Blog 1: Ethnic Division

Settlement alleging racial bias against Pa. day campers includes unusual diversity provision

In recent news, a lawsuit about a racial discrimination case was settled. In Philidelphia, Pennsylvania, a group of african american and hispanic children were discriminated against at a local swim club in the luxurious hillside of a predomanently white neighborhood. The children were members of the Creative Steps camp, who paid for them to go swimming at the Swim Club every monday for the price of $1,950, considering it was about 65, mostly, minority children. The first day the children arrived at the pool, many of the kids had claimed to get funny looks from some of the white Swim Club members who also began to pull their own children from the pool and even heard some comments and remarks that made them feel uncomfortable. The day camp's money was refunded for Swim Club told the children to never return to the pool again. When asked the Swim Club workers came up with excuses to why they told the children to stay away from their property. One was that they didnt have enough lifeguards to supervise the children, and that many of the kids could not swim. When interviewed, the President of the Swim Club, John Duesler stated that so many of the children would "change the complexion" or the enviornment. Later, he apologized saying that he chose a poor choice of words. The incident created protest and condemnation by major olympic figures and actors such as Tyler Perry, who supported the movement for equality and justice. The Swim Club eventually had no choice but to file for bankruptcy and the property was soon bought by a local synagogue for the hefty price of a million dollars. The rest of the settlement, about $1.1 million dollars was granted to the 73 children and camp members who were discriminated against for the use of starting more programs and activities for the children.

This entire situation, in my opinion, was completely unfortunate. For those children to be subject to such cruel discrimination was very hurtful to me as I could put my feet in their shoes and walk in their footsteps. It surprises me how people just cant seem to stop living in the past. Why cant they see that we are all human beings and our skin color isnt a disease, or it isnt uncleanly. It is apart of us and we all have it. That's some questioning for another discussion but reading this article mad me realize two things. That yes, there is still some relevent occurances of ethnic division. And secondly, Im not saying bad things happen to bad people, but i guess im saying you reap what you sew, if you do bad upon others, there will be consequences and because of the horrible racial offenses inflicted upon the children and camp members, the Swim Club was protested against, it soon filed for bankruptcy and was auctioned off. All because they didnt want minority children in their pool.

August 23,2012
11:34pm
490 Words



http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/suburban-philly-swim-club-settles-complaint-alleging-bias-against-black-hispanic-day-campers/2012/08/16/76ad2eda-e802-11e1-9739-eef99c5fb285_story.html