SPOT THE RACIST (VIRGINIA PLATES EDITION)

[defrog]

ITEM: Virginia's Department of Motor Vehicles recalls the vanity plate of the owner of a Ford truck that reads “14CV88” on the grounds that it’s actually a secretly coded racist message, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The number 88 stands for the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, doubled to signify "Heil Hitler," said CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper. "CV" stands for "Confederate veteran" -- the plate was a special model embossed with a Confederate flag, which Virginia makes available for a $10 fee to card-carrying members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. And 14 is code for imprisoned white supremacist David Lane's 14-word motto: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children."

I’ll take CAIR’s word for it that the number is a white-supremacy code of some kind. The thing is, though, I’m not sure that rejecting the plate accomplishes anything when (1) most people who aren’t already white supremacists presumably would never understand what the code means, and (2) the truck looks like this.

I’m not saying people who spout bigoted bullshit should be censored (because I don’t believe they should be). But if the issue is concern over people expressing racist sentiments on their vehicles, the license plate is not the biggest problem here.

Coded language,

This is dF

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EDITED TO ADD [30 APRIL 2010, via bedsitter23 ]: The owner of the truck tells his side of the story – the license plate is a reference to NASCAR drivers Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Tony Stewart. "There is absolutely no way I'd have anything to do with Hitler or Nazis," he says.

Then he goes on to denounce Islam. Then someone finds his Facebook page, which has lots of white supremacist links on it. And this is his bio:

100% WHITE MAN, 100% ARYAN, 100% PRO-LIFE (Children are innocent), 100% PRO DEATH PENALTY (Criminal Scum aren't innocent). Over the past 28 years; I, like David Duke, have had an Awakening.