Everybody out of the Pool! Oh, wait a minute…
July 12th, 2009 by Larry Bellinger Posted in Current Events, News, Politics, RaceBy now you have probably heard of the incident at the country club near Philadelphia where a group of predominantly black and hispanic kids was booted from the club’s pool even though their camp had rented access for the summer. Reports were made of how some of the club members may have made statements that were considered racist by the campers.
Unfortunately, it seems that a major miscommunication took place concerning the number of campers slated to participate and remarks made by the club president , John Duesler, (what WAS he thinking?), were interpreted to be racist.
Duesler later told reporters that his remarks were poorly worded. When he made his first statement he was either being ridiculously honest, or incredibly stupid… more likely he was just tone deaf.
By the time I post this I’m willing to bet there will be a resolution and the kids will get swim time at the club. By making the arrangement in the first place, the Valley Club knew they were dealing with three summer camps altogether. Unfortunately, someone didn’t conduct “due diligence” on the logistics: How many campers would need instruction, how many lifeguards would be on duty during camp swim time, etc.
I’m also willing to bet that some of the remarks reported by the campers were authentic. It’s freaking human nature. Country Club members enjoying the pool with their kids were probably “surprised” to say the least, when 65 “minority” kids showed up that Monday morning. Let’s face it, some of those white folks probably felt intimidated and probably feared for their kid’s safety. So while the club may be “diverse” that usually means less than 10 percent of membership falls into the minority category. So you bet the “complexion” of the pool changed abruptly that morning.
Hopefully, this incident will lead to open and honest dialogue among the camper’s families and the club members.
There was no such luck for me one summer. Every summer my parents sent us to Amityville Beach for the Town of Babylon’s Red Cross swimming program.
1968 was a traumatic year for the whole nation. That year did more to set my political identity than anything that had happened before or since. That Spring, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were murdered while trying to make this country a more perfect union and that Summer I got my first taste of overt racism… at Amityville Beach.
One afternoon after swim lessons my brother, Bill, and I went into the snack bar for a couple of hot dogs and Pepsi-Colas. While standing in line I noticed a chant of some sort had started among some of the teenagers in the snack bar. The chant was led by a blond kid in yellow swim shorts sitting at a table with a bunch of his buddies. He would call out, “I SMELL A GAR!” and the response was, “A CEE-GAR?” to which he replied, “NO! A NEE-GAR!”
Roars of laughter came from the majority of the patrons in the snack bar as they repeated the “joke” over and over again. My brother and I were the only blacks in the room and we were also among the few who weren’t laughing.
I wasn’t laughing because I didn’t get it. Bill, however, was fuming. He said, “Let’s go!” “Don’t you want a soda?” He looked at me and there was a sad fury in his eyes. ” I SAID, Let’s go!”
We walked out to the bike rack and saddled up to go home. Bill was mad; so mad he was shaking.
”What was so funny back there?” I asked.
“Wasn’t nothing funny in there!” he replied.
“So what was everybody laughing about?”
Bill looked at me and said, “They were laughing at us. They were calling us niggers.”
I was devastated. All those folks didn’t like me and they didn’t even know me!
Bill said, “Forget them! We can get some grub on Sunrise Highway.”
When we got home we made it sound funny to our friends, “Yeah, they didn’t think we knew what they were saying!” But it wasn’t funny; not in the least. It was hurtful and it sure let you know where you stood in your own hometown.
When I told my Dad about the incident a few days later he gave me some of the best advice I ever received; “There will always be idiots and you are going to meet your fair share of them. But remember, everyone is different. You can’t judge everyone you meet by how someone else treated you. Take everyone you meet one at a time. If you let how one person treated you affect how you deal with everyone else, you are gonna miss out on some real good people.”
Great advice. I passed that on to my kids in my own fashion. “You’ll run into assholes and saints and everything in between. Just take people as they come.”
Point of information - my kids swam competitively while they attended their prep schools - so went to a lot of swim meets where we were either among the very few or we were the only black family in attendance.
I called my brother to see what his recollection of the event was after 41 years. Like me, he remembered every little detail; it was if it took place yesterday.
I sincerely hope the kids from the Day Camp near Philly will have a better memory of their incident when all is said and done.
3 Responses to “Everybody out of the Pool! Oh, wait a minute…”
By Bill on Jul 29, 2009
Yeah Bro, I remember that incident very well. In fact Gordon and Barbara were with us as well. Gordon and I had already exchanged the “we need to go” looks before I said to you that we were leaving. You and Barb being much younger hadn’t yet experienced racism first hand until that moment. I, however, wasn’t spared as you both were and was much younger than both of you when I experienced racisim for the first time in Amityville.
It was circa 1962 and our circumstances then required me to change from Northeast Elementary across town to Northwest Elementary during the 2nd grade; Charlene was in the 5th grade at Northwest. Northeast was K-3 however Northwest was K-5. The other difference between the two schools was that Northeast was intergrated and so was Northwest except K-3 was not.
I was taken to the school by Mrs Jenkins to be registered. I was told that this school was very much like the one I left and shoud have no problem finding my way to Mrs. Kelloggs’ 2nd grade class. I knocked on the door and was met by a heavyset blond white woman who said, “What do you want?”
