NASCAR: White America's Last, Best Hope
For three horrid weeks in my life, I worked at the Wisconsin State Fair Park. It really was the worst experience of my life; the fair park stank, the people stank, the job conditions stank, the pay stank. It was like a pigsty for the mind, a place to wallow in self-pity and cess while the rest of the world drove by on I-43, with places to go that I'm willing to bet smelled a whole lot better than where I was. My job was essentially to stand - not sit - by the exit gate for eight hours straight and stamp peoples' hands. That's all. "Thanks for coming, polite smile, STAMP. Did you enjoy your fair, fake smile, STAMP." For eight hours, for ten days, at $6.25 an hour. It was like running a marathon through a pile of shit, only my fellow runners were stale-smelling rednecks, and my legs hurt a whole lot more.
One of the perks of the job, if you can ever call it such a thing, was that every once in a while I got to work the Milwaukee Mile, which is the legendary racetrack on the fairgrounds, about a hundred years old or so, but really, I never cared. I just knew I wasn't getting paid enough and the two shirts they gave me smelled like pig crap. It was kind of exciting, working the races. Not only did I get to have my brain sawed in half by the endless zooming screeches of the cars, banshees on wheels, but I also got to deal with the populace who take in races on a near-daily basis in all their ripped-clothing glory. There they were, I saw, as I walked from the bus stop to the track, passing by the trailer park, hundreds upon hundreds of RVs, campers, and pickup trucks, each one with a flag proclaiming their allegiance to a particular driver, few of which I knew and none of which I respected. As much excitement as a Confederate Civil War platoon, and just as much hope as succeeding at their goals.
I spent almost two days pondering just what would draw a thousand RVs to a race. I'd already formulated my opinion on NASCAR years before - that being that it was a colossal momentous waste of time; one could easily sit by the freeway and get the same sense of excitement with half the danger and one-fifth the noise. As such, it was beyond me why someone would even enjoy it, after all, my argument that it was senseless to pay to watch cars drive was based on pure, faultless logic, and logic was what the basic laws of science are based on. It was truly beyond me, and I struggled to grasp it, even when the answer sat about fifty feet away from me amid the screeching of tires and the expulsion of carbon emissions.
My problem, as I know now, is that my brain did use logic. Logically, therefore, I assumed that all human brains grasp the concept of logic, as all brains are pretty much the same chemically and physically, and have access to the same basic information and education. The answer to the riddle thusly eluded me, because I was, in essence, too smart to grasp it - as if that makes any sense (again, back to my original problem). The people who watch NASCAR have no concept of logic. They are all Republicans, after all. To them, $75 is a reasonable fee to watch cars drive past, and if you suggest to them that they could do it in front of a gas station on I-94 for free, they will accuse you of trying to bring down the culture they have maintained and assert that you "just don't understand" or some other abstract statement of the worth of their own incompetence.
And they do have a culture, that much is understandable. They're like the hippies that quit their jobs in the 60s to follow Dylan around the country, only twice as dirty and with a tremendously inferior taste in music.
As I sat beneath the bleachers, stamping hands and taking tickets, bored out of my mind, wondering what would possess me to take the job, I stared aimlessly among the passing masses, going hither and thither to buy beer, sunglasses, hot dogs, or any of the thousands of souvenirs, from the miniature cars to the pristine shirts that would soon be ripped. (I've often wondered why they don't just sell the shirts with the rips already there, but that's neither here nor there.) As I gazed among them, I noticed something about their number and tone of skin. "Where are the negroes?" I wondered to myself. "There's nothing but white people here. Surely if I ascend the stairs to the bleachers themselves and scan the sitting crowd, I will encounter at least one black person, and therefore be able to sleep tonight." But as I stood there, with my neon yellow earplugs (complete with orange lightning-bolt design, like one of Zeus's boogers) and scanned the gathered crowd, which numbered at least seventy thousand, I saw not one. Not one darkie, schvoogie, or mamie; not even a halfie to be seen. Something was amiss here.
