I was a member of a private, all-white swim club as a child:

[callous taoboy]

This was in my home town in Texas during the late 60's up until the mid 70's. I wasn't aware that the club owner was a racist, or that my dad may have had racist (or at least elitist) leanings for paying a membership fee at this pool when there were at least three other public pools in our town and it was widely known that our pool was whites only (this information I found out much later). During my childhood I didn't understand racism, but I picked up on the tension between blacks and whites in our town, as well as the unofficial segregation. Never heard my dad talk down about people of color, never heard him say the "N" word and I know he thinks that word is unacceptable. Yet, our neighborhood was all white as well, and, as a consequence, the schools I attended up until high school were 99.5% white, and when I made it to high school I found out that there were unofficial "White" and "Other" parking lots. I had friends on the block that would toss out the "N" word as an insult, ("N-lover" was a particularly harsh insult). I tried using the "N" word a time or two as a kid but even back then with limited knowledge I had a feeling that I was saying a bad word. It was confusing: Think about all of the overtly racist images you absorbed watching cartoons and how, as a child, the "N" word conveys those grotesque images, yet saying the word, for me anyway, felt taboo. You think we spent one second learning about people of color in school? Maybe Harriet Tubman. I didn't harbor any ill-will toward non-whites while growing up because, in my world, non-white was a non-issue. Tragic. You just stayed on your part of town (or parking lot), a town which was the scene of public lynchings of black men on into the early part of the 20th century.

When I was a young voter I was surprised, though not really shocked, to hear my dad say, "If Jesse Jackson gets elected you can bet that every black man in the country will have plenty of change rattling around in his pockets." By this time as a young adult I was already heading, shit running as fast as I could, toward open-mindedness and understanding.

I recently went back to see some of the old haunts, including the pool where my dad would take me swimming. The owner is long dead and the pool has been filled in and turned into a used car lot.

My dad is living in a retirement community that is, of course, mostly white. I sure wish I could be close friends with my dad, and I'm not sure why that hasn't happened. I wonder how he reacted to the recent news regarding children being turned away at a "white" pool.

[madaboutharry]

1. One thing I believe is true: You can change the laws, but

not the way people think. A few years ago, there was a documentary on PBS about the Civil Rights Movement and the changes it brought to the south. There was a segment about the municipal pool in Birmingham. After the city was ordered to desegregate city facilities the decision was made to fill in the pool with concrete, rather than allow blacks to swim in it.

[MineralMan]

2. Only time can change the way people think.

The election of President Obama demonstrates that quite clearly. It would have been unimaginable not very long ago. Time passes. People die, and are replaced by new people, for whom racism makes no sense.

There are fewer and fewer real racists today, and in another couple of generations they will almost disappear from view...just a quaint few to remind us.

[LuvNewcastle]

4. They didn't have any choice but to integrate

the beaches here in Biloxi. That happened in the early 60's. Hard to segregate the Gulf of Mexico. :)

[imdjh]

6. When I was a kid, black people were restricted to certain times and places on the beach.

But mostly, you just didn't see any.

[panader0]

3. My dad was an Air Force officer. Back then, in the 50's and early 60's

there was a de facto racism at the officer's swimming pool-there were no black officers, and no black kids in the pool. My dad was racist too, although my mother kept him in check. Once, when I called him "man" he said, "don't call me that, I'm no n*****!"

[imdjh]

5. On a brighter note- my all white swim club isn't.

I don't know exactly when it happened, but it seemed like someone threw a switch about 3 years ago. It's an age-group thing I suspect.

As far as I know, the rule restrict membership to white Christian males, and since I have never been to a member meeting I have no idea if that's holding. I wouldn't join because I wouldn't swear that I believed in God and had never been a member of the Community Party. But a couple of years ago, suddenly a new crop of members showed up, and frankly I wasn't impressed. They seemed rather rough around the edges*, and of course they were all caucasian. But along with them came all kinds of kids at the pool. I guess some were friends, some might have been their own kids or grandkids. But it really was like someone threw a switch, or like when Dorothy wakes up in color.

