Lessons from the Atlanta Street Racing Debacle

Lessons from Atlanta Street Racing

Let’s begin with a series of assumptions. Southern country white folk love car racing and NASCAR. Their attachment to it is legendary. As a matter of fact the legends of car racing reads like a deep white country list of biblical patriarchs and their families; Richard Petty, Al Unser, Bobby Allison, Bill Elliot, Earnhardt, Wallace, etc. Auto racing has a whole history and ‘thing’ (for lack of a better word) behind it. From stock cars, to Formula 1 to drag racers, to trucks, motorcycles and even go karts, being a child of urban Atlanta I had no idea what on earth the appeal was until I lived in rural South Carolina.

First of all there is not that much entertainment in rural areas. This was before home internet or phone internet. There was one movie theatre in town with two films playing, none of which were timely or relevant at the same time. So what passed for Black, White and Latino entertainment….was high school sports and the local drag strip. That was public entertainment in a rural southern town and as I write these words I miss it. Blacks, Whites, Asians and Latinos ran in different religious, social and neighborhood circles but the drag strip and racing brought all of the cultures together.

It was great fun. When asked, I describe it like ‘freaknic’ mixed with street racing and all of the attendant noise and smoke, mixed with Confederate flags, mixed with a strong Black presence precipitated not only by the entertainment value for young adults but all of the local ninja ‘dope boys’ who had any success proved it by buying or funding a car with which to race at the Drag Strip on Saturday nights. 

There was unofficial betting and gambling going on and of course human nature being what it is, anything unofficial that goes on long enough becomes by default perfectly official in its unofficial-ness. The dope boys bet the country white boys, everybody fixing their cars up and testing them on the track. Quite often people’s cars caught on fire. It was a great festive environment on weekends at the Drag Strip during summer Saturday evenings. My cousin Zack kept telling me, “dude you gotta come to the drag strip, you gotta come to the drag strip.”

“I’m from ATL man, ‘we don’t dance no more, we don’t dance no more and we don’t do no shit like drag strips and car races.” That was my perspective until my ‘trap’ friends seconded the fact that the drag strip was indeed really where it was at on Saturday nights. When I went the first time it was indeed as I said earlier, smoke and deafening roars from car engines, mixed with ‘freaknic’, mixed with Confederate flags, mixed with copious amounts of alcohol and mostly ‘recreational drugs’, mixed with dope boys, mixed with high horsepower vehicles, mixed with male egos and testosterone, mixed with beautiful country gals, mixed with young adult male-female hormones, mixed with…..and guess what, “the” and I’m sure “certain” police and sheriffs; some of them had cars themselves. I’ll let you wonder how they got a $150,000 worth of car to race and keep in condition to race on a Sheriff’s salary in the deep country where $150,000 is over half the payroll for the Mayor, Municipal clerk and staff and Sheriff. 

You may think I’m necessitating corruption and perhaps I am but I recognize a lot of benefits in that arrangement as well. As I said, big dope boys bought the best and fastest cars and engines they could get. So now at the track the Sheriff is racing against a 28 year old black dude who nobody knows what he does for income in a small town. Right? They know. But knowing breeds familiarity and familiarity, even if it is completely dysfunctional breeds a level of toleration and comfort, even uneasy comfort like a ‘Cold War’. 

And the dope boys knew, ‘yeah Sheriff might bust me, but out here at the track where there are so many other things he could be busting (the illegal gambling and alcohol sales), the illegal marijuana smells wafting in between the smoke from the engines, the underage drinking and carousing and the mutual and pari-mutuel betting. But…..And in a sense all of that was good, perhaps the other dimension of ‘Andy Taylor and Barney Fife’. In such circumstances the Sheriff and law enforcement can observe their local citizens and observe and interact with them casually, privately. We know what everybody is and is doing but casually. We know she’s underage, we just saw her in the cheerleading squad but everybody knows everybody’s mama too and in some sense that is more important than titles and roles. Everybody is keeping an eye on her. They know her mama, if she’s running with the wrong crowd or…just running like teenagers do. 

Meanwhile we’d wonder why the biggest dope boy in ‘Apple Orchard county’ could race cars against Sheriffs with no job or apparent source of income, nearly every Saturday night for 10 years and not get busted, while outsiders and reckless upstarts get busted left and right.  That kind of thing in its best iterations leads to a kind of weird stability. Everybody kind of knew their place. I don’t remember any fights at the drag strip. Maybe way late after the main events were over and people had been drinking and loitering until the wee hours of the morning a tussle or two or shots fired might get reported but I don’t remember any specific incidents.

Speaking of the main events, I know the drag strip made a lot of money. It had a kind of concession and food stand with souvenirs and things like that. They had amateur races and perhaps 2 or 3 categories of semi-pro or heats of races and then the evening would culminate in the 2 or 3 big races with the very fastest and proven cars to win prizes which would oftentimes be upwards of tens of thousands of dollars on a given night. 

Part II

So now, why do I tell a story like that in an essay about street racing in Atlanta. First of all Black elected officials need to be careful not to reinforce racial stereotypes. Country white folk do the same street racing behaviors (be it in a more rural and appropriate setting) but they aren’t demonized and treated like a threat not only to public safety but public decency. From what I’ve noticed many of the persons street racing in Atlanta are young African Americans, Latinos, Asians and Whites; a similar demographic to the one in rural South Carolina I described. In rural South Carolina there is a level of acceptance whereas in Atlanta, urban African American, Latino and Asian youth are easy to demonize and dismiss as being thugs, ne’er do wells and gang members.

