The PG Pool is racist [MD]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound like a crazy person. The pool is not segregated. And PG county isn’t going to seize the property back to build more low income housing. Getting the property for $10 sounds like a pretty sweet deal by today’s standards, but everything was ridiculously inexpensive back then.

Denying historic racism is being racist. I guess it is better to be crazy than racist. The pool was founded for the express purpose of creating a segregated, all white pool. What is the current racial makeup of the pool community? Does it reflect anything close to the current demographics of PG County, which is 60% Black and 15% Latino? if it doesn’t, then the pool still carries today in its membership that history of racial segregation.

You sound unhinged and your post reeks of accusations of neo-Mcarthyism except in an SJW sort of way. The pool isn’t “racist”. Not every inch of the world should be seized to build public housing. You should chill the fk out. What the hell is going on in America where there are so many wide eyed cultists on both the left and the right who “know” they are right. This is a pool that’s open to all and you sound like Don Quixote.

So Cheverly Pool has a 4 year waitlist and current membership does not reflect the overall demographic makeup of Cheverly. Should the pool be torn down to build public housing to rectify this gross injustice?

[Anonymous]

Serious question. The pool is not all white. There is a significant black and brown population. Is it necessary, important or desirable for all businesses to exactly reflect the demographic of the surrounding area? What is considered the "surrounding area"?

In my opinion, racial quotas can be damaging and difficult to administer. Geographic restrictions can and have been used to exclude people more than to include people. Neither of these seems like a good solution to making the pool more racially diverse (if this is a primary goal).

The pool is becoming increasingly racially diverse over time. Is it desirable to speed up this trajectory with potentially exclusionary and disruptive measures?

What are other solutions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know someone in MtR who was denied membership to this pool because of his race back in the 1970s. This pool claimed it was "full" at the time. He and his family never bothered to try and sign up again.

I guess he has to wait 10 years to get in today.

Plenty of people have pointed out he could have tried again any time in the last 40+ years.

You must be white, because if you weren’t you would understand why he wouldn’t want to join after being denied.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nobody is denying the racist past of the pool! In fact, all private pools in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties were segregated back in the 50s. Those counties didn’t build ANY public pools because they didn’t want to include black people. So you can try to take down every single one of those pools, including Adelphi and Cheverly and probably a bunch in Montgomery, or you can listen to POC who are current members to see if they feel welcomed and included. The PG pool is a lovely and inclusive, not fancy community where all kinds of families swim and socialize.

This. There are so many real injustices in the world. This is not one of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The simple solution is to form a new pool club or community. If the PGP really has 4,000 families on its wait list, the demand is there. If 2,000 families committed 1,000 a year for 5 years, someone could quickly get a new pool up and running, financed by dues and bank debt. Someone should work the numbers.

You can buy an acre of land in PGC for well under $100K.

https://www.landwatch.com/maryland-land-for-sale/prince-georges-county/undeveloped-land/acres-under-10

So the six acres that would be needed is $600k that the PG Pool should pony up.

6 acres! Do you know how big an acre is? Our public pool sits on about half an acre and it is pretty spacious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know someone in MtR who was denied membership to this pool because of his race back in the 1970s. This pool claimed it was "full" at the time. He and his family never bothered to try and sign up again.

I guess he has to wait 10 years to get in today.

Plenty of people have pointed out he could have tried again any time in the last 40+ years.

You must be white, because if you weren’t you would understand why he wouldn’t want to join after being denied.

Ok. But he wants to join now that there's a waitlist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody is denying the racist past of the pool! In fact, all private pools in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties were segregated back in the 50s. Those counties didn’t build ANY public pools because they didn’t want to include black people. So you can try to take down every single one of those pools, including Adelphi and Cheverly and probably a bunch in Montgomery, or you can listen to POC who are current members to see if they feel welcomed and included. The PG pool is a lovely and inclusive, not fancy community where all kinds of families swim and socialize.

Nice attempt at the Chewbacca defense to defend the indefensible. Can you answer the question? Does PG Pool membership reflect the demographics of a county that is 60% Black and 15% Latino?

Regardless, the PG Pool needs to pay up. Segregated subsidies of the past demand reparations in the present. The pool owes county taxpayers a lot of money. In addition, the county should start restricting parking at the pool as a part of its climate action plan to get Pool members to take transit due to proximity to the Metro. It’s a further injustice that people from outside of the community are driving in with their cars creating pollution, congestion and traffic violence.

LOVE this idea!

Haha! I love this too because as a non-member, who has been a guest 2-3x, it is CLEAR that the poster has never been to the pool. Has never seen it’s simplicity or diversity. And never seen that there is NO damn parking at this pool except for a tiny, itty bitty lot in the front.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The simple solution is to form a new pool club or community. If the PGP really has 4,000 families on its wait list, the demand is there. If 2,000 families committed 1,000 a year for 5 years, someone could quickly get a new pool up and running, financed by dues and bank debt. Someone should work the numbers.

The PG Pool should provide compensation from the excess subsidy that they have received from PG County to provide for the purchase of land to build a new pool.