I turned my attention to one of my coworkers, herself black, and expressed my views to her.
"You know, I haven't seen one black person here today."
"You noticed it too huh."
"Maybe they all came in the dark of night to avoid a beating or something, or only stayed for the first race and left before this one."
"Ain't no niggas in NASCAR."
And then it clicked. The reason for NASCAR's popularity. It was literally in front of my face, every time I tore a ticket, every time I scanned the crowds, every time I pushed my earplugs a little farther in. Nobody, not a soul, is a black NASCAR driver. There isn't one. Racist White America had found its niche. They had found a place where they could mingle amongst each other, the overt Grand Wizards among the closeted Bush supporters. Here there was no threat of negroes arguing about politics, or asserting their importance in society, or singing that "black national anthem"; here was a society of brothers, equals not only in the eyes of God and the law, but under the grand gaze of the great man Robert Byrd (R-VA) himself. Even baseball, in its gloried racist days, had the Negro Leagues, wheras NASCAR has nothing, a fact which they gratefully celebrate.
Why is only NASCAR so popular? Why not Indie racing, or Formula One? Why do Republican presidential nominees court only NASCAR Dads, and not IRL Dads? Well, because there are historically minorities in Indie and Formula One. Formula One is represented by Lewis Hamilton, its first black driver, and IRL not only represents blacks, but women (Danica Patrick) and even Frenchmen (Sebastien Bourdais), eliminating all compatriots of the White American Male And His Child, who drive NASCAR's popularity. There is even a pronounced presence of Brazilians in both races (pardon the pun), such as Emerson Fittipaldi, Airton Dare, and Bruno Junqueira. Such diversity will never make IRL and F1 as popular or as goddamn offensive to the nostrils as NASCAR is.
But there is hope, as NASCAR's first black driver in almost 100 years of existence, Marc Davis, recently made his debut in April 2007. You'd think with how groundbreaking a feat like that is, that there would be a media circus around it, making blatant comparisons with other groundbreakers like Arthur Ashe and Jackie Robinson, but nope. I didn't even know about it until I sat down to write this. He was passed by, with nary a mention on the news programs of the United States. But then again, did the media pay more attention to Jackie Robinson when he made his debut?
The answer is, of course, no. Jackie Robinson's debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers was passed over universally, only receiving minor attention in New York City itself, where it had a significant impact. It was only several years into his career that we acknowledged Robinson's achievement, and even turned it into a classic film, The Jackie Robinson Story (starring Jackie Robinson), but it must be noted that it was because of how exceptional Robinson was as a player. Had Robinson been terrible, or even average, as a baseball player, his achievements would have never been spotlighted by the media of the time, and the full integration of baseball would have been postponed for years, never giving us Willie Mays, never giving us Hank Aaron, nor their achievements.
The media response to this integration is almost the same as the response Robinson's integration. (Sadly, I think Tiger Woods was a fluke. Maybe it's cause he's only a quarter black.) And Davis is bound by the same constraints - be exceptional or be shuffled under the rug. And so far, almost four months later, it seems that Davis is the latter - not placing top ten in a single race. It might be ten years before we see another black NASCAR driver, to which fully 95% of the NASCAR fanbase is willing to toast. Ain't no niggas in NASCAR.
None of this, of course, occurred to me as I sat, bored, having the oxygen cut off to my ears watching cars go around in 250 circles. I did notice the racism, and even laughed about it afterwards, as we do with these things. And as much as I hate the concept of NASCAR, I really do want to see it integrated, for the good of humanity. I wonder what will happen to the NASCAR fanbase once it is. Whether, when several black drivers start to win races regularly, the fanbase will grow, as with baseball, or diminish exponentially. Knowing NASCAR fans, and seeing their glisteningly white faces firsthand, I'm tempted to go with the latter, because really, seeing cars drive around in circles for three hours just isn't entertaining, and even integrated, just wouldn't be enough to hold people's attention. Maybe I'll be an IRL fan in protest. Nah.
One thing's for sure, I'm never fucking working at State Fair Park again.
