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Shall we bring out the tiny violin? (Philly.com):
Racial-discrimination lawsuits against a private Montgomery County swimming club over its revoked contract with a Philadelphia day camp could cost enough to threaten the Valley Club's existence.
Attorneys, club members, and tax records indicated that a pair of federal-court lawsuits – one filed, one promised – could cost the club more money than it has and possibly leave board members liable for civil-rights verdicts.
“The only asset we have is the land, which housing developers have been trying to buy for years,” said Bonnie Bacich, a Valley Club member for 30 years.
“The outrage of having to go through this, with an African American president in 2009 – we don't take this kind of stuff lightly in America anymore,” said Montgomery County civil-rights lawyer Brian Wiley, who is not involved in the case lawsuit.
Wiley said fighting the issue in court could prove a fiscal challenge to the tax-exempt, nonprofit club, which listed $210,193 in assets in its most recent federal filing. “That club's got to settle that case,” he said.
The best solution for this matter is for the club to go belly up and have some rich black person — how about Bill Cosby, who hails from Philly — buy up the land and open up a club where anyone can take a dip in the purity pool.
11 Comments
Here come the ‘poor pitiful’ VICTIMS!Nice to be able to have the push/pressure/and$$ to win some of these. Just having discussion on another thread where someone had all the gall to disagree thatwhite men…were in the minority in this country. As a white woman, I told him to get out his calculator and try again.
Pat Buchananwill defend the club with all his pokey, dim-witted might.
That’s what I hoped protests would drive down the property valueThen an African American individual or group buys this rathole for 10 cents on the dollar. I don’t want any of these racists profiting from the sale.
Adding INSULT to INJURY is the best shot across the bow that any public accomadation that humiliates or hurts children….we’ll have your guts for garters.
I think the best solution is for the plaintiffs to settle and keep the club in operation.And part of the settlement is an iron-clad diversity policy at The Valley Club, starting with free, permanent memberships for everyone in Creative Steps.
I’d much rather have the membership of The Valley Club have no choice but to mingle with people of color than have them stay in their gated, racist fantasyland blaming those same people for not having any place to swim anymore. Creative Steps shouldn’t want to destroy a great place for them to swim, they should want to make sure it’s open to them and everybody else.
Why use the upper hand to destroy the enemy when you can use it to actually make things better for everyone, including future generations on both sides?
the members of the Valley Club do have a choiceto not return to the club under new rules, which many of the racist members will choose to do. They can’t be forced to swim with minority children. No, this is one of those instances where punishment does have to be meted out, and if they can find some way to settle, then they will. Of course I’m sure any terms of settlement will be a public admission that race was indeed the factor that made management eject the children from that pool — anything less would not be justice, because that cannot and should not be papered over, even if they only have to shell out 10 cents to Creative Steps and the families of those kids.
Of course, you’re right about the racist members not having to return…… but it’s been open since 1954 so this place is probably the only (or only good) local public/commercial pool. What better punishment than watching your non-racist neighbors and lucky city kids enjoying your old hang-out that you won’t let yourself return to?
My concern is that the most likely outcome of the club going belly up is that its land will be bought for development, as the one member states, which would mean everybody loses. Instead of losing a local landmark, transform it. Then if it tanks, it’s the racists’ fault.
I certainly agree that an admission of guilt and the reason for it is definitely a necessary first step on the path of truth and reconciliation.
To me it feels like this solution forces the kids to be in a KNOWN hostile enviromentthis club stepped in the sh*t, it ain’t the kids job to wash their shoes off.
“tax-exempt”?!?!?!WHY did they have tax-exempt status!??!?!
The Valley Club: 1954-2010Founded in 1954, just outside the Philadelphia city limits, explicitly as a reaction to the integration of Philly’s public pools.
Driven out of business, (let us say) in 2010.
It died as it lived – clinging to white privilege and whining all the way.
(That rushing sound you hear, like the opening of a vacuum-sealed jar of peanuts? That’s 2009, suddenly rushing into the rarified air of 1954 that had been hermetically maintained within the borders of the Valley Club.)
You can just hear him already, can’t you?“This country was founded by white swimmers!” ”All the important swimmers in history have been white!” ”What about white whales?! These lawsuits are trying to upset natural law!”
Re: I think the best solution is for the plaintiffs to settle and keep the club in operation. I agree. I don’t why people seem to want to add to the acrimony here. I mean, if the goal is to eventually have a pool where both groups of kids can swim, why not try to mediate a better option without going nuclear (courts, eventual bankruptcy of the club, etc. etc. etc.) as the first resort?
Or, more concisely: “An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind.”
The club keeps jumping up and down to insist that it wasn’t being racist when it kicked the kids out originally. I don’t buy their excuses for one second, and neither do most people. And as a result the day camp has the swim club over a barrel, so why not take advantage of that to come to a constructive solution. Say, the club allows kids from this particular day camp access (both individually on par with members, and as part of scheduled day camp events) regularly all summer, a personal apology to the kids from the club’s director, and specific promises for some kind of proactive minority outreach by the club (say, sponsoring a swimming group, or event) for the next few years.