VDOT worker says revoked license plate isn't coded Nazi message....

Usually we'll only give you snippets of a story on this blog, but this one includes VDOT, NASCAR, the Confederacy, Islam and Hitler.

Kudos to Brigid Schulte of the Washington Post on this phenomenal story about this license plate. 

 

Douglas Story, a Chantilly dump truck driver for the Virginia Department of Transportation, says he wanted to grab people's attention when he paid $224.90 to have a mural of the burning World Trade Center detailed onto the tailgate of his Ford F-150 along with a sticker that reads: "Everything I ever needed to know about Islam I learned on 9/11."

But he got more than he bargained for when a photo of his pickup went viral on the Web last week. Motorists and Muslim groups complained that his Virginia vanity license plate -- 14CV88 -- was really code for neo-Nazi, white supremacist sentiments. The state Department of Motor Vehicles voted last week to recall Story's plates and force him to buy new ones.

"There is absolutely no way I'd have anything to do with Hitler or Nazis," Story said Wednesday. He contacted The Washington Post after an article about his plate appeared last week; the state, citing privacy rules, had declined to release the identity of the plate's owner. "My sister-in-law and my niece are Jewish. I went to my niece's bat mitzvah when she turned 13 three years ago. Does that sound like something an anti-Semite would do?"

Story says the numbers 14 and 88 on his plate were not references to a white power slogan or "Heil Hitler," as the Council on American-Islamic Relations theorized, but an homage to his favorite NASCAR drivers: Tony Stewart, who drives car No. 14, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., who drives No. 88.

Story applied for the vanity plate in March 2009, shortly after Earnhardt changed his car number from 8 to 88 and Stewart changed his from 20 to 14.

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said his group looked into the meaning of the numbers 14 and 88 after receiving complaints about Story's license plates. He said the group found that among neo-Nazis, 88 refers to "Heil Hitler," because H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. White supremacists sometimes use the number 14, Hooper said, as shorthand for the 14-word motto, "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children."

Story says that his truck has long been decorated with the Confederate battle flag and that he does have "CV" Sons of Confederate Veterans plates, which he obtained after discovering that his great-great-great-grandfather was a second lieutenant with the Alabama Partisan Rangers during the Civil War.

The flag "celebrates my Southern heritage," he said. "And the numbers recognize my favorite drivers in that southernest of sports, NASCAR."

He says he doesn't know who took the photo of his truck, in a handicapped parking spot, that became a viral sensation on the Web. "Probably someone who obviously has a soft spot for Islam," he said, pronouncing the word "I-slam," "because if you pronounce it 'Ih-slahm,' it's not disparaging enough."

He said he has a permit that allows him to park in handicapped spaces because of injuries he suffered in a 1985 motorcycle accident.

Hooper said he doesn't buy Story's version "given the overt anti-Muslim bigotry displayed on the truck and the Confederate flags and their historic connotation of racism. But it's his right to make that appeal to the Virginia DMV." Story said he has no intention of appealing. "I don't want my truck firebombed," he said.

Story received a certified letter last week from the DMV ordering him to get new plates. And his boss told him that he could no longer park on VDOT property with the anti-Islam mural. So Story spent an afternoon getting new randomized plates and peeling the mural off by hand.

"I feel naked," he said.

Here's the full story from the Washington Post.

And here's the original story when the DMV recalled the plate but refused to identify the driver.  

UPDATE:

Perhaps Doug Story should have updated his facebook page before speaking with the Washington Post and disavowing any Nazi beliefs. Now maybe this is a fake facebook page.

Mr. Story's public profile says he apparently is "!00% White, 100% Aryan" and "Over the past 28 years I, like David Duke, have had an Awakening." Gawker has the goods on Mr. Story.

Yikes - Doug Story welcome to cyberspace.  

2nd UPDATE: Doug Story's contact info includes www.newsaxon.org - a website devoted to "an online community for white by whites."  

Comments

[Don]

Guy, Muslim groups have been denouncing terrorism.

http://islam.about.com/cs/currentevents/a/9_11statements.htm
http://zamboangajournal.blogspot.com/2010/04/muslim-organizations-denounce-bombings.html
http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1052203.html

[Guy]

Okay, so the guy has statement about Islam on the back of his truck. Big deal, that's his belief and he has the right to express it. He says his license plates refers to NASCAR drivers. His explanation is just as probable as the special interest groups' opinion that the numbers refer to Hitler. Although I personally don't agree with white supremacy, it's not illegal to espouse that belief as long as you're doing nothing illegal.

What's troubling is that VDOT and DMV are pandering to the complaints of special interests. This guy is entitled to express whatever he wants on the back of his truck. This is after all, still America, or at least for the time being.

As far as Islam goes, I have yet to hear of any Islamic group publicly denounce attacks perpetrated by fringe Islamics. Islamic groups and other minorities can say whatever they want, but let a white guy try to express his opinion and his automatically branded a racist Hitler follower. What a crock.

[DavidNewportNews]

9-11 had less to do with Islam than with radical idiots that are more akin to Hitler than poor old Doug!

[James Young]

Yeah. Article today gave me pause, and I'm pretty sure the tag was so meaningless to most as to be harmless, but I'm pretty sure that this guy's denials don't pass the smell test.

[Terisa]

And, gee, there's nothing about his great interest in Nascar on his Facebook page, either...

[Dean]

This guy is a neo-Nazi. No doubt. And if he's not, it's only because he has taken the time to join them, not that he doesn't believe and affirm.