Whitey Ford
08-02-2019, 01:50 AM
Pool rules say no dreadlocks or baggy pants. Just business or veiled discrimination?
A social media firestorm that blew up this week over a Wendell pool’s rules banning baggy pants, revealing clothes, dreadlocks and hair extensions may be resonating with some people who remember segregated beaches, black theater balconies with separate entrances, and signs over courthouse water fountains that read, “COLORED” or “WHITE.”
John and Teresa Freeman, who own and operate the Outdoor Recreation Center pool on Wendell Boulevard, have said there was no racist intent in their rules, which they said had been posted in the pool office for years before Teresa Freeman shared them on the pool’s Facebook page and they went viral over the weekend.
The couple have said the ban on dreads and weaves was an attempt to reduce the influx of “artificial hair” into the pool’s filtration and pump system. In the now withdrawn apology, the couple said the word dreadlocks had been used incorrectly.
Swimming was once a particularly racially divided activity, and not just in the South. Some public pools in North Carolina and across the country closed down rather than integrate as federal law required. Historic restrictions of African Americans’ access to swimming pools are believed to continue to play a part in drowning rates. The Centers for Disease Control reports that black children are three times more likely to drown than white children, in part because more than 64 percent of black children can’t swim, compared to 40 percent of white children.
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article231696138.html
A social media firestorm that blew up this week over a Wendell pool’s rules banning baggy pants, revealing clothes, dreadlocks and hair extensions may be resonating with some people who remember segregated beaches, black theater balconies with separate entrances, and signs over courthouse water fountains that read, “COLORED” or “WHITE.”
John and Teresa Freeman, who own and operate the Outdoor Recreation Center pool on Wendell Boulevard, have said there was no racist intent in their rules, which they said had been posted in the pool office for years before Teresa Freeman shared them on the pool’s Facebook page and they went viral over the weekend.
The couple have said the ban on dreads and weaves was an attempt to reduce the influx of “artificial hair” into the pool’s filtration and pump system. In the now withdrawn apology, the couple said the word dreadlocks had been used incorrectly.
Swimming was once a particularly racially divided activity, and not just in the South. Some public pools in North Carolina and across the country closed down rather than integrate as federal law required. Historic restrictions of African Americans’ access to swimming pools are believed to continue to play a part in drowning rates. The Centers for Disease Control reports that black children are three times more likely to drown than white children, in part because more than 64 percent of black children can’t swim, compared to 40 percent of white children.
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article231696138.html