‘Complexion’-conscious swim club wants Campers back (sort of)
The Creative Steps campers at their most threatening.
The first rule of public relations: never allow a crisis to become a calamity. By initially defending its decision to expel the Creative Steps summer camp and its 65 Black and Hispanic kids from their pool, the Valley Club in Montgomery County, PA screwed up, especially when its board president, John Duesler, told a TV station his members and board feared the kids’ presence would “change the ‘complexion’ and the atmosphere” of his club. Well … after two more tries; in a lame statement on their website (which is now down) and another in front of television cameras for 14 minutes, Duesler is trying for his fourth bite at a pretty rotten apple: belatedly inviting Creative Steps to come back. What? Yep. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
“The board decided we would reach out to Creative Steps to . . . get the kids back to the club in a safe environment,” John G. Duesler Jr., president of the Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, said late this evening.
A storm of controversy has surrounded the club since it barred a return by Creative Steps’ 65 children after the group’s first visit there June 29. Asked why the club was reversing course, Duesler said, “Because it’s the right thing to do.”How the new overture will go over with officials and families at Creative Steps Inc. of Northeast Philadelphia was not clear.
Duesler said he had “reached out” with his conciliatory message to Creative Steps director Alethea Wright “in e-mails, phone calls, and texts. I have not heard back yet.”
“They should have done that before,” Wright told CNN this evening. “These children are scarred. How can I take those children back there?”
And why the sudden change of heart (mitigated by the continuing, lame protestations about “safety…?”) Try a discrimination lawsuit filed last week on behalf of four of the kids (the lawyer is working pro bono.) Sunday’s late announcement apparently will put that suit, which could prove both costly and embarassing for the club, on pause, especially if it turned out to be just the first of many. And of course, there’s that investigation by the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission. Powerful motivators there! According to the Enquirer, the board called an emergency meeting Sunday and decided to reinstate three camps that were disinvited, “as long as safety issues, times, and terms could be agreed upon, according to the Associated Press.” Oh really? What safety issues and terms, pray tell? Could it be that the quisling Mr. Duesler and his board would agree to swim “times” for the black kids that would coincide with times when actual club members, who after all are quite sensitive about whom their children splash with, aren’t around? What seems clear, particularly from Duesler’s wife Bernice Duesler’s comments to CNN, is that the “outreach” on Sunday was mostly a legal, not an ethical decision:
“As long as we can work out safety issues, we’d like to have them back,” she told CNN.
She said the club has been subpoenaed by the state Human Rights Commission, which has begun a fact-finding investigation, “and the legal advice was to try to get together with these camps, ” Duesler added.
How lovely, Bernice. If I’m Creative Steps, I tell the Dueslers to take their club and dunk it. The kids already have a new place to swim, where they’re being made to feel welcome. The Valley Club has been appropriately shamed and will likely suffer at minimum, a short term loss of revenue (plus the long term loss of face), and now the camp can get about the business of bucking up these kids’ spirits, and letting them enjoy ther rest of their summer.
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- Swim club president changes the complexion of his story
- Swim club that booted black kids under the microscope
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20 Responses to “‘Complexion’-conscious swim club wants Campers back (sort of)”
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Jeez. This woman now needs to get a grip and get over the situation. Typical “blank” person. The camp is milking this situation for all it’s worth. You don’t hear the swim club inviting back the other 2 camps that isn’t dominated by minorities. Hows that fair? African Americans are always the first to pull out the race card.
YET AGAIN—-The year 2009 and still there are “IGNORANT people out there. If anybody should get over it….it should be those that ADHERE to the notions of JIM CORW…….
YET AGAIN—-The year 2009 and still there are “IGNORANT people out there. If anybody should get over it….it should be those that ADHERE to the notions of JIM CROW…….
Hey Get-Over-It…
Perhaps you didn’t pay attention to the racist comments that the other parents were making. Whether the decision to kick them out was racist or not, those comments were definitely still racist. Is there any situation where you would admit racism MIGHT have been in play? Likely not. Are there times when racism is called into question when there were no racist understones? Sure. But try to consider both sides. You sound pretty typical yourself, jumping to all sorts of conclusions without even knowing the whole story. You’re no better.
I believe that they are making a big mistake by not returning to the pool. I suspect that the board was working under the idea that it made their members uncomfortable. Those members will never change their minds about blacks until they are forced to recognize that they are no different.
Staying away just makes them believe they won no matter how much bad media attention is paid to it. People wake up!!! You don’t live in a homogenized society anymore. Get used to diversity, because it’s not going away.
To my knowledge none of the commenters were present at the incident, therefore none can know the the whole story. This does take away thier right to draw conclusions and make comments.
Sadly racisms exists and always will. In my experience all races are guilty of it. The question is if the Valley Club discriminated against Creative Steps on the basis of race. Just because members of the club made racists remarks does not prove the club banned the children on the basis of race. In fact the evidence suggests non-minority groups were also banned.
