a matter of complexion
Jul. 10th, 2009 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
realthogI got an e-mail today from the excellent ColorofChange.org. It reads:
Dear Paul,
Two weeks ago outside Philadelphia, 65 children from a summer camp tried to go swimming at a club that their camp had a contract to use. Apparently, the people at the club didn't know that the group of kids was predominantly Black.
When the campers entered the pool, White parents allegedly took their kids out of the water, and the swimming club's staff asked the campers to leave. The next day, the club told the summer camp that their membership would be canceled and that their payment would be refunded. When asked why, the club's manager said that a lot of kids "would change the complexion ... and the atmosphere of the club."1
A "Whites only" pool in 2009 should not be tolerated. The club's actions appear to be a violation of section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act.2 Whether or not any laws were violated, a "Whites only" pool should be something every American condemns.
Please join us in doing exactly that, and please email your friends and family and invite them to do the same. Your signature will also be used to call on the Department of Justice to evaluate suing the facility under federal law. It takes just a moment to do both, here:
http://www.colorofchange.org/swim/?id=1769-186583
Obama is President but that doesn't mean that suddenly all is fine when it comes to race in America. This is a vivid reminder of what we know still lies beneath the surface.
We all know stories like this one -- similar incidents play out quietly every day in different communities across the country. The difference in this case is that folks got caught and there was a contract in place that makes for a potentially illegal act.
Standing up now isn't just about making things right for these kids in Philadelphia or bringing consequences to this swim club (called the Valley Swim Club). It's about creating a climate of accountability everywhere. If we can publicly shame the Valley Swim Club and hold them accountable for this incident, it will make others think twice before engaging in what appears to be blatant discrimination.
Please join us in condemning the Valley Swim Club's behavior and calling on the Justice Department to investigate whether they violated civil rights laws. And please ask your friends and family to do the same.
http://www.colorofchange.org/swim/?id=1769-186583
Thanks and Peace,
-- James, Gabriel, William, Dani and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
July 10th, 2009
Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU -- your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don't share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:
https://secure.colorofchange.org/contribute/?id=1769-186583
References:
1. "'Pool Boots Kids Who Might "Change the Complexion,'" NBC Philadelphia, 07-08-09
http://bit.ly/90Zyr
2. "Section 1981 Summary," Employment Law Information Network
http://www.elinfonet.com/1981sum.php
More Resources:
"60 Black Kids Booted from Philly Pool For Being Black -- Speak Out," Jill Tubman at Jack and Jill Politics, 07-08-09
http://bit.ly/GkJTs
VIDEO: "Please Don't Change the Complexion of our Pool," This Week in Blackness, 07-08-09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saTCMJVYljU
"Swim Club Accused of Discrimination," FOX 29 Philadelphia, 07-08-09
http://bit.ly/7EKGy
"Valley Swim Club: Day Two," Adam B at Daily Kos, 07-08-09
http://bit.ly/qbpSA
Please, if you can find a moment, add your name to the petition. This kind of barbarism shouldn't be tolerated in a supposedly civilized society.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-10 09:32 pm (UTC)People just can hardly believe this kind of thinking and talk and behavior is still going on in 2009.
Love, C.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-10 09:37 pm (UTC)"People just can hardly believe this kind of thinking and talk and behavior is still going on in 2009."
Well, I'm one of those hardly-believers, as you may have guessed.
What strains the credulity to breaking point is that this isn't a story from some Bible Belt state where they still think Jesus lurves the KKK; some dump ruled by inbred white trash like Jena. This is near one of our major cities and cultural hubs.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-10 10:26 pm (UTC)Thank you for posting this.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-10 10:36 pm (UTC)And probably at least half of the people involved announced loudly and long how they wept, wept they declared! for such great grateful joy when it was announced that Obama was the new POTUS.
Love, c.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-10 10:57 pm (UTC)"And probably at least half of the people involved announced loudly and long how they wept, wept they declared! for such great grateful joy when it was announced that Obama was the new POTUS."
Hm. Actually, I'd guess most of these atavists thought O GAWD IT IS AN OFFENSE AGAINST JEEBUS THAT THIS MAN WITH DEEP SUNTAN DUN BIN ELECTED (is that how you spell "elected," Bubba?).
I find it extraordinarily difficult to be charitable towards this country's white trash. They could have all that the modern world offers; instead they choose to expend their energies in irrational hatred.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-10 11:11 pm (UTC)Love, C.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-10 11:14 pm (UTC)"it was the members, who pay hefty membership fees, who complained"
I'd call them white trash.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-10 11:35 pm (UTC)Love, C.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-10 11:39 pm (UTC)"Trash is as trash does."
