By now, you've probably heard this story:
Members and officials of a private swimming pool in a predominantly white Philadelphia suburb reacted to a visiting group of minority children by asking them not to return...the state is investigating. (emphasis mine)
"Empathy" seems to be the constitutional principle of the day. And ya just gotta have empathy for the swim club people. I imagine that now they have to go through the extra expense of draining and disinfecting the pool before they let the white kids back in to pee in it.
Maybe even just fill it in and dig a new one. After all, that spacial void has been desecrated. How can a white kid ever occupy that space again?
Some are calling it a return of Jim Crow. How Jim Crow can 'return' to a place he's never been is beyond me.
Jim Crow lived in the South, not in Philadelphia, and were a series of laws and civil codes restricting mingling of the of races in public places.
I see no reason why the state of Pennsylvania needs to investigate this matter any further than what the article already states: that a private swim club, on private property, may not want to welcome people of a different race.
That's what "private" means.
If it is O.K. to have black-only fraternities, a United Negroe College Fund, or a Congressional Black Caucus, then it should be O.K. for a swim club, or any kind of club, to pick their own members as well.
I'm not calling for a return of segregation, and the doctrine of "Separate but Equal" was flawed from the beginning.
But the right to freely associate should be treated as such. Maybe we can call it the doctrine of "Be And Let Be."
By now, you've probably heard this story: 
1 comment:
It occurs to me that in the phrase "minority children" the second word isn't getting enough attention. How little experience do you have to have of real life to think that KIDS are some kinds of bastions of innocence that aren't capable of being kicked out of a pool? They were being kids, and that usually means being annoying--often times unbearably annoying...to quote an American Hero, "It doesn't even matter if you're black or white," Although I think MJ had a slightly different attitude toward pre-adolescents...
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