The Red Cross responded on Twitter, and issued a full apology Monday, saying it is very sensitive to the concerns raised.
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The American Red Cross apologized Tuesday amid backlash over a sign it created on swim safety guidelines for children that was perceived as racist, NBCBLK reported.
The Red Cross said they have removed the poster from their website and mobile apps.
After a mother of two, Margaret Sawyer, spotted the questionable poster at her local swimming pool in Salida, Colorado, she asked the lifeguard to take it down and wrote a letter to the facility.
“We deeply apologize for any misunderstanding, as it was absolutely not our intent to offend anyone”, the American Red Cross said in a statement.
“Our organisation has emphasised to our partners and on social media that it was absolutely not our intent to offend anyone and apologised for this inadvertent action”. “We are now in the process of completing a formal agreement with a diversity advocacy organization for their guidance moving forward”, it said. We have notified all of our partner aquatic facilities requesting they take down the poster. “Throughout U.S. history and until quite recently, many swimming pools enforced segregation and prevented African Americans from swimming in pools and safe open water locations”.
In its apology, the Red Cross mentioned its campaign to reduce the drowning rate in 50 high-risk communities by teaching at least 50,000 children and adults to swim.
But others wondered how a racially insensitive poster could have been published by the Red Cross in the first place.
When she saw it again at a second pool, she posted it online.
Ebony Rosemond, who leads the organization named Black Kids Swim, said that African-American children face discrimination at public pools that typically discourage them from taking up recreational swimming.
The humanitarian organization promised to remove the 2014 poster from its websites and take it out of circulation after one Twitter user called it “super racist”, sparking an internet fury about how the poster was derogatory.
In fact, in the past, African-Americans and public swimming areas have had something of a strained relationship.
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“Clearly, they’re thinking of themselves as only having one constituency – and that’s not true”.
