Today, kids, I thought it would be fun to take a little ride on the Wayback machine to a place where ignorance was in full flower and bigotry and stupidity stumbled hand in hand along the path of history.So, join me, if you will, on a journey to yesterday.
No, really, I actually mean yesterday.
Like, as in the day before today.
HUNTINGDON VALLEY, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- The president of The Valley Swim Club on Friday strongly denied charges of racism after his club canceled the swimming privileges of a nearby day care center whose children are predominantly African-American.
"It was never our intention to offend anyone," said John Duesler. "This thing has been blown out of proportion."
Duesler said his club -- which he called "very diverse" -- invited camps in the Philadelphia area to use his facility because of the number of pools in the region closed due to budget cuts this summer. He said he underestimated the amount of children who would participate, and the club's capacity to take on the groups was not up to the task.
"It was a safety issue," he said.
The Creative Steps Day Care children -- who are in kindergarten through seventh grade -- went to The Valley Swim Club in Huntingdon Valley on June 29 after the center's director, Alethea Wright, had contracted to use the club once a week.
During their first visit, some children said they heard club members asking why African-American children were there. One youngster told a Philadelphia television station a woman there said she feared the children "might do something" to her child.
Days later, the day care center's $1,950 check was returned without explanation, Wright said.
She was dismissive of Duesler's comments Friday.
"He knows what happened at the pool that day," Wright told CNN in a telephone interview. "I was embarrassed and humiliated."
She called it an "unfortunate situation," adding, "I know what happened; the members know what happened and a higher power knows what happened." Watch the club president say racism is not at play »
After news reports of the incident, the office of Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pennsylvania) said Specter sent a letter to the club president asking him to reinstate the contract with Creative Steps, saying, "I think that you would agree that there is no place for racism in America today."
Duesler said he appreciates the senator's concern, but the club's board has yet to make a decision of how it will proceed.
"If we're going to revise our policies here, we need to make it so for all the camps," he said. "I just don't think we're prepared for that."
Duesler earlier in the week told two Philadelphia television stations the children had changed "the complexion" and "atmosphere" of the club, a comment that protesters outside the facility Thursday said showed that racism was involved.
Bernice Duesler, John Duesler's wife, called the negative response her husband has faced since the incident "unbearable."
"He's not one of the good guys -- he's one of the great guys," she said, holding back tears. "He doesn't deserve this."
She added, "If there really was a racial issue that happened, my husband and I would be the first one[s] picketing."
Jim Flynn, who said he was one of the club members who made a complaint against the children, told CNN this week it was not racially motivated.
"There were a lot of children in the pool and not enough lifeguards," he said. "As general members we were not told that they were coming. If we knew, we could decide to not come when the pool was crowded or come anyway. We could have had an option."
He also said invitations to two other day care centers, neither of which contained minority children, had previously been withdrawn.
Here’s the reason the “excuse”, such as it is, won’t wash.
Or swim, as the case may be.
If you contract with a group of people to have them come to your house, for example, doesn’t it seem like common sense that you would ask, somewhere in the process, “…uh, how many people are we talking about exactly?… "
In the light of common sense, the whole “we underestimated” thing is exposed for what it is.
A poor effort to distract and divert attention from the real reason the kids were sent packing.
Or as the more equestrian minded among us might say…
Horseshit.
That said, my personal take is that it’s missing the target, not to mention the point, to tar and feather this Duesler guy.
Anyone who has spent time around the “weekend at the Hamptons” types knows that when you work for rich people, you pretty much do what rich people tell you to do.
Or you don’t work for rich people very long.
And it’s all well and good to offer up that if Mr. Duesler is “not the good guy, but the great guy” that his wife testifies him to be, he should have done a Norma Rae and stood on the diving board with a piece of cardboard that read “NO RACISM” as the kids were being shown the door.
Or the drain, as the case may be.
But we don’t live in a world that fades to black at the end of each dramatic moment leaving the hero in a limbo that we assume to be a happy ever after.
We live in a world where taking a stand can very easily instantly result in standing in line.
The unemployment line.
Knowing no more than I can glean from the coverage, here’s what I’m thinking.
The affluent got one look at the Afros, the self righteous indignation lit up like a designer Hibachi on the balcony of a Philly penthouse condo and the word came down, lightning fast, from on high that there were simply too many black kids in the pool for it to be safe.
Too many was defined at the moment, I would imagine, as…one.
Duesler did what Dueslers do.
Walk the minefield of trying to be true to his moral and Christian values while saving his ass with the bosses.
Do I think, if all the facts we’re getting are legit, that the “board” of this “club” is made of up of some pretty reprehensible human beings?
Duhh.
Do I blame Duesler for trying to hang on to his gig by fronting for these pampered paragons of higher society and offering up what anybody with a whit of sense knows is the aforementioned pony droppings?
Not so much, no.
I think we all imagine that if faced with the choice of standing up for something or losing our livelihood, we’d stand up fast and hard and, job be damned, let justice be done though the heavens fall.
We all want to believe that we’re Norma Raes.
In the real world, we’re more likely Dueslers.
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