It’s A Complexion Thing
Anonone brought this article to our attention.
More than 60 campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club and left to wonder if their race was the reason.
“I heard this lady, she was like, ‘Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?’ She’s like, ‘I’m scared they might do something to my child,'” said camper Dymire Baylor.
The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers’ first visit to the pool suggested otherwise.
“When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool,” Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. “The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately.”
The next day the club told the camp director that the camp’s membership was being suspended and their money would be refunded.
In case you’re thinking this was just a misunderstanding…
The explanation they got was either dishearteningly honest or poorly worded.
“There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club,” John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.
Talk about a Freudian slip. What’s really sad is that this indefensible crap still exists… and seems to be growing.
Tags: racism
This is the most vile story I’ve heard in a long time. Disgusting.
How did it come about that the white kids got out of the water when the African-American kids got in? Was this spontaneous or did someone tell them to do this? I just hope that this club gets a lot of picketers.
This is the world that “Rhymes With White” thinks we should live in. A world where children are denied a swim on a hot summer day because of the color of their skin.
Whenever you read anything that he writes here, remember this story.
Because it is the essence of who he truly is.
When El Somnambulo was a kid, the family drove up to Lenape Park for a day trip.
Upon arriving, and standing in line behind a black family that was turned away, ‘bulo’s family was informed that it was a private club, but that they would be permitted in.
Of course, it was ‘private’ only to exclude blacks.
Needless to say, ‘bulo’s family piled right back in the car and headed home. That was FIFTY bleeping years ago.
Never saw Lenape, never returned, but learned a real lesson that day.
Hard to believe that this still exists today.
El and UI, what world do you live in?? I’m married to a black woman (she call’s herself brown but whatever) and I have first hand seen blatant racist acts against her, us, and my 5 year old niece at various places. There are places in Delaware (and other states) we refuse to eat in anymore. I found more acceptance with her friends and family than I initially found with my family with our relationship. I’m sorry but racism is alive and well in the US
Of course I know racism is alive and well, but this blatant type of racism is pretty rare nowadays. Normally, the club would just refuse to take their money. This club took their money and then threw them out!
Good point, Mark H. ‘Bulo’s world doesn’t seem to interface with that world anymore. There were so many places that the Beast Who Slumbers was not permitted to go when he was a kid b/c they excluded blacks. The Rialto Theatre (in its first run, not its porn house phase) was one.
‘Bulo would like to know about any place that currently discriminates, just to make sure that, even by accident, he doesn’t patronize them.
Might shock you, dude, but the minute they signed the contract with the camp they gave up all right to discriminate based upon race.
And as I have said a million times, I condemn racism and discrimination as immoral and fundamentally wrong. Whether it should be illegal is another question altogether — I’m just sort of what you folks call “pro-choice” in a different context.
I disagree. I’m playing tennis in Greenville CC Sunday afternoon, and probably won’t be taking her there for the possibility of someone pissing me off and then I’d start throwing racquets 🙂
I’ll tell you a brief story from about 3 years ago. In a Indoor USTA league I play in, a team from Germantown Cricket Club was wanting to join the league. The club has a rule similar to Wimbledon concerning attire, meaning only white clothing. The captain of the team called the league coordinator and due to a misunderstanding, the LC thought that the “Whites Only” policy she was referring to was about people, not clothing. The Coordinator emailed back saying that they’d have to play some of their normal home matches away as there were a lot of teams with blacks on them.
So, not only did the league coordinator think it was OK that blacks weren’t allowed in this club, he was willing to accommodate the team. We had a good laugh about it, but when you think of it in the above context, it’s not that funny.
And I’ve only played at GCC once as I hate wearing all white 🙂
Somewhat related. A local republican wanted to be a district chairperson in an area which needed help. The local republican is an IT professional and Latina woman. Her offer of help was rejected.
I sent out an email this morning to John Duesler, the president/manager of this little racist swimming hole. These people are going to be very, very, VERY sorry they have crossed me and all of my anti-racist friends. They will be very sorry, indeed.
