No one from the Valley Club is talking beyond that statement on its website. Instead, it's the community that's speaking out:
Phil Gianficaro, Bucks County Courier-Times:
The Valley Club's statement on its Website says it underestimated the capacity of its facility. Are these guys kidding me? Don't tell me they didn't do the math beforehand. Don't tell me they didn't know that adding 65 kids and eight counselors on a Monday to a pool of a certain size and membership might or might not be a problem. The numbers were right; it's the color that was wrong for many club members.
The club further states it will re-evaluate the issue at a later date. Why? Are they planning to expand the pool? Are they considering restricting members from swimming on a particular day to accommodate campers? Are they funding sensitivity training seminars for all of those members laying in the sun trying to get darker? Just what will change?
The club also states it deplores discrimination of any form. Really? If that's true, then those members who pulled their kids out of the pool and questioned why black kids are at their pool on June 29 should be the ones shown the door.
The club statement also says that the club's board does not share the opinion of racial comment that may have been made on that day. However, by allowing those people to remain members, and by telling a bunch of minority kids they can't swim anymore at their club, they are indeed sharing those opinions.
Twelve days before the Creative Steps campers were shown the door, Wright said The Valley Club hosted four sixth-grade classes from Rydal East Elementary School in Abington. Only two of the nearly 80 kids were minorities. One of them was Wright's 11-year-old son, Marcus.
A wonderful time was had by all.
Philadelphia Daily News:
Amy Goldman, a member who was at the pool June 29 when more than 60 Creative Steps Day Campers came, said that she thought the club was inclusive to everybody.
"The kids were well-behaved and have every right to be here," she said. "It's shameful."
... The [Club's] statement read that the facility is not equipped to handle a group of that size.
But Goldman saw it differently.
"The pool was half-empty that day," she said last night outside the club's gate as a line of protesters chanted and raised signs.
Later in the evening, there were about 20 people as national and local media outlets broadcast their chants of "Jim Crow Swims Here!" as they strode back and forth in front of the gate that had been closed by early afternoon.
Goldman's boyfriend, Walter Pokish, a single father of four, said he had enrolled his children at the swim club two years ago after another nearby club declined their membership because he is Jewish.
Turns out, he said, Valley Club is no different.
"We thought it was more open-minded," he said last night. "This is about the children and no child should have been hurt over this. How can I be comfortable sending my kids here when all kids can't be here?"
Ronnie Polaneczky, Philadelphia Daily News:
In Indianapolis, Olympic swimmer and 2008 Gold Medalist Cullen Jones broke training for the U.S. Nationals freestyle finals to send love to Wright's campers. As one of the country's few black swimmers, he was disturbed by Wright's allegation of discrimination.
"Learning to swim and understanding the importance of being safe in and around the water are life-saving skills that no one should be denied," e-mailed Jones, who wants to meet with Wright and her kids.
... North Jersey Web designer Winston Jordan tried to contact Wright to offer support but discovered her camp has no Web site. He wants to build her one.
"Pro bono," he stressed.
Locally, PR maven Sarah Doheny, owner of Your Unfinished Business, snagged commitments from at least five of the chefs she reps to teach cooking to Wright's campers.
"I can get a dozen chefs," she said. "Just give me a number."
And, lest we forget the reason this story come about in the first place, several Good Samaritans have leapt at the chance to find Wright's kids a new pool.
Annette John-Hall, Philadelphia Inquirer:
I couldn't help but think about Dorothy Dandridge's biography, written by Yeadon's own Donald Bogle. He related a story about how the beautiful black singer-actress was once booked for a gig at a segregated Las Vegas hotel.
It was bad enough that Dandridge was forced to use the service entrance. But common knowledge must have held that black people emit some kind of strange and contagious disease when they swim with whites. Because rather than risk Dandridge's taking a dip, hotel officials drained the pool.
Yep. To the very last drop.
But this isn't 1950s Las Vegas. It's 2009 Philly.
"They didn't like the color of my skin. It makes me feel mad. And sad," says camper Jabriel Brown, 12.
"I didn't understand because we're all the same. We're just a different color," 9-year-old camper Kevina Day Morris says.
Marc Stier:
Yesterday about 45 people joined at various times in a hastily planned protest that lasted for a number of hours. We stood and marched around the entrance to the swim club chanting "Jim Crow Swims Here" and "No Justice, No Peace."
I was really gratified to see that most of the people protesting came from in the neighborhood. There were about four or five of us from West Mt. Airy.
And, most impressively, a few members of the club showed up to join us. As they explained, the new justification of the Swim Club’s decision to turn away 65 mostly black children was entirely bogus. The Swim Club claims that they had underestimated how difficult it would be to deal with so many kids. But Amy Goodman and other club members pointed out that the pool is much more heavily utilized on Saturday and Sundays that it was on a Monday at 3:30, even with the addition of 65 kids.
It is clear that the issue here is racism, plain and simple.
... We want the children at Creative Steps day camp to know that the directors of the Valley Swim club do not speak for all the members of the club or the neighborhood or the region. They do not speak for the majority of white people in this area, who are as appalled by what has happened in Huntingdon Valley as are black people. (I agreed to get involved in helping organize the protest precisely to make that point.)
Some of us also had personal stories that made this episode so grating. My friend Michael Moore, who urged me to get involved, went to a swimming pool with some white friends in North Carolina in the 1970s and was asked to leave.
And I saw something similar at my family’s small Catskill Mountains hotel around the same time. We had hired my friend, Ivan Richards, to be a life guard at the pool. One of the guests went to my father to complain because he didn’t want to be rescued by a black lifeguard. My father told the guest he had three options: he could find another hotel, he could agree to be rescued if necessary by a black lifeguard; or we could just instruct the lifeguard to ignore any trouble that involved him in the pool.
All of us know how appalling racism is. But when you see it first hand, it leaves an indelible impression, one that makes it hard later in life to let it go and not take a stand when you see it again.
And that might be the only good thing to come out of this sorry episode. We’ve seen, once again, that the most blatant, obnoxious racism is alive in some places in this country. We’ve learned, once again, how to stand up and say we oppose it.
You can all join in spreading this message on Saturday, July 11, at 12:00 noon at 22 Tomlinson Road in Huntingdon Valley.
Sign the Color of Change petition to encourage USDOJ to investigate.
updated so that local attorney Maxwell Kennerly can explain what will happen with the PHRC:
On its face, the Storybrook Day Camp story sounds favorable to the Valley Swim Club's position, but upon closer inspection it's another diverse day camp whose money was refunded after they showed up. Like the "statistics" described by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the presence of another minority Day Camp which was excluded might be very damaging to the Swim Club's defense, unless they can show similar exclusions / refunds of white camps or members.
But I think they've got an even bigger problem: we're having a debate they obviously did not have when they refunded the money. The concern stated at the time was over "complexion" and "atmosphere."
That's not the same thing as their website says, that they "quickly learned that we underestimated the capacity of our facilities and realized that we could not accommodate the number of children from these camps." ...
And that's what will probably sink the Swim Club's defense: they can't get their stories straight. At some point, even the most open-minded juror can tell you're just treading water.
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Previous Diaries
Valley Swim Club: Day Two [ACTION Alert]
The Valley Club Is Being Investigated