There is no evidence here that PGP ever received a subsidy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Umm. It’s not a county pool. Anyone can sign up to join. I understand the racist history from 50+ years ago, but there are no legacy memberships handed down. Are there no publicly available county pools in the area? We live in DC and used to go to the indoor splash park in PG when our kids were little, paying the nonresident fees.

The pool is on public land.

It is not on public land.

The land the pool sits on was formerly public land that was provided for free to create an intentionally discriminatory pool community that excluded Black members.

Correct. The ‘Board of County Commissioners for Prince George’s County” sold over 6 acres of land to the PGP in 1956 for $10.

How many millions should the PG Pool owe PG County taxpayers for this?

That’s not how it works.

How does it work? Government gives freebie to white racists and then tells its current majority minority population that they must continue to subsidize them? Is that how it works? Black and Brown people having their assets given away to white racists with no compensation or justice?

The city sold the property. How does the city continue to subsidize them?

In any case, minorities have been at the pool for the past 45 years and have equal access to membership. They are current members. This is a faux racial justice story.

The ongoing subsidy is in two parts. The first part is equal to the present value of the market value of the land in 1950 minus $10. The second part is the loss of property tax revenue over the last 70 years from higher value land uses.

This is what the PG Pool owes to PG County.

Actually makes sense.

No, it does not. There is no evidence on this thred that the property was worth anything more than $10. Today, you can buy an acre in Maryland for almost nothing but not close to DC of course. Second, there is no evidence on this thred that the pool benefits from a reduced property tax rate that it should not receive. Not all property is taxed as if it were commercial property, and should not be. Built out commercial and residential properties are more burdensome on govt resources that other uses. Tax rates should bear some resemblance to burden on govt resources.

There is literally an apartment community across the street. The value of the land that PG Pool sits on is the equivalent to the value of the land of the multi-family parcel across the street. The PG Pool property tax rate is based on the value of the zoned land, which us currently non-residential and the value of the improvements. It would be easy to compare the land valuation to the apartment across the street to determine the value of that land if it was housing. The county would also get to collect tax on the higher value of the improvement and also the additional residents would be contributors to society: working jobs, paying taxes and buying stuff.

It’s even worse when you consider that the PG Pool is a half-mile and 10 minute walk from the West Hyattsville Metro Station. Is this the best land use near a Metro station? The PG Pool is literally taking away from potential affordable housing for transit-oriented development for climate change adaptation so that it can provide a tax-payer subsidized, segregated recreational facility for affluent white people who mostly come from outside the community in cars.

Everything about this pool is bad. Everything.

Get a life!! Folks who get worked up about these sorts of things need a reality check. It is nothing more than a pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know someone in MtR who was denied membership to this pool because of his race back in the 1970s. This pool claimed it was "full" at the time. He and his family never bothered to try and sign up again.

I guess he has to wait 10 years to get in today.

Plenty of people have pointed out he could have tried again any time in the last 40+ years.

You must be white, because if you weren’t you would understand why he wouldn’t want to join after being denied.

I can understand that but also can understand that the fact that he waited until there was a long list to join does not wipe away the reality that he could have joined for decades prior.

[Anonymous]

OMG, IT'S A STUPID POOP PEOPLE! THIS THREAD IS CRAZY!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OMG, IT'S A STUPID POOP PEOPLE! THIS THREAD IS CRAZY!

*I meant pool, NOT poop, LOL (but maybe that is my mind thinking this is a sh*t thread), but this thread is still CRAZY. It's a frigging private pool that is not even that upscale, it just costs $ to join and the waitlist is apparently long now. Why are people so upset about it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know someone in MtR who was denied membership to this pool because of his race back in the 1970s. This pool claimed it was "full" at the time. He and his family never bothered to try and sign up again.

I guess he has to wait 10 years to get in today.

Plenty of people have pointed out he could have tried again any time in the last 40+ years.

You must be white, because if you weren’t you would understand why he wouldn’t want to join after being denied.

I can understand that but also can understand that the fact that he waited until there was a long list to join does not wipe away the reality that he could have joined for decades prior.

Do you understand that he doesn’t want to join a pool where he was denied membership before?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody is denying the racist past of the pool! In fact, all private pools in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties were segregated back in the 50s. Those counties didn’t build ANY public pools because they didn’t want to include black people. So you can try to take down every single one of those pools, including Adelphi and Cheverly and probably a bunch in Montgomery, or you can listen to POC who are current members to see if they feel welcomed and included. The PG pool is a lovely and inclusive, not fancy community where all kinds of families swim and socialize.

This. There are so many real injustices in the world. This is not one of them.

What are the “real injustices”? Obviously you think your subsidized, segregated pool isn’t one of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know someone in MtR who was denied membership to this pool because of his race back in the 1970s. This pool claimed it was "full" at the time. He and his family never bothered to try and sign up again.

I guess he has to wait 10 years to get in today.

Plenty of people have pointed out he could have tried again any time in the last 40+ years.

You must be white, because if you weren’t you would understand why he wouldn’t want to join after being denied.

I can understand that but also can understand that the fact that he waited until there was a long list to join does not wipe away the reality that he could have joined for decades prior.

Do you understand that he doesn’t want to join a pool where he was denied membership before?

The PP is victim blaming someone who has suffered explicit racism at their pool. Incredible.