title:  Five ‘All American’ Football Players Booted From Team With Black QB After KKK Display
text: The city of Creston, in the heart of Iowa, sits nestled between State Route 25 and U.S. Highway 34, only a mile from the eastern bank of Summit Lake. The seat of Union County offers two additional lakes to fish in, the glorious Green Valley State Park, and a high school football team full of terrifyingly virulent racists.At least, Creston had that last one until Thursday. Scheduled to play the Clarinda Cardinals Friday night, the Creston Panthers will suddenly find themselves without five of their starters after a viral photo of them wearing hoods and posing with a burning cross, a rifle, and a Confederate flag, made the rounds on social media earlier this week.Clearly, the players didn t do well in history at Creston High. The location of the school in Union County is a stark reminder of which side Iowans fought for in the Civil War.The boys will probably not face legal difficulties. Being a piece of shit KKK member, or even pretending to be one, is protected under the First Amendment, and in a town of fewer than 10,000, it s not likely there s a lawyer in town who could successfully argue that anyone suffered damages as a result of their racist idiocy. Not even Kylan Smallwood, the Panthers  quarterback, who is black. Sadly, Smallwood is already all too aware of the fact that this will blow over like nothing happened once the incident is forgotten. He won t forget, though: It s a bad way to put our town on the map, but I think as a community, we just have to move past it. Deal with it, I guess. I thought these guys were my friends. Like, I ve been to some of their houses before I wanted to ask them why, why they did it, but I haven t had the chance to yet. For their part, Creston High School has said that the students have been punished in addition to their removal from the team, but has not specified what that punishment was. Coach Brian Morrison called the families of each boy personally to tell them their sons were no longer playing for the Panthers.Just another day in post-racial America.Featured image via video screen capture