Not So Fast

It certainly looks like bigotry.

Liberal/progressive blogger extraordinaire Digby posted on July 9 about the private swim club in the Philadelphia, Pa. area which invited, then un-invited, children of a Northeast Philadelphia day camp after members of the club, some apparently racially motivated, objected. Philly.com reported on July 10

A state agency is investigating a Huntingdon Valley swim club for possible racial discrimination after the club revoked a contract to let children from a Northeast Philadelphia day camp swim in its pool....

On June 29, 65 black and Hispanic children from the city camp Creative Steps Inc. made their first visit to the Montgomery County club and heard some members make racial remarks and escort their own children away from the pool, Creative Steps executive director Alethea Wright said.

Last Friday, the Valley Club refunded a $1,950 check to the camp in Oxford Circle to terminate the agreement allowing children from kindergarten through seventh grade to swim at the club.

Digby comments:

I assume that most of you have heard by now about the bigots at the Philadelphia swim club who wouldn't allow the white kids to swim with the African American kids. It takes me back to my childhood wonder years in 1960s Mississippi.

And later:

But here's something that is rarely focused on in all the stories about the appalling behavior of these awful people.

To her credit, Digby spares us the obvious, but unhelpful and meaningless, irony: in her native state of Mississippi lies Philadelphia, Mississippi, home to the 1964 murders of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney, and to a black elected mayor 45 years later. (It's not Tom Paxton, but this video, below, will have to do.)

No doubt Digby would be- appropriately- skeptical of the altruistic claim of the club member who pleaded "We have people who are black, people who are Asian, and Russians and Jewish people" and of the club, which maintained its leaders are "deeply troubled by the recent allegations of racism, which are completely untrue." Unfortunate, then, that she seems to accept uncritically the statement of the club's executive director, of whom the Philadelphia Inquirer writes

While the campers were swimming, Wright said, three of them came up to her and said they had heard club members asking what African Americans were doing at the club.

I don't know Alethea Wright any more than Digby does. But suppose she is black (and the same would hold true, to a lesser degree, if she were not): would three white people come up to her and complain that African-Americans were at the club? Not surprisingly, there is no direct quote to that effect from Wright- nor would I make such a claim if I were her.

Notwithstanding that people at a private club, looking for a quiet morning or afternoon, probably would be nonplussed at the arrival of 65 children of any race, it would be dangerous to conclude that bigotry played no role in the uproar.

But that really is beside the point, unlike Digby's reference to "the bigots" and "these awful people," individuals she makes no claim ever to have met or to know anything about. (And continuing her uncharacteristic inattention to detail, she refers to the "Philadelphia swim club," though the Valley Club is in Huntingdon Valley, not Philadelphia.)

And as if to cement the image of the privileged left, Digby chooses to criticize Vice President Biden over application of stimulus funds:

“No swimming pools!” he implored. “No tennis courts!” he begged. “No golf courses!” he pleaded. “No Frisbee parks!” he exhorted.

Biden was referring to construction of swimming pools, not permitting middle class or lower class children to swim. And tennis courts? Golf course? I suppose in some upper class communities, they may be considered necessities; not so in most middle class (and obviously lower class) communities.

From the days that the right coined the term "limousine liberal" to the present time, conservatives have charged liberals with being "elitist," thereby doth protesting too much. Now a prominent blogger of the left generalizes, jumping to the conclusion that a group- not one or two specified individuals, but a group- is "awful." A heck of a strategy for the left-if the intent is to elicit resentment among the American people.