Cycle News

VOL. 53 ISSUE 15 APRIL 19, 2016 P113 causes some sort of animosity, and when that athlete begins to dominate, it only tends to make the animosity more intense. And I've seen it first-hand. "It takes one to know one," is a phrase often uttered by argumen- tative children, but it also holds an element of truth. I used to be prejudiced (long before I started working at Cycle News in Janu- ary of 2000). I snapped out of it because of an incident while sell- ing cars about 19-20 years ago. A black woman came in driving a beat-up old car that barely ran with three children in tow, and she was dressed in sweatpants, her hair was messy, and her teeth were crooked. She wanted to drive a Chevrolet Tahoe LT, which I believe was something like $45-50k at the time. The thing is, I obliged her, and I don't believe I ever let on about what was going through my head. I was professional on the outside. But on the inside, I thought, "She has terrible credit, her children probably have different fathers, and she might not even have a job..." and other stuff like that. But the thing is, after the test drive, she wanted to fill out a credit application and buy it. So, again, I obliged, but I believed I was wasting my time. Then, she filled out the app. It turns out she was a Sheriff's Deputy who made $75k per year, and her husband (who joined her soon after she started the credit application) was a lawyer who made about $150k. They had perfect credit. She had borrowed her father's spare car to come to the dealer because hers was in the shop getting fixed and she was going to sell it after it was all repaired. And there have not been many moments in my life where I felt as ashamed as I did that day. She may not have known what was going through my head, but I certainly did, and it made me sick. It was that day that I began to fix this, and a couple decades later, I believe I am without racial prejudice. It took a lot of ef- fort, but I'm proud of who I am because of it. I never want to feel that shame again. The reason I am telling you all this is that I've seen James Stewart do "The Sprinkler" after winning 125cc supercrosses in 2004, and I saw the back- lash as well. People didn't like that he was showing off, and I always suspected that they wouldn't have had much of a problem with it if he were white. I've also witnessed, first-hand, "fans" at supercross races yell- ing, "James Stewart is a n…!" well, you can probably guess the rest, to James while he was signing autographs, and I witnessed him shine them and concentrate on the people he had in front of him. But there's no way he doesn't hear it when it happens. And I've heard a lot of racist comments from people in this industry (and no, I won't ever name names in this regard, as it's not my place to do so, but they know who they are) in regard to Stewart, Barack Obama, and others. I've even heard multiple people bring up the fact that James drives Fer- raris and the like and question why black people have to flaunt their wealth like that. And I know some of these people were in this industry in the '90s when Mike Kiedrowski and Jeremy McGrath had an impromptu race in their Ferrari Testarossa and Acura NSX after the Pasadena Supercross. I witnessed that as well. And then there's the reac- tion to James being suspended for not telling the FIM he was using Adderall—legally. I suspect that a lot of the people who were the most outspoken critics of James after this injustice may have defended Ryan Villopoto in the same situation. But here's where I'm going with this: In Indianapolis, it was Aaron Plessinger who threw down some dance moves after winning the 250cc East main event, and he was joined by none other than Malcolm Stewart—the 250cc East points leader and little brother to James Stewart. I ask you here: Have you heard many people complaining about Plessinger dancing following his win, like they did about Stewart in 2004? I haven't. And I think I know why. CN PHOTOGRAPHY BY HOPPENWORLD.COM

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