Posted on 07/08/2009 1:16:54 PM PDT by Titus-Maximus
More than 60 campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club and left to wonder if their race was the reason.
"I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child,'" said camper Dymire Baylor.
The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers' first visit to the pool suggested otherwise.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcphiladelphia.com ...
The steam coming from your ears has clouded your thinking
Again, you are free to condemn it, and they are free to do it. Isn’t it funny how that works?
In terms of them renting out the pool, if they entered into an agreement to rent the pool and broke it, that’s a matter of contract law and they are free to deal with that in court.
There is no steam coming from my ears, and my thinking is quite clear.
Please, you believe my thinking is unclear, you show me where private property rights and freedome of association are not fundamental principles of liberty.
You nor the government, nor anyone else has any right to tell private individuals who they can or cannot associate for whatever reason they decide.
I suggest you read the first ammendment of the Constitution if you think otherwise.
The right of the people peaceably to assemble with whoever they choose is a fundamental right.
Private Property rights are also fundamental to liberty, you cannot be free from opression if anyone holds any right to your personal property.
Private Clubs are free to allow or disallow anyone they want for whatever reason they want, and are just as free to allow or disallow whoever they want to use their property. The Catholic Church is free to refuse to rent its assembly halls to an abortion rights group, and if entered into a contract with them by mistake could break the countract and the only recourse is the violation of contract law, not that they are not allowed to do so, its that if they do they face a penalty for it. Its not a penalty of criminal law, but of civil law.
You are free to not like that people can decide who they do or don’t want to associate with, but of course you’re on the wrong side of liberty on that one, but hey, when you know better how everyone else should live their lives, you are so far on the other side of liberty that the concept is completely foreign to you anyway.
I know that there are still a few people out there who are very racist. Having said that, I would be willing to bet that this account is highly overblown if not made up out of whole cloth. I suspect the campers were causing trouble, being loud and obnoxious, and when action was taken against them, they choose to try to blame it on racism.
What do you expect in the blue appendage of an otherwise red state?
“white children looked terrified and ran to their moms”
_________
Yeah, black children can be terrifying.
I wasn't there so I dunno. But I can tell you that there is a lot of racial animosity simmering under the surface in places like Philly. White people moved out to the suburbs in droves from areas that used to be nice ethnic neighborhoods in North Philly and other places, as these places "went black" and turned into gang-infested ghettos.
So I'm sure this incident provoked those fears in the white folks there--whether it was merited or not.
And if these kids were not on their best behavior, that would've just served to reinforce old attitudes. Not saying anyone was right or wrong here--again I wasn't there--but I'm trying to explain why white folks in Philly and in the Northeast especially (which is still pretty white) are real touchy about this kinda thing.
It might have been different in some other area of the city that has been integrated for a long time.
Typically, saying they 'rented it out' implies that the organization had exclusive use of the facility for a period of time. That was not the case here.
You are working hard not to get it.
You are making a rather broad assumption, but nevertheless, I presume they “rented it out” to the day camp organization for use one day a week for a set period of time (which is unknown to me).
Call it what you will, they did what they did, and I would guess, with knowledge up front with whom they were dealing.
If they had such a rule, and I don’t think anybody has said they did, why did they rent out their facilities to a black day-care center without stipulating that no blacks were allowed?
Since we have very little information, I’m going to GUESS that 1st, they had no idea the group would bring 60 kids — maybe the agreement specified fewer, or maybe they just didn’t check. Second, I bet the kids did behave in a manner that was not appropriate for the pool, and that could be the reason they are trying to revoke their rent.
Or it could be that the club just didn’t know how many racist democrats were members, and once their racist democrat members complained about how they elected politicians to pay off all the blacks so that they wouldn’t have to swim with them, the club decided they didn’t want to lose all their racist demcorat members so they are trying to screw the inner-city kids just like the democrats do all the time.
Racis! Racis! Racis!
If this story is true, steps need to be taken to make sure the people running that pool never do something like this again. Racism is infuriating and unacceptable.
I’m sure the whole thing was someone flubbed up somewhere and a big stink is being raised over it.
However, regardless, the fundamental issue at place is this, its a private club, they can admit or refuse admittance to whoever they want.
If they signed a contract promising access, that did not have an escape, and refused to live up to their part of the bargain then they can be sued in court for contract violations.
Even if their only reason for it is purely racist, they have every right to be racists if they want to. This isn’t a public business or a governmental agency, its a private club. They can do whatever they want. They did not violate any law.. they broke a contractual agreement which is civilly litigated not criminal action.
Freedom of association is a fundamental right, and whether you or I or anyone else agrees with the reasons behind their decisions, they are theirs to make and government has no business telling them they can’t.
If this story is true, they broke a contract at worst.
This is a private club it is free to be as racist or non racist as it desires and you nor the government nor anyone else has any right to force them to do otherwise.
Their right to peaceably assemble and associate, and their private property rights are sacrosanct. You don’t have to agree or like it, but that’s reality.
There is no legal recourse against this club, other than if they did have a signed contract they broke the contract, thats it. The other party to the contract can sue for damages related to the contract but that’s it. There is, nor should there be criminal recourse against a private club for excercising their private property rights and their inalienable rights of free assembly and association.
Suggesting their should be is ignorant and totalitarian.
The thing about liberty is, is liberty applies to EVERYONE, not just those you deam worthy. I am amazed that I have to point this fact out to so many so called “conservatives”.
Parties and day-care centers reserved and paid to come.
They were required to GIVE THE NUMBER OF GUESTS and the GUESTS AGES so we could have adequate lifeguard staff (as mandated by the state).
When a Cub Scout group showed up with 75!! kids instead of the 25 they contracted for-—I made them rotate the kids in the pool.
That's probably what happened.
Ping
Pool clubs are generally pretty small in the Philadelphia suburbs. If someone brought 60 kids from outside of our community to our pool club on a weekly basis, there would be a lot of complaints unless all the members had been informed and were on board with the idea. These clubs are communities where people know one another, let their children go to the pool alone, cheer on their swim teams, and enjoy evening social activities. It’s not a municipal pool setting where there are many strangers. I think this pool manager horribly misjudged the situation. To what extent it was race, to what extent the kids’ behavior, and to what extend sheer numbers, I don’t know. On numbers alone, however, most clubs would have had a lot of trouble with this influx (lifeguarding, toilets, seating, noise levels, and even pool chemistry are affected by numbers of kids in the pool).
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