Recently in the local ATL news the question was asked incredulously and with all the disdain we reserve for Ninjas and Mexicans, “what kind of man does ‘donuts’ with his 3 year old daughter in the car?” The same kind of man that rides horseback with his child on the horse, the same kind of man that rides motorcycles with his child on the back, the same kind of man that carries his kid around on his neck as he jumps and dances around and does the macarena. The same kind of white man that teaches his child to hunt, shoot guns and dress down fish and game with a knife at the age of 8. But a Ninja or Mexican doing ‘donuts’ with his daughter in McDonald’s parking lot is an easy target literally and figuratively for Black bourgeois elected official and local newscaster ‘faux outrage’. The one thing these ‘faux outrage’ folk wouldn’t do is ask the kid did she enjoy hanging out with her dad spinning around like she is on a ‘merry go round’ in the backseat while her daddy is doing ‘donuts’ with the ‘baby shark’ song blasting in the background and all her little eyes can see is the golden arches and Ronald McDonald from being in McDonalds parking lot………put that in the ‘priceless’ commercial!  

So Keisha and Little boy Bond please don’t be too rough on these ninjas, there may be some things you can learn from them and deep country South Carolina. Why can’t the city take advantage of the fact people are car enthusiasts? Can we not make a space for these car enthusiasts the way we make space for ‘DragonCon’? God knows prior to coronavirus every year in ninjatown, excuse me, ATL we host motocross, monster truck rallies, Bronner Brother International Black Hair Care expositions, etc., we can figure out a way to host ninja cross or as I stated earlier, freaknic mixed with Confederate NASCAR, mixed with Latino lowriders, mixed with Dr. Dre and his 64’ mixed with…Mormons and the Amish in buggies and gay men in diapers, chaps and adult sized drivable prams and strollers. 

Let them Ninjas and Mexicans rent out Atlanta Speedway and do just like the country boys used to do it. Let the amateurs pay as low as $50 to race their cars against each other as long as they are licensed and sign a waiver. Have races and heat categories, tricked out categories, stunt categories, etc. And Keisha could make us (we good citizens of Atlanta) some tax revenue money off that. It will grow and “enthusiasts” from all over the world will come. But no, you want to try to impose bourgeois white mainstream sensibilities everywhere and on everything like dressing your child that can’t read up in Versace and then getting offended and blaming it on race when the white school you put him in puts him in remedial classes. Clearly the interest is there in ‘street racing’; harness it. But they won’t do that in favor of supporting another government program.

The best business practice is to take advantage of an existing market. These ninjas and Latinos and white boy ‘enthusiasts’ clearly have money and are willing to spend. Instead of helping them to monetize and and structure their activities to turn them into legitimate enterprises and activities, we (Keisha and Bond) hate on them and wonder why the government can’t make good investments if it slaps them in the face and begs them to take it….Keisha and Bond would rather lock the people up and take their cars if they slapped them with an opportunity like this.

But just like typical Black bourgeois elites with Polo draws and socks on that match (not coincidentally) with their bedspread and sheets, if we look like white people they must respect us and we must be automatically doing something good for Black people; who as the logic goes can only prove themselves and their acceptability in white mainstream circles by not talking like themselves, not going to their own neighborhood schools, not living in their own neighborhoods and not being themselves generally. This is like they did Michael Vick when the world told him with a straight face he should have gotten rid of his old friends after he got in trouble for the dog fighting he had done growing up. Yeah, when I lived in rural South Carolina I knew plenty white boys that more than went to dog fighting and cock fighting bouts. Have you ever wondered where the phrase University of South Carolina ‘Fighting Gamecocks’ came from? But what is good enough for country white folk is good enough to get a Black man castrated. No one would dare tell white folk, until the animal rights era recently there is something wrong with white culture because they fight dogs or cocks. There is something wrong with you Black boy, you must change from what is yourself.

One last story as I close. If you have been paying attention you have seen threaded at very important points throughout this article the phrase confederate flags inclusive of the atmosphere at these country races; even the ubiquitous nature of the confederate flags at these events. By then I was a pretty big time hustler myself….in a small pond. And I had some connections on all sides ‘pro-legitimate’ and ‘straight street’ and a lot in between. So as I began frequenting the drag strip Saturday evenings I’d go with people I know and see people I haven’t seen in a while and restore old connections. 

My very, very good friend and mentor who I owe half my hustle to had a deep country white boy he worked with on the hustle. We’d all hang out and chill drinking beer and smoking weed; looking at sports and talking about life. This went on for months. One day an unusual thing happened. Apparently every other time the country white boy had come over he left before me. But this time I left before him and as I walked out, I looked at his truck and there slapping me in the face was a front license plate with the confederate flag image imposed and installed on it.

Well I never! And then I thought on the way home. He wouldn’t be my first friend with religious or political views I find totally abhorrent. He was a good natured old boy into his family, hunting, working (although I forgot exactly what he did) and I suppose drinking beer and smoking weed with his Black buddies and associates. So then I decided well, he hasn’t said anything untoward to me so I have no reason to confront him in a negative way on this new fact of my seeing the confederate flag on his truck. Of course I understood what I had to assume his political persuasions were. But as he never acted on it around me, holding him accountable for it would be unfair until such time as he did me wrong or handled me wrong or disrespected me. I waited for some little racism to pop out and I could check him; ready to pounce. I waited some more. In all the years I have known him he has had a confederate flag plate on his front tag. And in all the years I have known him he has never disrespected me in any way. That is more than I can say for many of my family, church family and my Black friends and if I can tolerate their foibles and crazy religion I can tolerate a couple others too. I waited so long that even if he did disrespect me in that way I would have no statistical justification than to call it some kind of weird aberration that made my white friend do so! Perhaps he’s getting dementia or Alzheimer’s.