Swimming Pools and Web Sites

Over the course of the past couple of weeks one of the hottest stories has been the situation at the Valley Swim Club. Within 12 hours of one local TV station "breaking" the story it had "grown legs" and gone national. A story about a local swim club tossing a bunch of little brown and black skinned kids out of a swimming pool is just what will make most media types begin to slobber at the thought of reporting it. It certainly did not help the situation when the president of the swim club stuck his face in front of a microphone and managed, with two words, to make a bad situation even worse. I mean really worse. You have to wonder. The guy, from what I understand, is a doctor. I thought doctors were supposed to be smart. If there's a Nobel Prize for stupid this guy wins hands down.

Was the whole incident a "racial thing"? It sure appears to be so, again, based on media reports. I've not spoken to anyone directly involved in the situation so anything I say is pure speculation. I think the club handled the situation badly. I have to wonder if parents who were at the pool that afternoon and pulled their children out and made disparaging remarks about the day camp children arriving at the pool may have had no idea that the kids were coming in the first place. Is that an excuse for their alleged behavior? Absolutely not, but how much of this could have been avoided if all of the club members had been advised of the impending arrival and then the Klan members among them could have just stayed home on the days the camp kids were scheduled?

In my opinion "what we have here is a failure to communicate", and there's the rub. The newly appointed Attorney General of the United States, Mr. Holder, has stated that most white people are cowards when it comes to discussing matters of race. Here we have a situation that appears to have been caused by possibly only one single person, the club president, and in spite of numerous calls for discussion and meetings and mediation there's been none of it but plenty bandying about of the "L" word. Lawsuits. The director of the day camp has indicated she has no desire to discuss the situation with any representative of the swim club and has stated her intent to file a law suit. I'm no lawyer, thank the stars, but I just can't see anything good coming out of going to court. What's the upside for the day camp? A big monetary pay day? I don't think that's going to happen. The club would just shut down, dissolve or what ever. Can the directors or who ever runs the club be held personally and financially responsible? Is that the right thing? We don't know if any of those people harbor any of the bias or bigotry that's being charged so why should they suffer? How many other members of the club, who hold no such feelings should be punished by the loss of their club, their recreation, for which they've paid serious money.

This situation can only be resolved by talking. Communicating. Interacting with each other. How is a big pile of money going to solve any of the problems created by this incident. How is money going to soothe the feelings of the little kids who were the brunt of unkindness? Besides, who is going to end up with most of the money? The fucking lawyers! (I apologize for the profanity but I find it horrifically difficult to say the word lawyer without the descriptor "fucking" or a derivative in front) The club directors and any and all members who desire to participate must sit down with the camp staff, the kids and their parents (yes, the .............lawyers can attend) along with any politician who would like to be involved. Senator Arlen Spector has been at the point of this from jump street, perhaps he would be willing to mediate the discussion. Apologies must be offered. Sincere, heart felt apologies along with a sincere genuine invitation to have the kids come back and be welcomed. Make this a learning and growing experience for everyone. This is the only way that this situation can ever be resolved to the satisfaction of most of the parties involved. I say most because there will always be a few on the fringe of both sides who have an axe to grind and want to extract that pound of flesh (let's see if I can work any more cliches in) and will never be satisfied. Those folks have to be ignored. If the folks in the middle of this mess can't find a way to work it out it will never go away. It will fester and rot and do nothing to contribute anything positive and who ever comes out on the losing end of a law suit will only dig their heels in the sand and become even more convinced that their way was the right way all along and they are being persecuted. Sit down and talk, people.

The title of this blog is Swimming Pools and Web Sites. Well we've had several paragraphs on the pool what's up with the web site? The Guardian Civic League, an organization made up of exclusively African American Philadelphia Police Officers, has filed...what else....a law suit against the web site www.domelights.com. The site was founded and is administered by a Philadelphia Police Officer and has been a popular site over the years for police officers and their friends, families and supporters to express opinions in an open forum format. The GCL, in their filing, claim that the web site has contained postings from registered members that are rascist. I am a registered user of domelights.com and have posted to its forums. On occasion I have seen postings from persons claiming to be both white and A.A. officers and frankly there was some degree of rascism expressed by both sides. Its not often, its actually pretty rare and most of them are usually the "tit for tat" kind of thing but the GCL is claiming that not only does the site administrator permit such postings (each user signs an agreement pledging not to do so) and fails to prevent them but the officer is doing the admin work while on PPD time using city computers, thereby making the City a co-defendant. Naturally the wagons are being circled on both sides and the rhetoric is heating up. The truly disturbing thing about this particular situation to me is the fact that the fighting is being done amongst police officers who work together and are dependant upon each other for their very safety. Those of you who know me are aware of the fact that I am a retired police officer and I know first hand the need to trust that your fellow officers are coming to your aid if you need it. Surely, there must be a way to work this out. Once again everyone needs to step back, take a breath, rein in the lawyers and figure out a way to talk, and more importantly, listen.

That's the view from the mountain. Thanks for your time and always...PLEASE....tell me what you think.