Where's the Outrage?

As long as I can remember, Philadelphia has always been known as a tough town. The slogan — City of Brotherly Love — was just that, a slogan. If you’re a football fan, you may be old enough to remember when the Philadelphia fans pelted Santa with snowballs. The Cowboys, Redskins, and Giants can attest that the Philadelphia fans show you very little love. Heck, Sarah Palin, at her most popular, got booed at a Philadelphia Flyers game.

My mother was the first to tell me about this strange story. There was this inner-city day camp that made some sort of financial arrangement with a swim club. Once the children showed up there were racial slurs, according to some reports. The children were basically kicked out of the pool and asked not to return.

Maybe this is just some big misunderstanding. On the other hand, maybe not. I spent a good deal of time over the last week or so discussing affirmative action with some good friends who are physicians. Many of my feelings fell on deaf ears. Some of the physicians argued that America has become an equal society and that affirmative action is no longer needed. This swimming pool incident seems to beg the question — how many more areas are there like this in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, in the United States?

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

A state agency is investigating a Huntingdon Valley swim club for possible racial discrimination after the club revoked a contract to let children from a Northeast Philadelphia day camp swim at its pool.

Officials and anti-discrimination groups expressed concern over the allegedly race-motivated decision, while protesters assembled outside the Valley Club’s locked gates twice yesterday.

Among them were Silvia Carvalho, 32, of Northeast Philadelphia, and her daughter, Araceli Bagwell, 9, who had been among the city campers swimming at Valley Club.

“This is pathetic,” Carvalho said. “The next day, she was telling me she was a minority. I don’t want her looking at herself that way. We are not going to allow someone to humiliate us like this.” (more… )

Tags: Race // 2 Comments »