Couldn’t be because they were searching for any news story that would somehow piss someone off, right? News today doesn’t do anything like that.
I bet with a little imagination the networks could tell us onlne gambling is equal to the end of times.
Oh, wait. That could never happen.
C’mon. This was DATELINE! I would actually have expected them to pack some C4 around one of the racer’s fuel tanks to see whether they really blew up when bumped.
Dude, they haven’t raced Corvairs for decades. Do try to keep up. 
You’re thinking of Pintos, but we’re still talking about DATELINE!
Maybe they thought they were Sikhs.
Seriously, if there’s a handful of Muslims at a NASCAR race, the only thing the other fans are gonna think is “wow, cool, some Muslims at a NASCAR race.” Believe me, most rednecks aren’t that violent, stupid or intolerant, usually they’re just loudly ignorant. I come from a long line of rednecks, and all I can say is I don’t care how much they may rant at “those people” in general, if you can join ‘em for a beer and a burger (in some cases, a gardenburger with a Coke’ll do; plenty of rednecks have had to do that in the name of cholesterol and AA) they’ll like you, even if you’re a vegan homosexual Muslim from Iraq. The worst case is that you’re tagged with something like “they’re not like the other Iraqi vegan homosexuals, they’re good folk.” I swear, the world would be a peaceful place if we just threw a big ol’ barbecue.
“And then they all come, the honest 80 million Germans, and each has his decent Jew. Sure, it is clear, the others are swine, but this one is an A-1 Jew.” - Himmler
I don’t think a barbecue would be enough. All six billion of us would have to get to know each other personally. I’m not even close to doing my part.
I don’t understand the outrage, to be honest.
You want to know how muslims are treated in all-american venues, you go to all-american venues.
NASCAR didn’t get this offended when the National Alliance was propagandizing at Daytona last year, hoping that “race fans” would be “Race fans.”
…I meant I wonder why the National Alliance thought they had a good pool to poop in, not why NASCAR didn’t make noise about that. It’s late. I not type clear.
Gabe, ol’ mate, you might get a giggle out of this. I know I did.
As for NASCAR though, I’m don’t live in America, so I can’t watch it even if I wanted to, but I must admit, I’m glad it exists. It represents a relatively harmless safety valve for beer-swilling machismo. It’s escapism. I don’t think it really hurts anybody. It’s kinda like automotive wrestling. If things like NASCAR weren’t there, what would the good ol’ boys be doing? Wandering down the main street drunk and looking for fights? I reckon the NASCAR track is a relatively safe place for guys in turbans.
“Follow up on a news story?” You’ve gotta be kidding. They were trying to “create” a news story here.
exactly! And when they failed, they didn’t even broadcast. What pisses me off is that there wasn’t a DATELINE EXCLUSIVE(!!!) story detailing that NASCAR fans aren’t as racists as the public likes to think they are. They had a news story they could have published, that even though polls show that anti-Muslim sentiments are increasing, there wasn’t much proof of that in actuality.
go 24!
If I were NASCAR fan, I’d be happy that this experiment was done that shows that NASCAR cars aren’t the bigoted racists idiots that many think they are. I’d bring it up all the time, and send Dateline a thank-you email.
Oh wait, if I were real NASCAR fan, I wouldn’t know how to use email…
Um, did you read your own cites all the way through before posting here in high dudgeon?
NBC pretty clearly said that the story is in development, which means that immediately broadcasting a “NASCAR fans don’t display overt anti-Muslim behaviour” story would not be appropriate. According to your second cite, Dateline producers also sent people to a football game in Arizona. So much for the idea that NBC is singling out NASCAR fans.
Dammit. Could a passing mod please fix my coding with a close quote tag after the word “actuality”?
NBC did a shitty thing. They were trying to invent or create news where there wasn’t any. They sent a group of pseudo-muslims to the race hoping there would be trouble. In short, they were trying to start shit where there wasn’t any. Not only that, but if the NASCAR fans had been as dangerous, violent, and bigoted as they hoped, then they were deliberately putting their own people in danger. Good on the NASCAR fans for not acting as NBC had hoped. Duffer, Stephe96 and xbuckeye have it right - they (NBC) were hoping to find something they could use to piss everyone off and stick lots of “!!!” on.
Neither am I. In fact, it was a really stupid experiment irrespective of where it took place.
A big NASCAR event can draw 200,000 people. It’s virtually certain that in a group of 200,000 people you’re going to have some fairly hard-core bigots, whether it’s a NASCAR race or a giant Britney concert.
However, generally speaking, open bigotry and such is anathema in American culture; people generally don’t act that way in public, and will express such things only if they feel it’s safe to do so. Even a racist is not going to go harassing some turbaned dude in a large crowd, because even a racist knows it’s something that does not go over well with most people. There might have been 10,000 racists at Martinsville, but 190,000 people who would regard racist harassment with open (and probably confrontational) contempt.
…you must acquit. Sorry, someone had to.
There’s lots of them native to my neck of the woods (Philadelphia region), so, yep, I’d claim that.
As should be evident from my earlier comments, I am not a fan of Dateline. In fairness, however, the taping was only done recently for a future show. Until Dateline airs that segment and carefully omits the NASCAR views, there is no reason to claim that they have or will actually do anything to portray the NASCAR fans as anything other than typical Americans, accepting of other people when found in large crowds.
Yeah, and its usually safe when you are surrounded by a bunch of like-minded people and beer.
‘open bigotry and such is anathema in American culture’?? That’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve heard all day. Did you grow up on a commune? First of all, ‘American culture’ is far from homogenous - I grew up in an area where I heard open bigotry daily. Open your ears, I bet you’ll hear some too.
Granted, she can’t fill the seats the way your mother can.