Agency investigating alleged discrimination at pool

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

A state agency is investigating a Huntingdon Valley swim club for possible racial discrimination after the club revoked a contract to let children from a Northeast Philadelphia day camp swim in its pool.

Officials and antidiscrimination groups expressed concern over the allegedly race-motivated decision and protesters assembled outside the Valley Club's locked gates twice yesterday.

Among them were Silvia Carvalho, 32, of Northeast Philadelphia, and her daughter, Araceli Bagwell, 9, who had been among the city campers swimming at the club.

"This is pathetic," Carvalho said. "The next day, she was telling me she was a minority. I don't want her looking at herself that way. We are not going to allow someone to humiliate us like this."

Homer Floyd, executive director of the state Human Relations Commission, said the civil-rights agency began its investigation after receiving requests from the NAACP and other groups.


Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20090710_Agency_investigating_alleged_discrimination_at_pool.html

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[Xipe Totec]

2. While they're at it, they should investigate Kilmeade too

Fox's Kilmeade Says Americans Aren't Pure Because "We Keep Marrying Other Species & Ethnics"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqbL9-HzxH4

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Other species? Why yes, I married a box turtle myself!

Moran!

[old mark]

4. I was there. He looked really sharp in that suit......nt

[Wizard777]

5. That's exactly what I thought. It's looking like there is going to be heaping servings of crow.

I though was more likely due to noise or over crowding. But I was also willing to consider it was racism. But many here at DU proved how open minded they truly are by absolutely refusing to consider any other possibility than racism. I guess we can get down right liberal in our conservative ways.

[RamboLiberal]

8. The dumbasses at the pool made the contract

In the long run since it was only once a week for 90 minutes during a time the pool was likely lightly used by members and only for about 8 weeks, they could've just honored the contract and vowed not to do next year for all the day cares they contracted with.

A few of their members even called it racism in the stories I read today. One member said the board bowed to the racism of some of the members.

And I'm sure a few members probably bitched about the noise as well. But someone always has something to bitch about.

[Wizard777]

9. Yes they did. They also canceled other contracts. Basically they are admiting material breach.

They don't have sufficient facilities to provide the service promised. They made a mistake and they have taken the appropriate legal steps to remedy it. Basically thsi care was left in a lurch by the city closing their public pools. So this private club tried to help out by allowing them to become members so they could use the pool. They later discovered this wasn't workable because of the size of the group and pool. Also over crowding can present dangers. That why we have occupancy codes.

Instead of trying to punish this club for trying to help out and being unable to. Instead of trying to force a private club to do anything. Why not go after the city to open their very public no racism allowed pools? Except it's much easier to float our high ideals on someone elses dime and property.

[gordianot]

6. OMG we are in a time warp and it is 1962.

I grew up in a particularly racist area of Missouri, by 1963 even they had integrated the pools. Reason I remember was that the pool reserved for "negroes" was a block away and everyone all races used it (and had a great time). The complaint from city council was that too many white kids used the pool so to save money they closed it down, thereby everyone lost out. It really bites when you are racist and cheap.

[TrogL]

7. Let's do the time warp again

(pun intended - I'm doing the show again in August)

I remember the same sort of thing when I visited Buffalo N.Y. and saw "colored washrooms". It took me awhile to figure out that they weren't painted a different colour.

When there were race riots on TV, my mother asked if I understood them. My response that they were something about horses indicated I didn't.

[imdjh]

10. You had public pools? Why when I was a child....

Seriously- I didn't use a truly public (municipal owned) pool until a couple of years ago. I'd see movies on TV where they had pools at high schools and thought that was "TV stuff" along with a lot of other stuff that only seemed to happen on TV.

[gordianot]

11. There were three pools.

One on the West side of town one on the East side both were for whites only. The pool in the center of town was for "negro's" as stated on the sign but as I recall it did not say negro's only. I was nine years old when I asked if I "white kid" could swim with a black friend, the lady at the window said I could so I did. That summer 1962 the negro pool integrated on its own.

[RamboLiberal]

12. I remember my parents in the early 60's pointing out to me

as we drove through South Park in Allegheny County(Pittsburgh area) what used to be the "colored" pool & the white pool.

Other swimmers reacted quickly when the Rev. LeRoy Patrick shepherded six members of his congregation into the blue-green waters of South Park's biggest swimming pool.

"We got in the pool. They got out of the pool, most of them," Patrick says 50 years later. "For them we were a strange sight -- black people in the Corrigan Drive Pool."

The county-operated attraction had no sign saying "Whites Only," and no laws banned anyone. But whites patronized it in 1951 as they always had, while "Negroes" or "colored people" swam in a much smaller pool less than a mile away.

That pool, which officially was called One Hundred Acre Pool, was known generally as Sully's Pool, and it often was referred to by blacks and whites as The Inkwell.

Patrick, the young pastor of Bethesda Presbyterian Church in Homewood, had heard blacks didn't swim in the Corrigan pool and was surprised no one was questioning this. "I said, 'Let's see.' I got five or six young people from my church and said, 'Let's go swimming.' I didn't tell them or their parents what I was doing."

http://www.post-gazette.com/neigh_south/20010221spool2.asp

[imdjh]

13. Our lake was segregated.

The lake straddled the race line (the river below), so for blacks to use the white beach they would actually have to go pretty far out of their way or swim across. I can't recall anyone ever doing that. Then the Elks Club built a swimming pool and we didn't go to the lake anymore. It was kind of nasty anyway. I have never liked swimming in rivers and lakes. I'll take my chances with sharks.