{"id":303,"date":"2009-07-13T08:28:07","date_gmt":"2009-07-13T02:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.stier.net\/?p=303"},"modified":"2011-07-23T22:04:58","modified_gmt":"2011-07-23T22:04:58","slug":"why-protests-continue-at-the-valley-swim-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=303","title":{"rendered":"Why protests continue at the Valley Swim Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are reports that The Valley Swim Club is offering the Creative Steps Day Camp an opportunity to return. I know nothing more than what is being reported in the Daily News at http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/moea74.
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That’s a good first step. But I don’t know whether the club has offered an apology for its actions or is willing to take other steps to undo the harm it has caused.
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In the meantime, while things remain unsettled, the pastors, and people in the neighborhood, and those of us who have been organizing protests to this point, believe they should continue.
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Someone asked at Young Philly Politics, why protests are continuing when The Valley Swim club is continuing to be shamed in the nation. I’m sure people will ask that question again now that the club appears to be reversing direction.
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Aside from just the uncertainty about what the club has offered, I think the reasons I gave for continuing protests on Saturday still apply:
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1. I think the national shaming should continue to keep pressure on the club to apologize and the government to investigate thoroughly. There is a symbiotic relationship between protest and national media attention continuing.
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2. The local folks who made up most of the protesters wanted to come back to, shall we say, uphold the good name of their neighborhood.
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3. The camp kids really appreciated us being there. What happened to them was really painful. If our being there another day or two helps ease that pain, we should do it
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In addition I’m aware of additional political and educational efforts to build on and broaden the message of these protests. Keeping them going for a little while may help there as well.
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Of course lots of folks who really pay attention to the news know of both the initial camp decision and the protests. But, , the most important lesson I ever learned as an organizer occurred the day someone asked me “what ever happened with that new Acme you were working for in Mt. Airy” while we were standing a few blocks from where it was half finished. It takes time and effort to get attention to even the most important issues.
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There are reports that The Valley Swim Club is offering the Creative Steps Day Camp an opportunity to return. I know nothing more than what is being reported in the Daily News at http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/moea74. That’s a good first step. But I don’t know whether the club has offered an apology for its actions or is willing to take other steps to undo the harm it has caused. In the meantime, while things remain unsettled, the pastors, and people in the neighborhood, and those of us who have been organizing protests to this point, believe they should continue. Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-racial-justice"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35YuU-4T","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5841,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions\/5841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}