This past summer, a group of little campers were scheduled to be on a field trip every Monday to a swim club in Pennsylvania. The camp arranged for the weekly trip with the Club, made their payment and had the permission slips signed by every parent. They did everything right.
The Club had different groups come to their facility before, so this was nothing out of the ordinary for them. They knew to plan accordingly.
The campers arrived at the pool with excited anticipation of playing with their friends and cooling off on a hot June day. What they experienced was definitely not that.
After arriving at the Club, the campers were told they could not come in because there were not enough life guards on duty to cover the pool properly. Not only that, some of the campers heard comments like "What are all these black kids doing here?" and others heard, "I am scared they might do something to my child." Not only that the president of the club's board of directors, voiced concern that so many children would "change the complexion" or atmosphere of the club.
On Saturday, the Club announced it was going to file for bankruptcy protection stating members "are all tired and beaten down and just sickened by how our club has been improperly portrayed."
In my opinion, maybe the Club should have thought twice about denying 56 chlidren a chance to play in a pool on a hot June day and just maybe the Club is portrayed for what it truly was because they did everything wrong.
While it sounds to me like there was DEFINITELY racism at play here, I also think that SOME may have been parents like me. I can't stand it when I have my kids at an organization over the summer (pool, museum, library, etc) and then get OVERWHELMED with children from a daycare. I have literally never seen a group (regardless of color) who were properly supervised and that acted appropriately. They run to the areas, push other kids aside and have ruined a couple of outings I have had. One time the museum offered me a refund. While I think that in this case there were definitely rasist fools at the pool, there might have been a group who did not care what color the kids were and just wanted a peaceful day....what they paid for. KWIM? Heather
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