Black Mother and Daughter Harassed About 'Diseases' by Poolside Racist

The still unidentified man approached the Wheeler family posing as a health inspector, inquiring over the cleanliness of a 5-year-old girl and ranting about diseases in public pools.

June 24, 2018

A white man harassed a black family at the pool of a Westin hotel in Pasadena, California, going on a rant about “diseases” and asking whether a 5-year-old girl was clean enough to swim in the pool. The girl’s mother, Carle Wheeler, filmed the man’s rant and posted it on Facebook.

According to Wheeler, the man approached the family “under the pretense” that he worked for the health department. “I simply asked them if they’d showered. I’m sorry,” he says in the video Wheeler posted. “I’m tired of getting in pools people consider baths.”

“No hotel security or staff was around to stop his verbal harassment,” Wheeler wrote. “At that point I called BS and I confronted him on what appeared to be blatant racism. I let him know that being black is not a disease and showering would not wash the BLACK off our skin,” she continued.

The situation escalated further when Wheeler’s mother, a female hotel manager, and the hotel’s general manager got involved. The female hotel manager initially began telling the man he was behaving inappropriately. However, once the hotel’s general manager arrived, he “immediately let the white man leave and told [the Wheeler family] to step to the side with him.” Wheeler added that white bystanders corroborated her story, and as a result he told other managers to review the security tapes. Of course, the man remains unidentified. Wheeler adds that no follow-up has been made by anyone from the hotel since.

“It’s sad that I had to explain to my beautiful little five year old brown skinned girl why in 2018 a white man would think it’s OK to ask a little girl and her mom if we showered our presumably dirty black skin before entering a swimming pool,” Wheeler wrote. “I have to teach my innocent child that…there are still people in this world who will not like us just because of the color of our skin and even worse there are people in this world in positions of power and authority that will not stand up for us when they know it’s wrong that we are treated that way.”