By Jim Coffman
Talladega should be shut down as in it should be flattened. It is absolutely irredeemable. The comprehensive destruction of the Alabama racecourse could be a centerpiece of a modern-day march of justice and obliteration through every square foot of NASCAR country.
And let’s be clear, by the way, that that country stretches north to New Hampshire and west through Texas all the way to at least Arizona. Hell, it even includes a portion of Chicago suburbia.
I write this as we learn that when the stock car racing circuit stopped in Talladega over the weekend the hosts made sure that the one and only Black driver involved in the entire enterprise, Bubba Wallace, would be greeted by a noose. A noose! The organizers of the Talladega race obviously, OBVIOUSLY! were telling Wallace that they were laying in wait, ready to lynch him.
At the end of the Civil War in 1865, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman (the union’s second-greatest general) decided a good way to make sure everyone understood that the South had lost completely and utterly (and that unconditional surrender was the only next move) was to charge through Georgia burning and killing all white property and population he could find.
By the way: Hey America, as you are removing statues of racist traitors like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in the coming months, you could put up at least a few memorials to Sherman. He had more than a few shortcomings, but when it mattered he was also willing to do precisely what it took to decisively end the war and completely demoralize a wide swath of the South.
The full-sized stock car race track located in the heart of Alabama tried to host a race with a tiny crowd (a few thousand people showed up) this weekend. It was supposed to be run on Sunday but forced to switch to Monday. And to its tiny credit, Talladega was the first NASCAR facility to enforce NASCAR’s new “no confederate flag” rule.
Of course, the good citizens of Alabama were too stupid to understand that “no confederate flags at the racetrack” did not mean anyone was coming for their flags. Unrepentant racists to the core could be seen flooding stores near Talladega to buy every bit of Confederate memorabilia they could find in the days leading up to the race – as if the government was on the verge of completely criminalizing that sort of thing any day now.
Upon further review, by the way, I now support laws that would require police in Alabama to work their way through their sorry state burning every single Confederate flag they find as a latter-day Sherman’s march.
So this is what we are doing now. This is really sad. It’s 2020 and you lost that war. 🤷🏾♂️ #NASCAR #talladega pic.twitter.com/JZulsthyQM
— Jonathan Willard (@46Tigger) June 21, 2020
Meanwhile, the leaders of the NRA stood by, nodding their heads in approval. The National Rifle Association guys had the first highly profitable idea of pushing gun ownership paranoia, especially when Barack Obama was elected president. Despite Obama not supporting any sort of comprehensive gun control other than background checks, the NRA was able to convince thousands of Southerners that unless they bought every gun they could find immediately, government agents would arrive the next day to confiscate the weapons they already held.
Donald Trump has actually been rough on the NRA. It has been hard for them to sell the paranoia when the president has been so obviously willing to do whatever he could to reassure gun owners at every turn. Several gun manufacturers have been forced to declare bankruptcy during his tenure.
So that was the overall situation over the weekend when Mr. Wallace arrived at Talladega to be greeted by the racetrack’s desperate desire that he be lynched. Next up at the very least, racist heads must roll.
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Adding: There is just so much amazing stuff in the world right now. First it was Al Sharpton expressing exactly what we had been thinking a few weeks ago and today it is Stephen A. Smith:
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Jim “Coach” Coffman welcomes your comments.
Posted on June 22, 2020