Autoweek on Minorities in US Motorsports
Autoweek a while back had a great article on minorities in motorsports. The NASCAR stuff is what really gets you. Take the sort of people who attend NASCAR races and make them into a mob 100,000-strong. Then put a black guy out in front of Dale Earnhart, Jr. and you can fill in the rest. So, the real story is that there just aren’t any minorities in racing for the most part (in the US anyway).
Buckles was the first black driver to win a NASCAR-sanctioned race since Wendell Scott’s 1963 win in a Grand National race. It was a small-time race, but it could have been-should have been-a celebratory opportunity to mark genuine progress for minority participation in motorsports. According to team co-owner Leonard Miller, though, there was a bitter edge to the events in the winner’s circle. Unlike Scott, who wasn’t even shown the checkered flag when he crossed the line, and was forced to wait until all the fans and press had left before race officials acknowledged his victory, Buckles was sent straight to the podium. But he did so, writes Miller in his autobiography, Silent Thunder, as other competitors in pit lane “waved rebel flags at us in defiance,” and a young child-perhaps seven years old-pressed his nose against the catch fence and shouted at the victors, “You people go home!”
I actually subscribe to Autoweek magazine, so the reader’s responses via letters were just as interesting as the article. Unfortunately I can’t find the letters anywhere online and I can’t find my copy of the actual magazine, but there were two that I want to mention. The first I thought was rather insightful, as in the article the author talks about how racing is inaccessible for minorities because it costs money to get into and run your car. The letter-writer pointed out that the vast majority of racers of all colors pay their own way for everything and make sacrifices to do so. It’s hard work to get by racing no matter what you look like. This is a pretty valid point. The other letter was amazing, though. It said that if “we” let “them” into racing, “we” won’t have any sports left except ice hockey! Wow. It’s not that I’m surprised that people think this, but that somebody though it would be a pretty good idea to write in to the magazine with this sentiment, throwing around first- and third-person plural pronouns like that, as though obviously everyone who was reading would be white. I am impressed that Autoweek published the letter, though, because it just reinforced the point of the article. Publishing it made sure that readers new the racism among racing fans wasn’t just sensationalized in the article.