Swimming pools across America have long been a hotbed of racism—from poolside segregation in the 1900s to a brutal police encounter at a McKinney, Texas, teen pool party in 2015.
Unfortunately that racism has the capacity to extend into 2016 in unexpected ways. The Red Cross recently apologized for their production of a pool safety poster after a Twitter user called attention to it's hidden racial biases.
The poster was originally posted on Twitter by John Sawyer, who called it "super racist" and asked the Red Cross to send a new one to The Salida Pool and Recreation Department in Colorado. It depicts a variety of children enjoying the pool—some of those ways being dangerous and against the rules, therefore labeled "not cool."
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What made the controversial and problematic to some is that the poster depicts almost every child doing something "not cool" as black, while the others who are "cool" are not. To break it down in another way, four out of the seven of the black children are depicted as breaking the rules, while only two of the 10 non-black children are seen breaking the rules. The only depictions of "cool" behavior are from white children.
Some people did not understand the implications of the poster, while other Twitter users openly expressed their frustrations.
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Red Cross responded to people who tweeted their concerns, stating that they were removing the material for their site and creating new posters.
"We deeply apologize for any misunderstanding, as it was absolutely not our intent to offend anyone," the organization said in a statement.
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Topics Racial Justice
