Sept 27 to Oct 3,2017 THIS WEEK! The official guide to Gay Palm Springs for 22 years.

A COVER STORY
Unlike sex, taking a knee has many meanings
in football, but in this case they are following
a long standing athletic tradition of
protesting racial bias in America.
This latest seems to rival the 1968 Olympics
Black Power salute. Yikes that was widely
condemned by the same alt-right identity
politics that always seems to determine who
and how we should demonstrate our feelings.
Kneeling to pray good, people of color
doing anything bad, is the caveman like
response to everything.
The black power sign was conducted by
African-American athletes Tommie Smith
and John Carlos during their medal ceremony
at the 1968 Summer Olympics in the
Olympic Stadium in Mexico City. It also
enraged the same alt-right folks, so they
used it to practically end the civil rights
movement of the 60’s.
At the time, John Carlos accepted the
Bronze medal at the Olympic podium wearing
black socks and no shoes to represent
impoverished people who had no shoes of
their own, and raised a black-gloved fist
crowning a bowed head to humbly reflect
the strength of the human spirit. Carlos
was joined in his statement by teammate
and gold medalist Tommie Smith, and both
were supported by silver medalist, Australian,
Peter Norman who wore an Olympic
Project for Human Rights badge. OMG said
the Alt-right Grand Wizards at the time and
declared a full on backlash that ended when
Obama got elected. For about three months,
that quickly started the current black-lash
we are suffering with today. But this time
we added Arabs, the poor, women, and of
course us queers. When you see an anti-gay
marriage case before SCOTUS, you know
gays will be burning down the house again.
But what you might not know is these protesters
walked the walk. Since 1985, Dr.
John Carlos has been a counselor, in-school
suspension supervisor, and the track and
field coach right here at Palm Springs High
School in California. And If you don’t, you
might be surprised to know Palm Springs
includes a past that both advocated the
worst forms of discrimination, as well as
fighting it. So now you know why race is a
touch hole for a lot of people here. We bulldozed
any entire community out of down
town to make way for ”new development”,
that many have not recovered from to this
day and forget about the Willy Boy story,
only a Trump rally compares to that tragedy
today. Football has always been about race.
Not allowing blacks, then with integration
a funny thing happened. People of color
exceed at the game, a racist might say they
are made for the sport, but a wise man simply
said, “When the rules are applied evenly
and fairly, all people excel.” Unlike say, gerrymandering,
red lining and other tactics
used to keep the person of color from competition.
So if you have no issue with all of that and
still feel offended, it might be on you.
36 The original Gay Desert Daily Guide. View our Free Digital Version on-line.