On June 25th, 2003, CNSNews ran a story about a member of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition who called NASCAR "the last bastion of white supremacy". NASCAR fans were furious of course, but this is Standard Operating Procedure for Jackson's group: he calls people and companies racists and then waits for them to pony up the dough to shut him up. In point of fact, NASCAR was a "platinum sponsor" of Ranbow/PUSH's annual conference, having donated more than $250,000 in recent years.
So, did NASCAR bend over and take it, as Jackson no doubt expected? Hardly. CNSNews is now reporting (no permalink) that NASCAR has cut off all funding for Rainbow/PUSH. My hope is that this is the beginning of the end of Jackson's shake-down game.
As I wrote in the comments of my "Separate But Equal" post yesterday, there are a lot of people who profit greatly by holding blacks down. No, it's not corporations or rich white men. Think: who gains the most from racial politics and stirring up ethnic divisions? Could it be millionaires like Jesse Jackson, who have built their careers up by crying "racist" at every opportunity, and have built their fortunes by exploiting the cause of common men? Perhaps.
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