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Brown wasn’t really aware of the surge in power of those three words until a few days after it happened. But the phrase has become something he’s not easily able to escape, and as he tells The New York Times, it’s not something he wants to be tied to.
“Our whole navigation is, you want to appeal to everybody, because, all in all, everybody is a consumer,” Brown said. “I have zero desire to be involved in politics.”
Brown tells the Times he’s worked hard and worked his way up and as an athlete struggling for sponsors, “I don’t want it to just be the substitute for a cuss-word,” he said.
But he is driving for NASCAR, and despite Brown’s desire, the famed racing association is inextricably linked to a very white, male-dominated, very conservative southern tradition.
“This whole Talladega race win was supposed to be a celebration, and then it was supposed to be something that I was able to use to move up, and I really wanted to capitalize on that,” Brown told the Times. “But with this meme going viral, it was more of, I had to stay more silent because everybody wanted it to go on to the political side. I’m about the racing side.”
As much as Brown may not enjoy having his name used as a “cuss-word,” he hasn’t pushed back on those who do use it.
In fact, in an op-ed in Newsweek, he wrote that he “understands that millions of people are struggling right now and are frustrated,” adding that he can relate, particularly when it comes to gas prices.
“I buy more gas than most. I don’t like that $4 per gallon has become the norm. I know the cost of everything is rising and I know first-hand that making ends meet can be a struggle for middle-class folks like me,” he writes.
He goes on to say that although he’s not “leading some political fight,” he’s also “no longer” going to be “silent about the situation,” and “why millions of Americans are chanting my name. I hear them, even if Washington does not.”
He ends by saying that he will “dedicate” his “upcoming season to compete hard on the racetrack and to spotlight issues that are important” to him and “millions of Americans across the country.”
He signs off with a flaccid attempt to replace the crude four-letter catchphrase with his own version—“Let’s Go America!”
In other words, he doesn’t want to be canceled, but he won’t shun the butter to his bread—conservative, white, mostly male, southern Republicans race car fans.
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