I told her may name and said the Principal told me to come to this class. “Well there must be some mistake because you are not in this class!” and she sent me back to the office where I was told to tell her that there was no mistake and that I am in her class. She sent me back again and they sent me back. This time she sent me back with a girl whom I only remember had short dark hair. We returned and she informed Mrs. Kellogg (who could forget that name), “They said he’s in our class!”
I remember her telling me to go “sit over there” which was in the back of the class and then she got on the phone to the office I presume. She stretched the cord so that she could stand in the hallway and close the door. I could hear her speaking angrily and loudly. In the meantime, I realize for the first time that I am the only Negro (which was how we were identified as during this time) in this class. In fact I was the only Negro in the school below the 4th grade which I was to find out later on. But it didn’t bother me so much as it bothered them. Everybody was staring at me like I was a sideshow freak. The teacher came back into the room so red in the face she looked like a radish.
The next few days were uneventful. I had befriended a little blond girl who sat next to me and happened to live around the corner from us. The house where we lived was directly across the street from the school; which was fortunate, because it was later to provide a safe haven from the playground.
I was playing jacks with the girl and I felt a tap on my shoulder. I stood up and turned around to face this kid who says to me, “What are you doing here?” I don’t quite understand the question and replied that I was playing jacks. He said, “What are you doing here on OUR playground? We don’t want NIGGERS on OUR playground!” I haven’t the slightest idea what a nigger is, never heard the word before but it seemed that he was talking about me. I now realize that there is a big crowd standing behind him. I said that I went to school here and it was my playground too. “That’s what you think!”, he says giving me a shove.
I was no fool, I knew something was going down and it was going to be bad. I didn’t know about racism, but I was familiar with bullies and he and his boys were going to beat me up. So I shoved him and I ran. They chased me around the entire playground and miraculously, they were not able to catch me. I finally located a teacher and hid behind her. She basically tried to throw me back in the shark infested waters but couldn’t force me away from her. I believe that they would have allowed them to get me as long as they could claim that they weren’t around and didn’t see it. I was no dummy. I stuck by the teacher wether they liked it or not. I was promised that they would get me.
I laid low by the cafeteria door the next few days during recess and no one bothered me. I let my guard down and was back playing jacks with the blond girl. Next thing I know, “Hey Speedy Gonzales!” Never mind that I’m not Mexican or a mouse for that matter but I take off running from this crowd and again they can’t catch me.
This pattern continues for some time and I find out that Speedy Gonzales is now my official nickname.
Luck runs out eventually and one day I take a wrong turn. As I’m running, I look back and the ENTIRE playground (all boys of course) are on my ass. I went thru this fence opening and down some steps which takes me down to a baseball field with backstops. I soon realize that there is no way out except for the way I came in and I was trapped.
This was the first time I was to ever bluff my way out of an asskicking. This guy is in my face calling me BLACK NIGGER, you think you so fast, think you’re smart,(shoving me into the backstop and I shove him back) but now you’re caught, what are ya going to do now you FAGGOT!!! (I didn’t know what that word meant either!) I said, “I know I can’t beat all of you and I know when I’m licked. But while they are on top of me beating me up, I’m going to be on top of you, see?”
“Oh YEAH?” Yeah. “Well we’ll see about that. You’re lucky the bells going to ring!”, and he starts walking off and the rest of them follow.
Now I’m standing there out of breath thinking, are you kidding? The bell won’t ring for another ten minutes or so and I realize that I just scared this Bozo off.
Uncle Jimmy had told me that bullies would never fight you unless they had their friends there to back them up, but I told this guy despite his boys I was gonna get him regardless. I played the right bluff. I didn’t know how to fight. I was beat up by everybody back then. My legs were my best asset. I didn’t learn to fight until we moved to Hackensack, NJ.
I stayed across the street for the rest of my short time in that school and never went back to the playground after. Why push your luck?
The blond girl would come over to the house and play with us in this small drainage ravine, that ran parallel to County Line Road and adjacent to Smith Street which was what served as a yard to this house where we stayed, after school and weekends.
One day she invited to come around the corner to play at her house. He mother took one look at me, told me to go home and to not come back. The girl never came over to play again and her seat was moved away from me in class. I was now alone in the back of the room with at least one empty desk in front and both sides of me.
Fortunately I ended up back at Neast and finished the 2nd grade there, but was again later to be antagonized by my 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Klein with a Moe Howard haircut who decided I was going to be her pet project and base her thesis in her magazine ad psychology course with me as her subject.
She tried to cow Mom and hit her up with all this mumbo jumbo about my psychological problems. So Mom takes me to a real Psychologist. He asked me all kinds of questions and I wouldn’t play ball with him either. Mom asked me why I wouldn’t talk to the man. “Because you said not to tell people our business and it was none of his business!” (HAH, The Godfather would have loved me! “Never tell anyone outside the family what you’re thinking!”) The Dr. said that there was nothing wrong with me and thus we put an end to Mrs. Kleins crap.
By Ed Cooley on Mar 2, 2010
Another rediculous incident, just like the Harvard professor in Boston. I just wonder when all this stuff is going to go away. Will it ever?
By Janet Davis on Apr 23, 2010
So wrong; this vicious cycle needs to end!