In Philadelphia the "City of Brotherly Love"
Video: Did Philly Swim Club Turn Away Black Children? - The Associated Press
I have been stating that discrimination still exists in America, despite what some wish to believe. I have faced it myself and know what it is like. There is only one word for it - appalling.
A group of black kids, apart of a summer camp, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a state near the nation's capitol, were openly discriminated against at a swim club.
Parents yanked their white children out of the pool, complained to club management and a refund was issued to the black kids, who were asked not to return. Though, they paid their fees, some club members felt their blackness lowered the tone of the establishment.
Some people love to state black people are paranoid, imaging and inventing items regarding being discriminated against, even accusing us of pulling the race card, but how do you explain what happened to those children. How do you explain the ongoing racial profiling that still exists in the nation. How do you explain the derogatory race based jokes that float around the internet.
Racism is truly sad, especially when it happens to children. They learned a nasty lesson today that they won't forget. Here's hoping, however, they will learn to forgive and understand that some, not all people are cold and unkind. However, you must not let their poor conduct define or embitter you. Rise above it.
Camp: Private Pa. pool turned away minority kids
By RON TODT – 29 minutes ago - HUNTINGDON VALLEY, Pa. (AP) — Members and officials of a private swimming pool in a predominantly white 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?"'" she said.
The gated club is on a leafy hillside in a village that straddles two townships with overwhelmingly white populations. It says it has a diverse, multiethnic membership.
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 in kindergarten through seventh grade, 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 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." ...