For three horrid weeks in my life, I worked at the Wisconsin State Fair Park. It really was the worst experience of my life; the fair park stank, the people stank, the job conditions stank, the pay stank. It was like a pigsty for the mind, a place to wallow in self-pity and cess while the rest of the world drove by on I-43, with places to go that I'm willing to bet smelled a whole lot better than where I was. My job was essentially to stand - not sit - by the exit gate for eight hours straight and stamp peoples' hands. That's all. "Thanks for coming, polite smile, STAMP. Did you enjoy your fair, fake smile, STAMP." For eight hours, for ten days, at $6.25 an hour. It was like running a marathon through a pile of shit, only my fellow runners were stale-smelling rednecks, and my legs hurt a whole lot more.
One of the perks of the job, if you can ever call it such a thing, was that every once in a while I got to work the Milwaukee Mile, which is the legendary racetrack on the fairgrounds, about a hundred years old or so, but really, I never cared. I just knew I wasn't getting paid enough and the two shirts they gave me smelled like pig crap. It was kind of exciting, working the races. Not only did I get to have my brain sawed in half by the endless zooming screeches of the cars, banshees on wheels, but I also got to deal with the populace who take in races on a near-daily basis in all their ripped-clothing glory. There they were, I saw, as I walked from the bus stop to the track, passing by the trailer park, hundreds upon hundreds of RVs, campers, and pickup trucks, each one with a flag proclaiming their allegiance to a particular driver, few of which I knew and none of which I respected. As much excitement as a Confederate Civil War platoon, and just as much hope as succeeding at their goals.
I spent almost two days pondering just what would draw a thousand RVs to a race. I'd already formulated my opinion on NASCAR years before - that being that it was a colossal momentous waste of time; one could easily sit by the freeway and get the same sense of excitement with half the danger and one-fifth the noise. As such, it was beyond me why someone would even enjoy it, after all, my argument that it was senseless to pay to watch cars drive was based on pure, faultless logic, and logic was what the basic laws of science are based on. It was truly beyond me, and I struggled to grasp it, even when the answer sat about fifty feet away from me amid the screeching of tires and the expulsion of carbon emissions.
My problem, as I know now, is that my brain did use logic. Logically, therefore, I assumed that all human brains grasp the concept of logic, as all brains are pretty much the same chemically and physically, and have access to the same basic information and education. The answer to the riddle thusly eluded me, because I was, in essence, too smart to grasp it - as if that makes any sense (again, back to my original problem). The people who watch NASCAR have no concept of logic. They are all Republicans, after all. To them, $75 is a reasonable fee to watch cars drive past, and if you suggest to them that they could do it in front of a gas station on I-94 for free, they will accuse you of trying to bring down the culture they have maintained and assert that you "just don't understand" or some other abstract statement of the worth of their own incompetence.
And they do have a culture, that much is understandable. They're like the hippies that quit their jobs in the 60s to follow Dylan around the country, only twice as dirty and with a tremendously inferior taste in music.
As I sat beneath the bleachers, stamping hands and taking tickets, bored out of my mind, wondering what would possess me to take the job, I stared aimlessly among the passing masses, going hither and thither to buy beer, sunglasses, hot dogs, or any of the thousands of souvenirs, from the miniature cars to the pristine shirts that would soon be ripped. (I've often wondered why they don't just sell the shirts with the rips already there, but that's neither here nor there.) As I gazed among them, I noticed something about their number and tone of skin. "Where are the negroes?" I wondered to myself. "There's nothing but white people here. Surely if I ascend the stairs to the bleachers themselves and scan the sitting crowd, I will encounter at least one black person, and therefore be able to sleep tonight." But as I stood there, with my neon yellow earplugs (complete with orange lightning-bolt design, like one of Zeus's boogers) and scanned the gathered crowd, which numbered at least seventy thousand, I saw not one. Not one darkie, schvoogie, or mamie; not even a halfie to be seen. Something was amiss here.
I turned my attention to one of my coworkers, herself black, and expressed my views to her.