Here’s the full text of the email I sent him this morning:
“Dear Mr. Duesler,
I recently became aware that you said that “There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club,”, in a statement concerning what happened when the Valley Swim Club ejected over 60 Philadelphia children from the pool. I am watching your behavior closely in this matter, and want to know what it is that you mean when you say, “change the complexion”. Does that mean that you are a racist, a person who does not like black children? If not, does it mean that you are retarded, and somehow don’t know what a statement like the one that you made sounds like to intelligent people?I would like an explanation for the ejection of the children (who did nothing wrong) from the pool, and I also want an explanation from you about your behavior towards the reporters from NBC Philadelphia.
I await your explanation,
Rich Boucher, Poet.”
The phone number for the club is
215-947-0700, and the email is info@thevalleyclub.com. It is time to BRING THE PAIN to these racist asses.
Also, here’s a tip, for when you send your email:
Use this (or something similar) in the title line of your email: “inquiring about memberships”
^ this will help prevent them from automatically just deleting the emails without reading them!
(got the tip from DailyKos.com!)
And I’ve got a new trojan I’ve been dying to test out on someone. They got a website I can deface?? 🙂 HAHA
Also, I sent the email to Duesler at 10:55 am today, right after a friend on Facebook hipped me to this.
Bulo, one is closed (Ruby Tuesdays at the Dover Mall), one is on 13 just before the Bay Bridge Tunnel, and the other one (and the worst) is in Lancaster, PA
With the RT at the mall, we just ran into a butthead waiter. With the other two, I believe it was pretty much the norm for those places. BTW, The Lancaster resteruant is called Lapps
This sort of hateful behavior breaks my heart. I can just imagine those children’s faces. This experience will never leave them.
And the children who left the pool when they entered (either on their own or by their parents’ instructions) learned, or already had learned, something vile. Racism is taught behavior and the true sign of failed parenting.
“does it mean that you are retarded. . . “
How dare you be so insensitive towards the developmentally disabled as to write such a hateful thing in your email. Didn’t you learn anything from Barack Obama’s Special Olympics debacle some weeks back?
‘Bulo knows that there was an issue like this related to Denny’s as well. While ‘bulo values his high-cholesterol breakfasts, the Golden Palace on Concord Pike satisfies his Jones, so he’s never been to Denny’s.
Boucher et al–I am appalled at your use of the term “retarded”, and the resurrection this word has seemed to undergo. Hate to say it–but it flattens your outrage to the club.
but this blatant type of racism is pretty rare nowadays.
Publicity of this kind of blatant racism is pretty rare these days — but this kind of thing in varying degrees is not so rare.
Joanne – sorry if the word “retarded” offends you, but I do not have time in my life to spare the feelings of racists.
In the larger view, in the grand scheme of things, me calling a racist “retarded” is simply (fact now, NOT conjecture) not as bad a thing as a racist behaving, well, in a racist manner against black children.
Take your sensitivity and recalibrate it, and aim more wisely than you have done.
What you should be appalled at is a swimming club that tells black children that they are the wrong color, that they do not deserve to swim and have fun the way white children get to.
Blatant racism does still exist, as UI and El have pointed out. Down here, it calls an American Legion post (home of SCCOR) home. My partner and I have some friends – she’s white, he’s black – who caused a bit of a stir when they went to this AL post as guests of some neighbors. Seems the unwritten rule at this post is that it’s whites only, and mixed-race couples are a definite no-no.
Their neighbors were told never to bring this couple again as guests and soon after, the neighbors stopped talking to them. I guess belonging to the AL was more important to these idiots than being good, friendly neighbors.
Agreed Cassandra.
I just posted the link to the story on my FB page. Maybe if we all did this, we can inundate them with emails.
This reminds me of the swimming hole in the movie “Liberty Heights.” It had a sign out front that read “No Jews, Dogs, or Coloreds Allowed!” But I guess that’s what Baltimore County was like back in the 50’s. Simply ugly!
Thank you, MJ. I did the same early this afternoon on my Facebook page. I got a good handful of people to spread the word and viral this thing all over Facebook.
