street roots
Nov. 23, 2012
JOHN CARLOS, fro m page 1
deal of adversity in your life. What would you
say to people who fin d themselves in trying
situations?
didn t deserve to be kicked out o f the Olympic
Village. What was it like being the focus o f so
much attention, both positive and negative?
J.C.: I think that they first of all need to
J.C.: When all the negatives came in, that
rekindle the love that they have in them. If
they haven’t experienced love in their lives
they need to find out what that’s all about
and try to set a fire of love within
themselves. If you love yourself and
someone is coming at you in a negative
sense, you can withstand anything if you
have love within yourself and love around
you. I think my greatest asset was my family,
the love of my family. My mom, my dad, my
brothers, my sisters, my wife and my
children. If you got the love around you, you
can withstand anything.
was something you endured prior to the
Olympic Games. It wasn’t anything that I
hadn t heard or experienced before or that
people of color hadn’t experienced before.
They were just venting their feelings
because we denounced them and stood
against them and made a worldwide
spectacle of them in terms of their approach
to life. So, I wasn’t concerned about that.
The positive things that came about were to
see the fact that what we did united the
people. It united the people of color and
then at the same time it brought an
openness to society, period.
J.B.: President Obama said about your
medal-stand action, “I think that was a
breakthrough moment in an overall push to
move this country towards a more equal and
more just society. ” He added, “I think that
what they did was in the best tradition of
American protest. ” How do you feel about all
the mainstream praise and accolades you’re
receiving some forty years after your
courageous act?
J.B.: Who are some modern-day athlete-
activists you appreciate and why? A nd can the
Olympics be a forum for political dissent
today?
J.C.: There are many athletes today who
make strong statements. There’s Steve Nash
in the NBA who stood up for immigrant
workers and Hispanic people in Arizona
(when the Phoenix Suns wore “Los Suns”
jerseys in 2010). He was just as strong as I
was, it’s just he didn’t get the national and
international exposure since the Olympic
Games are televised on a universal basis.
So, he’s standing up. In the NFL Michael
Strahan of the New York Giants stood up for
sexual preference. Many athletes are
fighting for various causes. They just don’t
get the exposure. Now whether they should
step up at the Super Bowl and make a
statement there, well, like I say, you got to
have basketballs to step up in that arena and
do it. But God will send some people down
the line who will step up in the Super Bowl
and make a statement.
The Olympics is a universal forum. It’s
just about how intimidated you are. See,
because what they do now in the Olympics
Games is they make athletes sign a
statement promising they will not step out
of the circle. You’d have to choose to say,
“Man, I refuse to sign that. I didn’t have to
sign no statement to come represent
America, but now you’re telling me I have to
sign a statement that I can’t have a concern
for social justice and so forth, so I refuse to
sign that because I don’t know what I’m
going to do when I’m on the victory stand.”
But to do that, you’ve got to have strong
individuals who step up to the plate and
make that statement. Like for instance
Damien Hooper, the boxer from Australia,
who at the London Olympics wore a T-shirt
that represented him being aboriginal. They
told him, “Ah, you have no right to wear that
T-shirt, you know, you’re an Olympic
champion, you shouldn’t be wearing that
T-shirt, it’s ridiculous.” But he did it anyway.
People are stepping up and doing various
things, and I support that. It’s just hard to
match what Tommie Smith, John Carlos and
Peter Norman did. That’s what some people
J.C.: I don’t really get into accolades from
P H O T O B Y J O N A T H A N S C H E LL
John Carlos speaking a t Pacific University Nov. 8. “I f I sat back and looked at every letter I
had that stated they were going k ill m e a n d be c o n c e rn e d a b o u t th a t, I p ro b a b ly w o u ld n ’t ha ve
done nothing,” Carlos says. “B u t my concern w asn’t about life, it was about what I was going
to do with the life”
were saying in Mexico in 1968 and it’s the
same situation now. But it comes down to
who has the courage to step up at the right
time to make the right statements. And the
difference is we studied everything, we
looked at everything from top to bottom,
about what the repercussions would be, how
they would come against us, how they would
try and stop us, how we could try to
enlighten other people who were indecisive
as to which way to go, how to encourage
people to have more audacity to say, “I am
somebody and I have a concern and I’m not
concerned by what you think you may be
able to do to me.” If I sat back and looked at
every letter I had that stated they were
going kill me and be concerned about that, I
probably wouldn’t have done nothing. But
my concern wasn’t about life, it was about
what I was going to do with the life. So,
that’s where it stands with me. You have to
learn to adjust the volume. There are
certain instances in life where you have to
turn the volume up on people.
I think anybody should want to do the
right thing. It’s just a matter of safeguarding
individuals while you’re doing what you’re
doing. You have to safeguard to make sure
that you’re right in what you’re doing and
have a clear understanding of why you’re
doing what you’re doing. People might not
appreciate you because they don’t
understand you. But in time they may turn
around and say, “Now I have a clarity as to
what he did and why he did it.” And then
they’ll sit back and say, “It took some guts
for them to do it because there wasn’t
nobody starting there with him.” And that’s
what it’s about, man, standing up for what’s
right. Because the more they see that
you’re weak, the more they’re going to roll
over you.
J.B.: You’ve managed to overcome a great
the perspective of John Carlos receiving
accolades. I think I just do what God has
planned for me to do to deal with these
issues in my life and time. But I think
accolades come to bring the smiles and the
joy and the wonder to my wife (Charlene
Norwood) and my kids and my mom and my
brothers and sisters because they feel like I
was a great athlete and I’ve done a lot of
good things for society. And for me to be
acknowledged for those things today, I think
it brings joy and admiration and appreciation
to them when they see their little brother or
their son or their dad or th eir husband
getting positive attention. And that lights my
heart up to see them smiling about what
they see happening today.
In terms of the president, I love his
statement about the demonstration because
I think he really read into the statement
that what we did was a humane statement, it
was an honorable statement, it was a non
violent statement, and a statement that was
powerful in a non-intimidating way. If you
look at it — three individuals stepping up to
the plate and notifying society that we have
some issues that we need to deal with — we
didn’t set anything on fire. We didn’t blow
up any buildings. We didn’t brandish any
guns to try to wake up the conscience of
society. I just love the fact that the president
took time to acknowledge what he felt was a
great movement in society.
Jules Boykoff is an associate professor and
department chair at Pacific Unviersity. He is
also published author and a contributor to
Street Roots. For more information about
John Carlos, see www.johncarlos68.com/
T B 'K l T P ^ l T T 1
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