"You know, I haven't seen one black person here today."
"You noticed it too huh."
"Maybe they all came in the dark of night to avoid a beating or something, or only stayed for the first race and left before this one."
"Ain't no niggas in NASCAR."
And then it clicked. The reason for NASCAR's popularity. It was literally in front of my face, every time I tore a ticket, every time I scanned the crowds, every time I pushed my earplugs a little farther in. Nobody, not a soul, is a black NASCAR driver. There isn't one. Racist White America had found its niche. They had found a place where they could mingle amongst each other, the overt Grand Wizards among the closeted Bush supporters. Here there was no threat of negroes arguing about politics, or asserting their importance in society, or singing that "black national anthem"; here was a society of brothers, equals not only in the eyes of God and the law, but under the grand gaze of the great man Robert Byrd (R-VA) himself. Even baseball, in its gloried racist days, had the Negro Leagues, wheras NASCAR has nothing, a fact which they gratefully celebrate.
Why is only NASCAR so popular? Why not Indie racing, or Formula One? Why do Republican presidential nominees court only NASCAR Dads, and not IRL Dads? Well, because there are historically minorities in Indie and Formula One. Formula One is represented by Lewis Hamilton, its first black driver, and IRL not only represents blacks, but women (Danica Patrick) and even Frenchmen (Sebastien Bourdais), eliminating all compatriots of the White American Male And His Child, who drive NASCAR's popularity. There is even a pronounced presence of Brazilians in both races (pardon the pun), such as Emerson Fittipaldi, Airton Dare, and Bruno Junqueira. Such diversity will never make IRL and F1 as popular or as goddamn offensive to the nostrils as NASCAR is.
But there is hope, as NASCAR's first black driver in almost 100 years of existence, Marc Davis, recently made his debut in April 2007. You'd think with how groundbreaking a feat like that is, that there would be a media circus around it, making blatant comparisons with other groundbreakers like Arthur Ashe and Jackie Robinson, but nope. I didn't even know about it until I sat down to write this. He was passed by, with nary a mention on the news programs of the United States. But then again, did the media pay more attention to Jackie Robinson when he made his debut?
The answer is, of course, no. Jackie Robinson's debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers was passed over universally, only receiving minor attention in New York City itself, where it had a significant impact. It was only several years into his career that we acknowledged Robinson's achievement, and even turned it into a classic film, The Jackie Robinson Story (starring Jackie Robinson), but it must be noted that it was because of how exceptional Robinson was as a player. Had Robinson been terrible, or even average, as a baseball player, his achievements would have never been spotlighted by the media of the time, and the full integration of baseball would have been postponed for years, never giving us Willie Mays, never giving us Hank Aaron, nor their achievements.
The media response to this integration is almost the same as the response Robinson's integration. (Sadly, I think Tiger Woods was a fluke. Maybe it's cause he's only a quarter black.) And Davis is bound by the same constraints - be exceptional or be shuffled under the rug. And so far, almost four months later, it seems that Davis is the latter - not placing top ten in a single race. It might be ten years before we see another black NASCAR driver, to which fully 95% of the NASCAR fanbase is willing to toast. Ain't no niggas in NASCAR.
None of this, of course, occurred to me as I sat, bored, having the oxygen cut off to my ears watching cars go around in 250 circles. I did notice the racism, and even laughed about it afterwards, as we do with these things. And as much as I hate the concept of NASCAR, I really do want to see it integrated, for the good of humanity. I wonder what will happen to the NASCAR fanbase once it is. Whether, when several black drivers start to win races regularly, the fanbase will grow, as with baseball, or diminish exponentially. Knowing NASCAR fans, and seeing their glisteningly white faces firsthand, I'm tempted to go with the latter, because really, seeing cars drive around in circles for three hours just isn't entertaining, and even integrated, just wouldn't be enough to hold people's attention. Maybe I'll be an IRL fan in protest. Nah.
One thing's for sure, I'm never fucking working at State Fair Park again.
xoxo
roza
Sometimes I have to wonder, you know?