Precisely.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-10 10:24 pm (UTC)Although, curiously, many of those who don't want our opinions fail to understand why we might be less than pleased if they interfere with us. Odd, that.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-10 10:40 pm (UTC)To be honest, I'd have thought an international contribution would in this case be very helpful: the Valley Swim Club dorks are probably so far comforting themselves with the thought that all they have to contend with is a bunch of uppity blacks (except, natch, "blacks" won't be the word they use). The more they can be jolted into the realization that it's not just blacks who despise them, and not just Americans, the better.
"Although, curiously, many of those who don't want our opinions fail to understand why we might be less than pleased if they interfere with us. Odd, that."
You're dealing with the small but bigmouthed coterie of Americans who fail to understand that there's a whole great big universe outside the USA. These arseholes dominate both the major political parties -- not just, although to an infinitely greater extent, the Republicans -- and they're responsible also for the fact that in many ways this country is stuck somewhere pre-Enlightenment: hence such imbecilities as the ideology that, if you can only shout loud enough, evolution won't be true.
Almost all of the Americans I deal with daily don't fit that stereotype: most have roughly the same worldview as you or me. (You'll have realized this from reading the commenters on my own LJ.) Yet their reasonable voices are drowned by those of redneck numbnutses and career politicians, on both sides of the House, who've been bought by corporate interests.
I have the aching feeling that the US is a democracy threatening at any moment to bring itself into existence.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-10 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-10 10:59 pm (UTC)Please do. But of course
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 01:58 am (UTC)But every time I think maybe we've gotten over some of this stuff as a nation, I hang with the rellies for a while and realize there are a lot of people who are easily led to believe that all their troubles can be attributed to the blacks/homosexuals/Mexicans/name-your-not-"us"-flavor-of-the-day.
Sigh
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 04:40 am (UTC)"I hang with the rellies for a while and realize there are a lot of people who"
I know where you're coming from. We're friends with a couple of people who, despite lots of other sterling qualities (otherwise they'd not be friends), have similar attitudes. What's boggling is not so much that they use the "n" word as that they have no conception, however often told, that it -- and other racist shit -- might, like, be offensive to all the rest of their white friends.
Curiously, when their black friends (they have some, and these are not fake friends but close ones) are around, the racist shit never appears. It's as if these people are living in two quite separate realities.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 02:31 am (UTC)The chairman of the club seems to have done some creative backpedalling since the story came out.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 05:00 am (UTC)"It's truly amazing."
I have to confess that I find every aspect of racism amazing. I mean, here we are with lots of important things we can genuinely, fundamentally disagree about, and much/most of the human race is concerned about fuckin' skin color. What next? Discrimination by hair color, singing voice, eyebrow hairiness, style of underpants, sexual orientation . . .?
Oh, hang on a mo. People do discriminate against others according to sexual orientation.
Well, surely no sentient mortal would discriminate against another because of the other's lack of belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Oops.
Much of the time I detest the entire human species, myself included. That's my form of discrimination, and I'm not sure there's a cure . . .
As for the Valley Swim Club morons? You do the revolution, I'll do the wall. Deal?
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 02:37 pm (UTC)In South Africa, back in the days of apartheid, the tool used by the Race Classification Board (yes, there was such an agency, and a felt need for it) to distinguish between white and coloured (or blankes and kleurlings) was a comb.
You don't believe in the FSM and His Noodly Appendage? Heretic!
Sexual orientation? That's which way you're pointing while engaged in the act? Right. Frankly, unless you've got the qibla right, you're a dangerous heretic, and should be shunned. If you're not shagging while facing Maqqah, start doing so at once.
As for the ways in which humans can be stupid: When Javanese indentured workers were taken to Surinam, they prayed facing west, as they had in Java. Some of their children, being better educated than their parents, began to pray facing east. This led to quarrels between east and west-facers, and even to fights and feuds, and the refusal of west-facing families to allow their sons and daughters to marry the heretical east-facers.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 02:44 pm (UTC)"This led to quarrels between east and west-facers, and even to fights and feuds, and the refusal of west-facing families to allow their sons and daughters to marry the heretical east-facers."
Jonathan Swift, where are you?
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 02:57 pm (UTC)Savage indignation there,
Cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty.
(W.B. Yeats)