Auto racing giant NASCAR said Wednesday that it is banning the display of the Confederate flag at all of its events and properties.
The announcement is sure to be controversial with a number of NASCAR fans, some of whom continue to display Confederate flags and symbols at racing events even five years after the organization asked fans not to do so.
Also Wednesday, NASCAR removed its rule mandating that racing team members stand for the national anthem.
NASCAR’s new outright ban on the Confederate flag comes more than two weeks after a black man, George Floyd, died when a white Minneapolis police officer named Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, even after Floyd repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe.”
The incident ignited protests nationwide. It also triggered demands for the removal from public places of symbols of the Confederacy, the group of Southern states that started the Civil War in 1861 by seceding from the United States in a doomed, bloody effort to save the institution of enslaving black people.
“The presence of the confederate flag at NASCAR events runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry,” NASCAR said in a prepared statement that was issued before its race Wednesday night at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia.
“Bringing people together around a love for racing and the community that it creates is what makes our fans and sport special. The display of the confederate flag will be prohibited from all NASCAR events and properties.”
On Sunday, Bubba Wallace, the only black full-time driver on the NASCAR circuit, wore a shirt bearing the words “I Can’t Breathe/Black Lives Matter” before a race in Atlanta.
“My next step would be to get rid of all Confederate flags,” Wallace said in a CNN interview the following day.
“No one should feel uncomfortable when they come to a NASCAR race. So it starts with Confederate flags. Get them out of here. They have no place for them.”
Wallace also said, “There’s going to be a lot of angry people that carry those flags proudly but it’s time for change.”
“We have to change that, and I encourage NASCAR to have those conversations to remove those flags.”
Before Sunday’s race in Atlanta, the 40 cars on the track stopped in front of grandstands and shut off their engines.
NASCAR President Steve Phelps delivered a message over driver’s radio sets.
“Our country is in pain and people are justifiably angry, demanding to be heard,” Phelps said. “The black community and all people of color have suffered in our country, and it has taken far too long for us to hear their demands for change. Our sport must do better. Our country must do better.”
“The time is now to listen, to understand and to stand against racism and racial injustice,” Phelps said. “We ask our drivers, our competitors and all our fans to join us in this mission, to take a moment of reflection, to acknowledge that we must do better as a sport, and join us as we now pause and take a moment to listen.”
It had been common for decades at NASCAR events, particularly in the South, for Confederate flags to be displayed by fans. But in 2015, on the heels of the slaughter in Charleston, South Carolina, of nine black churchgoers by a racist named Dylan Roof, NASCAR asked that fans not display the Confederate flag at races.
Many fans have ignored that request.
Earlier Wednesday, President Donald Trump said that he will not allow the names of U.S. Army bases that are named after generals who fought for slave-holding states of the Confederacy in the Civil War to be changed.
On the same day, Trump’s top economic advisor Larry Kudlow said he does not believe that systemic racism exists in the United States.
NBC News reported Wednesday that Democrats in the House and Senate plan to reintroduce in both of those chambers of Congress a bill that would remove from the U.S. Capitol the statues of those who voluntarily served in the Confederacy.
Story cited here.
