Wallowing in Southerness

Rob and I went to Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston Salem last night to catch NASCAR's minor league. Sometimes you just have to wallow in being Southern.

Just for the record: were it not for Rob, I would never watch motorsports. When he is out of town, I certainly don't saddle up to the tv on Sunday afternoons with a beer and a Junior cap, and the volume adjusted at that perfect level where you can sleep through the uneventful laps but be woken by the screaming commentators at the first spin-out.

But in my attempt to spend our marriage choosing worthwhile battles, I finally gave in to the inevitability of NASCAR in my life. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I have come to find some enjoyment in the sport. In the big leagues, the NASCAR Nextel series, it's the drama between the racers - the off-track interviews and grudge matches that play out when one car "gets into" a rival and spins him out.

With the locals at Bowman Gray, the inexperience and lack of funding for the drivers leads to crappy cars, flaring tempers and tons of wrecks. During my first Bowman Gray racing experience, one driver t-boned another as they were leaving the track - after the race. In the final stockcar race last night, there were 10 cautions in 15 laps.

I do hope to someday compete in two Bowman Gray events - demolition derbies and chain races - and yet even these are not my favorite part of local racing - it's the crowd watching. I wear my sunglasses straight through to the end, long past sunset, so that I can scan the crowd undetected. Some of the highlights from last night included:

• An 8-year-old (or so) wearing a tee-shirt which read "It's Always Dirtier Down South"
• Dozens and dozens of kids, of whom only two were wearing ear protection
  
• The pack of high-school kids in front of us, three of whom, including one chick, dipped tobacco - the fourth smoked
• The bald guy with the enormous goatee who stood on the wall to make a two-handed jacking-off gesture at the driver who won the big race
• The confederate flags: on hats, shirts and purses and for sale at the gift kiosk
• Fashions revived from my middle school years: opaque, lace-bottomed leggings under jean skirts, polo shirts with the sleeves ripped out, and one girl with a half ponytail and mall bags
• A teenager in madras shorts and a tucked in polo with the collar turned up who I inexplicable wanted to beat the crap out of

And then there was the peanut vendor - I was really tempted to strike up a conversation with him. He was a thin black teen, maybe 16, walking the aisles alone among an all-white crowd, many of whom consider "redneck" an admirable title.

In fact, all of the non-white people at the track were working: selling beers, overseeing the parkinglot. I spent much of the night wondering if being a black kid working at a venue surpassed in whiteness only by hockey is comfortable in its familiarity, the way being a Jew in a predominantly Christian nation is for me - or is it unnerving, like the time Rob and I went to the UniverSoul Circus, two among 6 white people in attendance, when Zeke, the ringleader's sidekick, picked Rob out of the crowd to scorn?

Much like feminism, American race relations are stuck in that strange netherland where minorities have gained enough ground that some white people like to pretend there's no longer a problem and 60s-style protests seem too extreme, and yet the disparity, in earning, quality of life, prison populations, etc, are still demonstrably great.

I sometimes think about the racial makeup of our friends - while we have non-white friends, the vast majority are white which begs the question: are we more likely to have white friends because we're more likely to have common interest with white people or is it because America still self-segregates, making it more difficult to meet people of other ethnic groups?