I never thought that I'd hear city kids talking about how crazy Nascar driver Brian Vickers was to upset the Nextel Cup chase the way he did last Sunday.
So this morning, we went out to King of Prussia, which as it sounds is a fancy expensive suburb where mostly white people live, and a whole bunch of black and latino kids came in from the city by bus to do some track work on souped up go-karts, preparing for their races to come later in the year. It was a lot of fun, and i really respect the effort to broaden the kids horizons, to show that despite a lot of thet culture around Nascar, car racing is not just for white people and that you don't have to compromise your blackness to enjoy it and talk about it. For me, moving to philly has been a lot about becoming free from being enslaved to my whiteness. Learning not to be ashamed of being white, learning to embrace other cultures I love w/out giving up my whiteness and continuing to lament the pain and sins of racism. I love that I love reggaeton, that i enjoy curried goat and oxtails, that i'm learning to dance the wutang, that i love U2 and Coldplay, that I like watching international soccer, that i like art, and enjoy spending time in nature. One of the great sins of racism in this country is how many important and necessary ideas evolved into being classified as "white," such as education, art, religion, and nature, among others. "White" became eerily sinonomous with "good" and "white" is and has always been rejected by minority groups as a remnant of slavery. That to me is a very heavy issue, but I am brought tremendous joy when I see this reversed, even in small ways off to the side of a racetrack in a maddeningly wealthy suburb of Philly. How freeing it is to be able to enjoy the wealth of other cultures without being traitorous to your own. There is a danger in focusing on the enjoyment of difference and failing to see that the point is that there is the larger story than each culture going on with the advent of the kingdom of God, but as Christians, we sure have a ways to go before we are even capable of falling into that pitfall.
Saturdays were not created for getting up early, but i suppose that's an appropriate backdrop for me to do something antithetical to my core beliefs. That belief being, that Nascar is a part of my whiteness that I flat out adamently reject. I suppose it's not completely fair to ascribe nascar to whiteness, but i doubt that besides curling there aren't many other "sports" that are so whitely dominated both in number of performers and audience members. Upon moving to West Philly I was quick to distance myself from Brian and his nascar lust affair, owning like seriously 20 Nascar hats, and 90% of them were for an Earnhardt. When he moved out the red christmas lit number 3 on our wall was the only remnant of the nascar freak in our house. I've been around several compulsive Nascar fans and i've never been so turned off by a culture. Especially Tony Stewart fans in College Park, but anyhow, this isn't a rant, it's more of a confession, so i digress.
Anyhow, i've been quietly monitoring the chase for the cup on espn.com, not too into it, certainly not watching any of it, but impressed w/ Kasey Kahne's run to make the chase and the dramatic absence of Tony Stewart. Anyhow, last sunday after church Robert told me that after a two year wait, he had been accepted into the urban youth racing school. I found that funny b/c Brian tried hard to get some kind of in there to work w/ the kids at the Sal, but he invited me to watch his practice which was this morning.
I actually ducked out after the free lunch at church and watched the last 50 laps of the nascar race off and on. I must say that when Vickers spun his teammate out and knocked Dale Jr. out, i was pretty shocked and thought that there were some crazy stuff going on. I'm not ready to call nascar a sport, but it definitely takes a ton of skill. I love seeing God's sense of humor in calling me to the inner city and there showing me that it's ok to embrace parts of nascar, parts of my whiteness that i reject. Don't get me wrong, i will never be a crazy fan, i don't know that i'll ever consider it a sport, but i definitely have a new respect and appreciation for it. Oh and the guy wants me to do some work with them in aerodynamics analysis, maybe some wind tunnel testing and talk to the kids about the role understanding airflow plays in racing. How cool is that!! God hasn't forgot that I went to college!
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