Valley Swim Club racism or just don't want kids around?

The Creative Steps Day Car, A Philadelphia-area day care center, claimed that Valley Swim Club in Huntingdon Valley made racial comments then canceled the daycare's swimming privileges.

Now in reading the story and I, myself calling Valley Swim Club (VSC) I came of the mindset that this is not a case of racism. This is not about a group of African American kids running around a rich white person swim club. When I first read the story my mind was screaming something was wrong.

Well let's discuss first private swim clubs. These are usually high cost recreation areas. in other words members pay hefty dues to be a part of the club.The VSC club includes more than 10 acres of land and a 110,000-gallon pool, according to its Web site, and is a private nonprofit organization chartered in 1954. A single membership is $395 per year. The expectation of paying these club costs are for the peace and relaxation. Most of these swim clubs do have membership forms to fill out and need to be accepted before you can attend. Imagine if you would that you are a dues paying member. You spend hundreds of dollars per year to be a part of a private swim club, you go to the pool and suddenly you have dozens if not hundreds of kids running around and screaming. What happened? You did not join a public pool, you did not spend your hard earned money to be subjected to this. Being someone who has had their pool overrun by people who I thought did not belong, I can understand the frustration. I do not think the racial comments were said, but I will address that later.

Now let's discuss the day care center. What is not clearly reported is how many councilors were on hand to handle 65 kids at the pool. Some unofficial reports claim it was as little as 4 councilors, others claim it was 8 councilors. What was also scarcely reported was how the kids from the camp entered the pool area. Several reports were the kids rushed the pool screaming and yelling then jumping into the pool. It was also not clear was how many other day care centers were there. This was not about racism this was about a pool club that gave no warning to its members when it allowed these day care centers come to swim.

Here is my personal thoughts on this:

First this is not racism. I will explain in detail my thoughts on this. This is poor planning on the part of the VSC to not notify it's members. Had the members been notified that day care children would be attending and not to be surprised things might have been handled differently. The sudden influx of black children screaming for the pool might not have been such a shock or surprise. I am sure some comments would still be made, but not racial remarks. More along the line of "How can they let those kids carry on like that?"

Second this is also poor handling on behalf of the day care center. They did not keep the kids in control they let them run loose, as they charged the pool essentially scaring the crud out of everyone there. I am sure it would have looked like the pool was being invaded by a bunch of kids who did not belong there. Instead of keeping the kids under control they ran rampant until they were asked to leave.

Third kids are going to be kids. If they are not with their parents, or just bad parenting, children will act like excited children who have not been to the pool in a long time. In other words yelling, screaming, running. These things that are not expected at a private swim club.

Lastly I firmly believe that this was blown out of proportion by the day care center. I see this as a way to get back at the day care center for canceling their swim time. It is far to easy in this day and age to claim racism and get a huge amount of publicity. Instead of dealing with the fact that your kids did not act appropriately and were kicked out for bad behavior. Let's label this place racist and get the media to condemn the swim club.

Bottom line this is not racism, as much as people want it to be. This makes me embarrassed to be a black man.... or am I.

As always I am Blogger X, an unknown. You can take my report at face value or you can try to deem me a racist. Either way you don't know if I am white, black, man, or woman. Instead I am a human being making a non biased report on something I perceive as biased media reporting.

Till next time,

Blogger X