MJ, if I remember right, the Moose lodges were pretty bad too
Even before ‘Valleygate’ I started questioning, in my own mind, how all those lovely kid pix in the Snooze from the Delaware Nature Center ‘summer camp’ were devoid of diversity.
Look at pix in Flower Mkt. , independent & religious school, etc. ads and you’ll see there is a pattern and a lack of diversity.
This year the Canby Park swimming pool is not open….after years of complaints about the behavior of kids traversing certain neighborhoods to/from the pool. What this means is people who live SW & W of I-95 do not have an outdoor pool for this season.
Oh, and may I be so bold as to say that our electeds of color seem to be ok w/the Canby deal.
I say it’s everywhere, it’s everywhere…you only have to open youre eyes and ears and you do not have to be a person of color.
Susan, how about the Delaware State Fair? Notice the billboards down in Kent and Sussex county. Never seen a person of color on those billboards.
SRC – I am on the board of an organization that serves children. When I got on the board, an incident occurred that made me re-evaluate the way the public viewed the organization. I took a critical view of the website and discovered that despite a large non-white population that we served, there were only 2 non-white faces on the website (and one of those could easily have belonged to a white child with a tan).
I pointed this out to the rest of the organization and the problem was rectified. But no one saw it before that. I am amazed at how easily that sort of thing slips the mind.
“Down here, it calls an American Legion post (home of SCCOR) home. My partner and I have some friends – she’s white, he’s black – who caused a bit of a stir when they went to this AL post as guests of some neighbors.”
That’s very unfortunate that this kind of thing still happens, MJ. I used to live near there and it may surprise some that the majority of those who live there and frequent the AL are transplants from New Castle County, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
Here’s one of those sweet ironies that amuses me to this day. When I was a kid my family spent a lot of their free time at Trap Pond State Park. There were two swimming beaches, one for blacks known informally as Jason Beach, and the main beach, complete with lifeguards, concession stand, screened pavilions, etc. None of which were available at Jason Beach.
The irony? Jason Beach was … upstream… from the whites only beach.
Love the irony, Mis.
…just like the firefighters in Conn that finally received justice.
Oy, Tom. Always with the ugly?
I think that summer camp program is going to end up owning a swimming pool.
Miscreant,
How can a location at a pond be “upstream” of another location at the same pond?
Now wait a minute–what’s going on w/ Canby Park Pool? I learned to swim there, but I thought it was closed long before this year?
“How can a location at a pond be “upstream” of another location at the same pond?”
Easily… The direction of the flow of the water comes from Raccoon Pond, which is upstream from Trap Pond, and flows past Cypress Point (Jason Beach) to the spillway, which is approximately 125 yards past the main swimming beach. From there it continues to flow northwest to Records Pond near Laurel. I was there kayaking at Trap/Raccoon Ponds couple of weeks ago.
Same as it ever was…
Get out much?
Is Sotomayor still a member of a women-only club?
Disqualified.
I wonder if Duesler is a Republican?
To Mark H.
“Susan, how about the Delaware State Fair? Notice the billboards down in Kent and Sussex county. Never seen a person of color on those billboards.”
See Mark, if you would have done your research, you would have known, that that statement, is not true.
In 2007 Bill Cosby performed at the Delaware State Fair.
Also, in 2008, various groups of different races were invited to the Fair, as well as in this years upcoming Fair. (As you could see from this years Billboards and Schedules)
The Fair has always, even way before the 2008 Fair, included the community in all of it’s activities and scheduling of events, no matter of what color or race.
Therefore, your statement is, false.
Interestingly enough, info about the guy from that pool has leaked out. Guess who he supported for president last year (ANSWER: Barack Obama)
DESCI, read the post. I’m not talking about the entertainment, I’m talking about the Billboards. I’ve been a Fair stockholder since I’ve been born. How integrated is the Board of Directors of the Fair? NOT… My point is that the Fair (or their marketing dept) doesn’t market to minority communities, or one could take the position that like LG’s example in post #27, they just don’t realize what they are doing. 🙂
Given their multiple fiasco’s concerning online ticket sales, I might agree that they don’t know what they are doing 🙂