Pool Bans Black Kids? What Decade Is It?

(NEWSER) - The suburban Philadelphia swim club at the center of a racism controversy will ask the day campers it disinvited to return, the local ABC affiliate reports. "We are very very sorry that this had to happen," the club president tells WPVI-TV. He had sparked the incident by saying the presence of the campers, who are mostly African American and Hispanic, changed the facility's "complexion" and "atmosphere." More»

Suburban pool rejects summer campers, cites 'complexion'

(NEWSER) - A Philadelphia summer camp says it may take legal action after a suburban swim club rejected its campers, the Inquirer reports. On their first visit to the pool, the children said they’d overheard other poolgoers complaining about black people frequenting the swim club; soon after, management refunded the $1,950 the camp had paid for weekly pool visits over the summer. A statement from the club president cited “concern” over the “complexion” of the club. More»

White voters won't always say it, but they won't vote Obama

(NEWSER) - Joe Biden must have been shocked when he met Carolyn Bauer in a Philadelphia diner. Bauer told Biden she’d never vote for his running mate. “It’d be disgusting to get a man named Barack Obama as president,” she said. “No way!” Racism is a real factor in Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Daily News reports, and though it’s usually more subtle, it could hurt Obama come November. More»

Outraged tenant files civil rights complaint

(NEWSER) - An Ohio landlord says the "White Only" sign in front of a pool at a duplex she owns was just an antique, but a former tenant says her views on race also appear to be from 1930s Alabama. "We invited my daughter, who is African-American, to visit and swim in the pool for the Memorial Day weekend,” he wrote in a complaint to Ohio's Civil Rights Commission. “The owner, Jamie Hein, accused my daughter of making the pool ‘cloudy’ because she used chemicals in her hair. Days later, she posted a sign on the gate to the pool which reads, ‘Public Swimming Pool, White Only.'" More»

Suburban Philly club could face millions of dollars in fines for booting camp

(NEWSER) - A state panel has found that a Philadelphia-area swim club racially discriminated against a day camp group of mostly black and Hispanic children when it canceled an agreement to let them swim, the Philadelpha Inquirer reports. The panel examined the Valley Club's actions and communications before and after the agreement was revoked with the Creative Steps camp. "Racial animus" and "racially coded comments" from members were the cause for the switch, the panel ruled. More»