the Main Line. I’m also willing to believe some people made nasty comments for which there is no excuse. I don’t think it’s either / or.</p>