Mind you this is not a community pool, it's a club that has a pool.

I think what happened was that they started letting women be actual members a few years ago, instead of "auxillary". When the women got actual membership, I think the rules changed in many ways. They still have a stick up their butt in some ways, but excluding mixed ethnicity families would have been the death of the club, not for economic reasons; this club could go on forever if no one ever showed up. However, if no one ever showed up, it would be hard to have fun not to mention gambling.


* They weren't the golf club type of men and were quite literally rough around the edges compared to the old members who as a rule were well groomed and didn't have tattoos, Harleys, and giant pick-up trucks. But these guys were still business owners and fairly well off people.

[tabatha]

7. Mental images

When growing up, certain mental images and attitudes are formed even though one is not aware of it.

I grew up in South Africa at a time when there was no mixing whatsoever, but as a young adult out of school befriended many blacks (far more than most whites) - but was still surprised at myself at some of my mental preconceived notions despite being open-minded.

That is probably why with each generation growing up with more accepted mixing, they themselves are more open-minded, and eventually racism will become less and less common.

However, I do believe that there is some mental wiring that makes certain people less tolerant regardless of their upbringing. And that applies to not only racism - but the understanding of how less than optimum childhood experiences can mar people for life. This is especially true of people who grew up with close to normal childhoods, passing judgment on others who did not and not understanding why they behave as they do.

I am reading a very disturbing book right now - "Savage Inequalities" by Jonathon Kozol and it is very upsetting to learn about the inequities in this country (in the 1990s and obviously still unchanged today) knowing about the huge bonuses being paid to people who basically steal and cheat in the financial sectors. There is no "Christian" rule in this country, and never has been.

[Karenina]

9. Great post, tabatha!

[callous taoboy]

10. "Savage Inequalities" is great.

[PretzelWarrior]

13. Good point. There are privileged whites stealling MILLIONS and getting away with it

because they do it by screwing with the balance sheet. But some minority can go to prison for many years because of stealing merchandise from an electronics store worth a couple thousand dollars.

[pnwmom]

8. I don't know about you, but I was watching Bugs Bunny

and Sylvester and Tweety Bird.

Which were all the racist cartoons?

[callous taoboy]

11. I had a professor at the U of Oregon

who showed us a video compilation of the racist images from cartoons dating from the 30s up through the 50s or 60s which were certainly still being viewed by kids of my generation. It was really quite shocking in compilation form: Savage Native Americans always butchering, jibbering, jabbering and just looking plain ridiculous with the white settler always besting them in the end; African-Americans, with exaggerated features and always depicted as dumb and "shiftless"; same exaggeration of Asian features and mannerisms. Are theses not racist images?

I usually stuck to Bugs and Gang which was not only innocuous, for the most part, but some brilliant humor as well. I guess my prof's main point was that a generation of U.S. lawmakers had more than likely grown up viewing these racist images. Now what effect that truly had is anyone's guess, but I wish those images hadn't been blithely tossed out there.

[noiretextatique]

12. thanks for sharing your story

it's important that young people understand what this society was like not that long ago. our society likes to pretend racism was something in the distant past, but many people who are alive today lived under segregation, as law, custom and tradition.

[starroute]

14. The Palisades Park pool in new Jersey was segregated in the 50's

I remember going there once with my parents, long about 1957 or so, and asking them why we had to pay a membership fee rather than simply an admission to get in -- and my mother explaining that it was to keep it whites only. Maybe that's why we never went back a second time.

I don't know if the pool was part of Palisades Amusement Park or just next to it -- but I do know that you'd see ads for it all over Manhattan, with a picture of a woman in one of the very modest two-piece suits of the period, lounging back with ripples breaking over her. (The pool had a wave generator.) And yet there was apparently a large fraction of the population of Manhattan that was not welcome there. Strange.

I haven't thought about that in a long time. I'm going to google and see what I can find out.