Making racial comments is not illegal. Racial discrimination is. Confronting racism is appropriate and important in improving race relations. False charges of racial discrimination have exactly the opposite effect. Before you level such charges, make sure you are making things better, not worse.
I wouldn’t even entertain of meeting with them, going back to the pool. I’d tell them to shove it so fast. I hope the parents stand firm on this one and tell the director, “oh, hell no”. They didn’t start back pedaling until the Justice Department got involved. Sue their azzes into bankruptcy!
I wouldn’t even entertain the thought of meeting with them. Let alone going back to the pool. I’d tell them to shove it so fast. I hope the parents stand firm on this one and tell the director, “oh, hell no”. They didn’t start back pedaling until the Justice Department got involved. Sue their azzes into bankruptcy!
So the other two camps didnt get invited back because???
[...] Club sued Posted on July 14, 2009 by jreidWell, I guess that hasty, Sunday evening decision to invite the “negro children” back to swim didn’t work out so well.(CBS/AP) A suburban Philadelphia swim club’s board [...]
Hey Andrew & “get over it,” how about you READ the story? You know, where it says: “the board called an emergency meeting Sunday and decided to reinstate three camps that were disinvited.”
See that word “three” there? that indicates that all THREE camps were invited back. It’s called covering your *** after you get sued.
Just a quick correction, it’s the Philadelphia Inquirer (not Enquirer).
jeremie,
“The question is if the Valley Club discriminated against Creative Steps on the basis of race. Just because members of the club made racists remarks does not prove the club banned the children on the basis of race. In fact the evidence suggests non-minority groups were also banned.”
Sure. It is also atmosphere that matters and that is up to the club to suggest if racism is taking place at their establishment. When they allow so much, such as this case, there arises a pattern of racism that the club is then responsible to distance itself from if indeed they do not want to discriminate. The membership I’m quite sure has some form of conduct “rules” written somewhere. If their employees are not allowed to discriminate based on race, etc, then the club has a responsibility to its members, and the public at large that are allowed to swim there that it abides by the club policy extending all the way from their employees to the patrons themselves. Otherwise what is the point, right.
GetOverIt,
It would appear that you pulled the race card out a bit too fast yourself…
@Diane-
Thanks for the heads up on “Inquirer”!
@the poetryman-
I’m not sure what “evidence” you’re talking about. The club director has provided much of the “evidence” in the case, and his initial statement was that THIS club was asked not to come back. After the brouhaha erupted, they also disinvited two other clubs, which Duesler described as “multi-ethnic.” So it looks like they got all the minorities in one go, and tried to save face by banning the other two clubs. Your evidence to the contrary would be…?
And btw, the idea that the campers were banned based on race isn’t based on an assumed policy of the club — it’s based on anecdotal evidence that club members’ race-based complaints prompted the club to dismiss the campers for essentially, no reason at all (or a made up one: crowding — something also disputed by a club member.)
Paul “Earthquake” Moore, Slain Police Officer Charles Knox Philadelphia’s award-winning Mural Arts Program has been responsible for beautifying walls and closing racial gaps in many of Philadelphia’s most blighted neighborhoods. This is also true of the new mural that immortalizes community activist Paul “Earthquake” Moore and slain Philadelphia Police Officer Charles Knox, “This means so much to me to have my image on the wall of a playground that I couldn’t even come to as a black as a kid growing up several blocks from here in Paschall,” said Moore smiling. “I mean we couldn’t even walk up here. Going to Bartram which is near here back in the 70s, we had to take a special route through the white neighborhoods just to get to school. This is truly an accomplishment for me as a black man to be honored in this way Police Officer Knox, a 31-years-old, three-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department, was shot twice and killed by robbers on August 30, 1992 after responding to a call at a Roy Rogers restaurant on Broad Street in South Philadelphia. Moore, an activist in the Southwest community, who has initiated countless programs to uplift and feed needy citizens throughout Philadelphia but especially in the section of the city where he was born and raised. For information on the event, call Moore at (215) 385-2696
Four things:
First, while I am not sure on this point, isn’t Duesler an admitted Obama voter (i.e., a brain-dead white liberal who would soil his pants rather than appear “racist”)?
Second, “complexion” is obviously not always a reference to skin color. If the club is really a big bad bunch of racists, I’m sure they can cloak it better by using code words, e.g., describe the change as leading to a very “urban” environment.
Third, what is the cause of action in the proposed lawsuit? A private club can legally discriminate on the basis of race or whatever else it wants. Nor would the plaintiffs have standing to challenge the org’s tax-exempt status.
Fourth, I can see that few posters here have experienced the pleasure of hanging around dozens of Negro youths. I suggest each of you try that and then come back here to comment.
What an appropriate name for you, Jim, given the amount of winger Kool-Aid coursing through your veins. So why don’t you educate us on the “pleasures of hanging around dozens of Negro youths.” I’m sure your thoughts would be most enlightening.
By the way, if you gathered that Mr. Duesler was an Obama voter, you’ve proven that you can read, since that has been reported on this blog and in about a dozen news stories. Unfortunately, you’ve proved little else.
Good day.
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