Yesterday’s Thanksgiving Day parade took place in Detroit, and it was a good parade in many ways – not least because of the weather. The fine people of the city came out to temperatures just under 0°C, (that’s 32°F to our American friends) but the sun was quick to rise and bring about some much-needed heat.
It wasn’t just the weather that was nice, either. It was the knowledge that Derrick May, previously accused of multiple allegations of sexual abuse over the past two years, would not be in attendance of this prestigious event. Only the evening before was the decision taken to remove him – a decision that we understand was taken at quite a senior level.
This last minute change of plan led to an interesting question, though. What would happen to Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins, the other two members of the so-called Belleville Three? Well, the Gardner-White sponsored float in question went out – to a surprisingly muted response from the TV station broadcasting the parade live across the world.
Saunderson posted pictures from the float – which looked very lightly populated indeed. And despite looking at numerous pictures of the float taken from numerous angles, we still cannot establish for certain whether Juan Atkins, whom we deeply respect, was present – and the Detroit Free Press somehow managed to take 81 pictures and miss the Belleville Three float entirely!
It’s all a bit strange, isn’t it? The sight of these three men waving to the cheering crowds on a cool Thursday morning in downtown Detroit keeping the fairytale alive was not to be. Instead, we had the sad sight of Saunderson looking, as one of our sources put it, “like a child who’s just found out the truth about Father Christmas”.
As for Gardner-White, their decision to do the right thing left them with something of a PR headache – their video posted on Instagram starts off on the techno float before very, very quickly moving onto other things from the day. It’s somewhat disappointing that May’s absence from the float was never explained – even Detroit’s newspapers refuse to cover this – but Ears To The House acknowledges it’s sometimes more important to lose a battle to win a war.
The question of what Derrick May actually did yesterday instead sadly remains unanswered at this time…
Coming up this Sunday on Ears To The House, it’s the inside perspective on the story of the week. Where did this begin, how did we get involved and who else was involved? We explain all this weekend…
