In the wake of the recent incident at the Valley Swim Club in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, I found myself wondering what good could come out of such a situation. The answer, of course, was “not much”. But, there was one thing:

If nothing else, the incident serves to remind us that race relations in America may be better, but things are a long way from being what they ought to be. Valley Swim Club reminds us that, even though the majority of Americans have come to see skin color as a minor difference we share as human beings, there is still a core element out there that wants to see it as something more. Or, more accurately, they have to see it as something more. These are the people whose only point of reference in defining their own self worth is to find something obvious about someone else that they can point to and say: “I’m better than that other human being because I’m this color or that color.” By definition, these are not the deep thinkers in our society. These are the people for whom everything has a simple answer. Thoughts about the consequences of their behavior never cross their minds.

For these individuals, it’s all very clear. “I’m better than you because (fill in the blank), and to prove it, I’ll construct these little havens for myself and those who think like I do. I’ll live in my exclusive gated communities (a euphemism for ‘no (fill in the blank) allowed in here’, and I’ll belong to my exclusive country clubs so I can hang out with other like-minded, shallow thinkers like myself.”

These are the places where the terminally ignorant feed off each other’s hatred and perpetuate the myth of their superiority. It is in places like these where they practice hate. They polish it. Refine it. Purify it and pass it on to the next generation. Which brings us back to the Valley Swim Club.

You at Valley Swim Club can apologize all you want. You can claim misunderstandings all you want. You can parade out your token minority members and smile while they dutifully tell everyone what a wonderful place Valley Swim Club is.

But, this is 2009. Not 1959. No one’s buying it.

No one should.

© 2009, Mac Williams. All rights reserved.

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