NASCAR right to pay penance with General Lee snub

February 21, 2012 8 Comments »

Full disclosure: A couple of months ago I enjoyed a late-night TV cheese-fest starring “The A-Team” followed by “The Dukes of Hazzard,” and shared said fun with my Facebook friends. Boss Hogg was telling Roscoe P. Coltrane that he was too stupid to tell grits from shoe polish.

The positive ensuing responses included everyone from North Carolina redneck libertarians to New York gay liberals.

Any other show that featured a car brandishing a Confederate flag on the top would be much more polarizing. But that show, its Southern roots notwithstanding, stayed out of the gray of politics and focused on good and evil.

Bad guys went to jail. Good guys were avenged. Everybody was judged solely on their merits — from Uncle Jesse’s black dentist who worked out of his motor home, to Daisy Duke and her fellow Miss Tri-Counties contestants being judged on their ability to look good in bikinis and rebuild engine parts.

The message of the show so overpowered the normal meaning of the rebel flag that said flag, in that sole context, ceased to be offensive. I would never fly a Confederate flag at my house, but if I go to a car show a General Lee replica is one of my first stops. The General Lee, because of its message of good, gets a pass.

Except at a NASCAR track.

Last week, NASCAR nixed a gimmick in which PGA pro Bubba Watson would drive around Phoenix International Raceway in a General Lee he bought for $110,000 at a car auction. Ben Jones, who played mechanic Cooter on “The Dukes of Hazzard” and later served as a Georgia congressman, blasted the decision. In a statement, he said the decision “…is prejudicial toward those good-hearted folks who, like Uncle Jesse Duke, are in fact ‘never meanin’ no harm.’”

Unfortunately, Congressman, you forgot one thing. NASCAR has a history that includes not showing the kind of hospitality Hazzard folks did.

Do we need to bring up NASCAR’s Jackie Robinson, Wendell Scott, being denied entry into Darlington Raceway’s Southern 500 for years in the 1960s? How about the 1999 incident where a black crewman was harassed by white motorcoach drivers who put pillowcases over their heads to resemble members of the Ku Klux Klan?

Think I’m dredging up old news unfairly? Why don’t we go all the way back to, um, 2008, when former Nationwide official Mauricia Grant, a black female, filed a $225 million lawsuit against NASCAR, claiming a racially hostile working environment followed by a wrongful termination after working there from 2005-07. NASCAR quickly settled her lawsuit, and a total of three people named in her suit were fired.

Maybe in 20 or 25 years, when all of this behavior has finally subsided — and when the sport is finally properly integrated — the General Lee will be able to go to a NASCAR track, and we’ll be be able to enjoy the car on its merits.

But not now. Finally, on this subject, NASCAR is making the right decisions.

Follow Josh Stewart on Twitter @JoshNASCARWWE

  • http://billsandiego.blogspot.com Bill H.

    I grew up in Louisiana and I’m with you on this one. In some settings I would see the car, not the flag, but NASCAR’s history is the altering factor. I would see the flag and be offended by it.

  • Tom

    NASCAR has gone too far now. It seems like anymore if it’s not politically correct it’s not in the best interest. Thats a bunch of bull!! There is absolutely nothing wrong with displaying the confederate flag. This flag has nothing to do with diversity or any other hostile meaning against the blacks, afterall thats what they are saying.

  • mr clause

    I may be as dumb as a box of rocks but, how does the “General Lee” get dragged into NASCAR’s racist past? It is simply a car that has bypassed all the racist crap and became something enjoyed by millions of folks for what it is and what it represents. What it, the stars of the show, the story lines, do not represent is racism in any form. The only racism involved in this is that of NASCAR’s history and this feeble attempt by NASCAR to be PC. The “General Lee” is a car! I didn’t know a car could give off racial overtones. This stupidity by NASCAR is a slap in the face to the fans of the “General” which probably out number NASCAR fans. Having the “General Lee” to play with as a boy certainly did not make my son a racist. Maybe the thing to do is ask the Scott family where the racism really is. I’d be willing to bet that it wouldn’t be the “General”.

  • Rick

    This is a slap in the face to all Nascar fans 90% of Nascar fans loved that TV shiw, and it was by no means a racists show. Also if people did there history they would also know that the Rebel flag does not represent racism. Its stupid political decisions like this that are driving fans away from Nascar I guess Nascar likes seeing empty grandstands because some of the off track decisions they are making are just stupid. Oh and I will continue to fly my Rebel flag in my front yard.

  • Sid Williams

    The only racist in this whole “deal” is Brian France. He doesn’t like or want to be associated with “rednecks”. He doesn’t want me and my friends in his campgrounds with our Confederate Flags, but he wants us in his racetracks. Buying seats and food. Personally i’m so fed up with him i’m just about ready to stop going to the races at all. Look at all the money i’d save with a big screen t v and a grille on the deck. No traffic, no crowds, no Brian France…………….hummmmm. Something to think about.

  • MadCow Racing

    Actually NASCAR never said black drivers could not race in any race. It was the race track’s owners themselves who would do that. Bill France Sr, the founder of NASCAR, was well known for giving Wendell Scott DOUBLE his winnings has tracks that refused to pay him for racing. There is NO reason AT ALL for NASCAR to feel like they are doing the wrong thing by having the General Lee at a race track. I am sure the vast majority of us would have loved to see that! I know I would have!

  • Terry L. Headley

    I, like many Americans, had family who fought on both sides of the Civil War. As far I we can ascertain, none owned slaves, yet many fought for Southern Independence. I am proud to be the great-great-grandson of Confederate veterans just as I am to be the great-great-grandson of Union veterans. I respect their service to their “country.”
    I also have great respect for Gen. Lee (the man). He was a paragon of virtue and a gentleman of honor in every sense of the word. If you doubt it, watch the History Channel’s show “April, 1865.”
    I do not like what the Confederate government stood for, but I have the greatest respect for the men who served, fought and died. I would ever fly the flag of the Confederate government — the true “Stars and Bars” flag, but the flag on the roof of the General Lee is the Confederate “Battle Flag” — the flag of the military. Those who do not know history confuse the two. I don’t!
    However, I do not believe in disrespecting the flag — whether the American flag or the Confederate flag. There is a time and a place for either. I, frankly, don’t want to see the American or Confederate flag on t-shirts, bumper stickers or bikinis.
    I want the Confederate battle flag to be respected for the service those men gave to their “country.” I have little use for people who want to use the flag as a weapon against others — whether rednecks who want to use it against blacks or liberal lunatics who want to use it to attack southerners.

  • zzz05

    You’ve hit it on the head. The General Lee is probably the least racist use of the Confederate flag ever, so it gets banned; while the stands and parking lots are full of Confederate flags, at least some of which are displayed with some degree of racist intent. But NASCAR’s all about public image and keeping the sponsors happy these days.