Red Cross apologizes for ‘racist’ pool safety poster

– A poster about pool safety that was up outside a Colorado swimming pool is being called racist. Click forward to get a closer look at some of the “Not Cool” situations depicted in the poster.

The Red Cross apologized for the posters in a statement that was posted online Monday.

The poster depicts children playing in a pool area, with signs referring to the white children as “cool”, while children of color are labeled as “not cool” for breaking the pool rules.

In one scenario, one black cartoon character can be seen attempting to push her white peer into the pool.

NBC News reports that Sawyer the saw the same poster at a different pool in Fort Morgan, Colorado.

A photo of the poster made its round on Twitter, where it was flagged to the Red Cross.

Sawyer had taken the photo after seeing the poster twice while traveling with her family in Colorado over the weekend.

The Red Cross said they have removed the poster from their website and their Swim App.

All facilities that partner with the Red Cross have also been notified to take the poster down.

“We deeply apologise for any misunderstanding, as it was absolutely not our intent to offend anyone”.

“We’re committed to diversity and inclusion in everything that we do”, said William Fortune, a regional communications specialist at the Red Cross. “I’m just a citizen, I’m not an organization, but I would want the Red Cross to collaborate and build relationships with Black Kids Swim and other organizations that do advocacy around this so that this doesn’t happen again”, Sawyer said.

The Red Cross responded on Twitter, and issued a full apology Monday, saying it is very sensitive to the concerns raised.

She said she first thought it was outdated — that it couldn’t be a recent poster. And continued to say “it was absolutely not our intent to offend anyone and apologized for this inadvertent action”.

The organization Black Kids Swim voiced their disappointment with the poster as well, tweeting: “Just the beginning, @RedCross still needs to ensure all posters are taken down”.

“We are now in the process of completing a formal agreement with a diversity advocacy organisation for their guidance moving forward”.