Racing Against Racism

TEH GRANDSTAND  at the NASCAR race was nearly empty, one hundred missing fans, social distancing. Over the track flew a small plane, dragging a huge confederate flag and a banner which read "Defund NASCAR" Pretty clever for a racist idiot pilot. The plane flew over the garage belonging to NASCAR's only African-American driver, the garage in which an overreacting crew had found what they thought was a nose hanging on a door, but wasn't. The point is, it could have been. The confederate flag has deep roots in stock car racing, deep roots in the American south, deep root in America. The sport which began with bootleggers escaping the law during prohibition and which was intended only for blue collar white folk has had only seven black drivers over the decades since it became popular shortly after World War Two. The banning of the rebel flag from the sport has motivated idiots to flaunt it even more, as they have for decades. The confederacy, those who fought for it, and those who supporter it, were traitors, pure and simple. People who display the stars and bars today are signaling their racism, although they deny it in vociferous, sanctimonious outrage. Racists used to take pride in their bigotry. now, ashamed by a more progressive society, they still harbor hatred, but hide it behind a symbol of slavery. Complaints that banning the flag from NASCAR constitutes an infringement upon the right to take pride in cultural and historical heritage and free speech are as bogus as the people who make the complaints. Indeed flying the confederate banner is a free speech issue. congress, according to the constitution, cannot limit free speech, but NASCAR is not Congress, and, like parents, employers, and teachers, can limit free speech anytime it wishes. Whatever slippery slope the elimination of the flag is sliding down hits rock bottom only with the elimination of racial hatred. At the bottom of the slope the confederate emblem of traitors belongs, with the NAZI swastika and the burning cross.