NASCAR kicked its Winston Cup addiction. It has spiffed itself up and wants to be a sport everybody can embrace.
Everybody, that is, except the people who loved it first. They’re the good ol’ boys and girls who were grilling possum in the infield long before the first latte was served in a Nextel Cup skybox.
The “Dear Bubba” letter came when driver Derrike Cope showed up at Las Vegas with a new sponsor–RedneckJunk.com.
The Web site sells outdoor gear, not moonshine. But NASCAR told him to remove the logo, since it did not project the proper image. Huh?
Get rid of pork rinds, tube tops, mullets and Confederate flags, and what does racing have?
NASCAR thinks it will have a more marketable product. But in its obsessive drive to retool its image, NASCAR is being as bigoted as the average redneck supposedly is. So what is a redneck? The dictionary definitions:
– “A disparaging term for a member of the white rural laboring class, especially in the southern United States.”
– “A white person regarded as having a provincial, conservative, often bigoted attitude.”
NASCAR apparently is going with the second definition. No doubt, there are bigoted race fans.
But too many people make the automatic jump from redneck to racist. The term came from the sun, toiling in the fields, getting the kind of farmer’s tan you don’t get in a salon.
To say all rednecks are bigots is like saying all Polish are stupid or Muslims are terrorists.
A Wal-Mart lifestyle doesn’t make you unsavory. If any group should understand this, you’d think it would be NASCAR.