On edit: I found a poster version of the lounging lady -- though I suspect it cuts out some of the ripples that were there in the wider billboard version. Notice that it advertises buses leaving from Broadway and 167th Street -- just half a mile from the northern boundary of Harlem, which according to Wikipedia is 155th Street.



On second edit -- here we go, but from this article it sounds like the policy was changed in 1951, which doesn't match with my recollection. Perhaps they kept it going on a de facto basis into the late 50's -- because there was sure a membership fee and there were sure no non-whites in the pool.

http://blog.nj.com/ledgerarchives/2009/02/leisure_activities_remained_qu.html

The state's most visible fight over swimming was at the famous Palisades Amusement Park, the carnival-like park that was immortalized in the pop tune "Palisades Park." The park itself -- including its rides and midway games -- was open to blacks. But the pool -- said to be the world's largest saltwater pool -- was not. . . .

As was customary in the North, there were no actual signs barring entrance. Instead, said Gargiulo, patrons seeking to swim were told they needed to join a private club. When black patrons tried to join, however, they were told the club was full.

The park was picketed by protesters on summer weekends for three years, from 1947 through 1949, and eventually sued by the ACLU. "Don't get cool at Palisades Pool," read one picket sign, he said. Park owners were able to rebuff the lawsuit by claiming the pool was actually leased by the Palisades Sound and Surf Club Inc., a private club. As such, said the judge who dismissed the suit in 1948, it was not a public accommodation and its owners were free to accept whomever they chose as members. . . .

When, after three years, the owners finally acquiesced and changed park policy, they did it with a minimum of fanfare, Gargiulo said. He suspects they kept their about-face quiet because they didn't want to antagonize their white customers.


Third edit:

Sorry if I've got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about this, but it seems important. I found a couple of references through Google Books. The first suggests that even though the policy had technically been changed, the pool maintained a climate of hostility towards blacks that discouraged them from using it. And the second explicitly refers to a segregation policy as late as 1962.

http://books.google.com/books?id=HZ3XCz-LrngC&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=palisades+amusement+park+pool+segregated&source=bl&ots=j9kRU2VGxP&sig=JUtQlIlYW7LHd1PEB-7oC3NzQRA&hl=en&ei=j6BXSuyYBuWytwfH_IXeCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5

http://books.google.com/books?id=ArQRbUPD7E4C&pg=PA159&lpg=PA159&dq=palisades+amusement+park+pool+segregated&source=bl&ots=7W0-XqgSfi&sig=Qw-UkaRGU5kWBg0ACQYbPFPmGak&hl=en&ei=8KNXStujIpGKNIO2kJ4I&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7

[Karenina]

15. "...in my world, non-white was a non-issue."

Such refreshing honesty. :toast:

[callous taoboy]

16. Heh, I feel like I've signed my racist confessions papers...

I guess I can sometimes come off as a real rube...

:-)

[Karenina]

17. You come off as a product of your time and circumstances

just as we ALL do. :hug: NO ONE born in the US of A is completely free of the effects of racism. It's like a persistent pollutant in the atmosphere. The VERY BEST we can all hope to do is examine and correct ourselves.

When I was a kid, I got smuggled into gated communities for playdates with my classmates. I was an attraction at many "a private club" and survive to tell the tales. :evilgrin: Swimming, tennis, gymnastics, riding, ice skating, skiing...

Can I tell you a story?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1I3OXL1_8s

If you can appreciate one on my list of American Treasures and have interest, I'd be willing to share a story or two. I certainly have appreciated yours.

[BlooInBloo]

18. Heh. I remember the first time I was called "nigger lover" - was quite jarring...

Now, not so much.

Being called "race traitor" just makes me giggle.

[callous taoboy]

19. I shudder to think

back on one dad in our neighborhood in particular, who tossed the N word
around like it was the commonest of nouns.

Race traitor? I did see a bumper sticker in the little town I now reside
which read, "Love your race." Wow.