“When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool,” Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. “The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately.”

The next day the club told the camp director that the camp’s membership was being suspended and their money would be refunded.

“I said, ‘The parents don’t want the refund. They want a place for their children to swim,’” camp director Aetha Wright said.  [read more...]

OK, when I first heard about this story, I thought it was a hoax. Seriously, I thought it was some over sensitive twitter fool, spreading nonsense. NOW, I’m flabbergasted!  Just flabbergasted!!

BUT…what’s even more shocking than this story is the comments posted by the Philadelphia community [make sure and scroll down the page of this to see the comments]. The deep seeded hatred and bigotry is astounding.  Needless to say, me and my family….we won’t be visiting the “City of Brotherly Love” any time soon.  If these comments are any indication of the type of “love” our well blended family would receive, then Philadelphia is not for us.

On my other blog, MixtKids, I discuss issues that are pertinent to mixed race and multicultural families [such as ours].  That blog also gives a very personal glimpse of our life as a Hispanic and Black family and the types of issues our mixed children face. So, obviously, the issue of race and racism are very important to me.  Not only from a negative standpoint, such as in this article and video, but also from a positive standpoint in raising loving, strong and smart “mixtkids”. But when I see stories like this, my heart breaks.  Not only for me, my family and my daughters, but for our country.  We think our work is done, but we are so wrong.  Electing Obama was a great start, but this is just the beginning.

When I say work, I’m not talking about converting the bigots.  We can’t change them.  They’re evil to their core.  They ooze pathetic nonsense.  But we can continue to work on the next generation.  We can show our own children, their friends and all the world that all child deserve and are capable of being the smartest, the fastest, the funniest.  Whatever they desire, they can become, regardless of their skin or background.

Truly, it begins in our own home.  All of us!  See, an empowered child, who is confident and comfortable in their own skin, will shine.  That is my belief.  Regardless of color, they will persevere, if they believe in themselves and trust in their abilities and are given an opportunity to prove themselves.  There’s always a way [Ken will laugh when he reads this, but he knows what I mean].  How does the saying go?  “If there’s a will, there’s a way”.  Or, even better, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”   I could go on and on, but I won’t bore you with my optimism.

Back to the story at hand.  What would you do?  I mean, your kid could be attending a HipHop Dance camp with a renowned dance choreographer [who might be Black], your kid happens to be White and come with 15 other White kids on the bus.  What if?  OK….just hear me out.  What if the kids that have been attending the Dance class for months and months are all ethnic.  So the Caucasion kids pull up and all the ethnic kids begin to stare and whisper.  And, what if they collectively decided that White kids have no rhythm and can’t dance anyway [I know this is silly and stereotypical, but keep reading], so they ask all the White kids [your kid] to leave?  This might sound silly.  Farfetched, even!  But this, this is exactly what happened in Philly.  One group of people felt uncomfortable with another and therefore, excluded them, simply based on their skin color, nothing else.  Not their actions, not their abilities, not their behavior, but just their skin color.  Just their “complexion”.

As I finish up this post, my 7 yr old is wondering when we can get in the pool.  Before we head out the house and jump in our pool, she needs to see what happened to these children that just wanted to cool down in the summer heat.  So, I’ll show PJ the video, not to insight rage or anger, but to make her aware and to discuss the issue.  To get her opinion and to see what she knows, feels and how she might react in such a situation.  Because, guess what, she’ll have to deal with something like this in her lifetime.  That’s a given!