ARTICLE FROM theroot.com (Full story click here)

What a surprise to see a school here in Seattle make the national news. If you are from Seattle and grew up in the Central Area of Seattle, you already know about Garfield High School. It is known for it’s many titles in basketball and also for it’s nationally known jazz band along with the school I went to high school at Roosevelt High.

But Garfield High made the news for another reason the last few days. Because the entire football team took a knee during the national anthem before a game with West Seattle here in Seattle. Not just the players but the head coach and the rest of the coaches. Plus some of West Seattle players also took a knee during the anthem before the game. It was something the players on the Garfield Bulldogs wanted to do.

Of course the anthem protest was started by former guest (two times) on “Music Inner City TV/”Sports Inner City TV”, 49er QB Colin Kaepernick. He started the protest because of what he felt was unfair treatment of African Americans and people of color here in the United States. And it has spread big time all over the U.S. among football players in the pros and now high school sports. There has been protests in the soccer arena and more.

Of course you have uninformed guys like Tony La Russa who recently blasted Kaepernick and his protest. This is from a guy who if you Google his name and then look for his problems with African American baseball players he managed, you will see La Russa had a lot of problems with African Americans and has been called a racist more than once. Heck he is with a team now, the Arizona Diamondbacks that has a grand total of ONE African American player in former Mariner Rickie Weeks. So I think La Russa needs to chill and not say anymore on this topic.

You have others like Trent Dilfer and Boomer Esiason and more who have joined La Russa in speaking out against the anthem protest. And even….yes Donald Trump. On the other hand their are sports icons like Hall Of Fame members Jim Brown and Kareem Abdul-Jabber and entertainer and another icon Harry Belafonte and actress Kerry Washington and more are supporting what Kaepernick started.

Shout out to Garfield High School and Head Coach Joey Thomas for realizing at a young age that racism is alive and well in America. I deal with it EVERYDAY as a Adult School Crossing Guard with the Seattle Public Schools. I deal with the “slient” racism which is the worse kind. We will be doing more stories on this very interesting topic. Because it is not going away anytime soon.