Lea: Decision to ban Confederate flags puts NASCAR on right side of hurtful history
Posted June 11, 2020 10:51 a.m. EDT
Updated June 11, 2020 5:45 p.m. EDT
"No one should feel uncomfortable when they come to a NASCAR race."
Driver Bubba Wallace, NASCAR's lone, full-time African-American Cup Series driver, has been outspoken lately on the subject of racism and social justice after the death of George Floyd and nationwide protests. Wallace even wore an "I can't breathe" shirt before a race and had #BlackLivesMatter on his race car in Martinsville.
On Wednesday, NASCAR finally took the step and officially banned the Confederate flag from being displayed at all events.
The announcement brought a wave of excitement among some people in the black community. Panthers safety Tre Boston tweeted that he would watch Wednesday night's race at Martinsville. I even had friends and viewers contact me to tell me they're going to start going to NASCAR races now.
"I grew up loving NASCAR, and I still do," Durham native Eric Stevenson told me. "I (wouldn't) go because of those flags. I've turned down free tickets for the last 15 years to the Coca-Cola (600) every year."
I've seen Confederate flags with my own eyes covering races in Charlotte and Martinsville, and it's one of the reasons many of my family members and African-American friends won't go to races. They feel the same discomfort that Wallace was talking about.
In 2012, I decided I wanted to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a pro wrestler. After researching schools in North Carolina, I settled on CWF Mid-Atlantic in the Burlington/Gibsonville area. This company wanted to bring the old-school feel of wrestling back, that small studio, up-close and personal experience wrestling fans could witness on TV back in the 70s and 80s, similar to the feel of wrestling events that were taped at WRAL Studios long ago. That included flags of the various Mid-Atlantic states hung around the ring.
When I entered the building I loved the look and feel, but immediately was taken aback: hanging from the ceiling was the old Georgia with the Confederate flag on it, not the current flag which was changed in 2003. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and remembered why I was there: to be a pro wrestler. So I didn't let that discomfort stop me from proceeding.
When it was time for my debut match, 40 or 50 of my closest family members and friends packed inside with other rabid wrestling fans for a Saturday night of great, independent wrestling. After the event, everyone had high praise for my debut but also expressed concern over my well-being.
Why?
The pure sight of a Confederate flag, the same flag that gave me pause when I first stepped into the building five months before.
Many of those family members and friends never made it back to see me wrestle in that building. Not because they didn't want to support me, but because the flag made them feel vulnerable and out of place.
Since then, I've had plenty of debates with fellow wrestlers and other friends about the Confederate flag being displayed at so many events.
"It's not hate, it's heritage."
"It's Southern pride."
"It represents my ancestors and their fight for their rights."
Heritage. Pride. Rights.
As a black man who grew up in North Carolina with the last name of a slave owner who has a town named after him (Leasburg in Caswell County), hearing this reasoning from my friends never sat well with me.
The heritage of owning slaves? The pride of feeling superior over a race of people? The rights to own a human being and make them subservient to you?
These were always my retorts, but I was always met with opposition. It made me realize that for a lot of people, the cruel act of slavery almost didn't exist to them. It was so far away that they feel no responsibility for it, even if they proudly fly a flag of a fledgling country that never got off the ground, whose intent was to base their economy on African slave labor.
That's the disconnect between my discomfort and the "pride" of others.
On March 21, 1861, Confederate States of America Vice President Alexander H. Stephens gave his most famous speech in Savannah, Ga., "The Cornerstone Speech." In it, he described slavery as the "cornerstone" of this new nation that was fighting to secede from the United States of America.
Stephens said, "Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical and moral truth."
When states did secede, most listed slavery as one of the primary reasons to leave to Union in their Articles of Secession. Knowing these facts, it always puzzled me why anyone would want to fly that flag to represent their "heritage."
But then I started to understand some of the disconnect.
After the Civil War, the Confederate flag was still around, but wasn't prominently displayed in society. During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, the flag was brought back to life by some Southern whites as a response. As a matter of fact, that same Georgia state flag that was hanging up at my wrestling school was adopted in 1956, two years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case that desegregated schools. Of course it took years after that 1954 ruling for schools to become desegregated in some areas, including North Carolina.
For those born after this time period, overt racism became taboo and was hidden behind symbols, like the Confederate flag.
I do think there are well-intentioned, well-meaning folks who proudly display the flag because they think it only represents them as Southerners, just like I know the owners of the wrestling school I attended did not intend to offend me or my friends and family. But it's now time we face the facts head-on and realize it's true meaning of hatred and separation, dating back to the 1860s. We're meant to break the toxic cycles of our ancestors that masquerades as "tradition" in order to find a better way of life.
NASCAR took some time to realize this, but now they're here. Stock car racing isn't traditionally the most inclusive and welcoming sport, however diversity could be what takes the sport to a new level. NASCAR has been preaching diversity for the longest time and, on Wednesday, the leadership finally put action behind those statements.
It will take more than a diverse crowd at a stock car race to heal all of our country's wounds steeped in racial divides. But this is a step, and NASCAR will ultimately be on the right side of history once the story has been told.
