Well, that didn’t take too long.
It was just over the weekend that Bubba Wallace, the lone African American driver in NASCAR, was the talk of the sports world after one of his staff reported to league officials that a “noose” had been found in Bubba’s garage area at Talladega.
This spawned a massive outcry from America and from the racing community, who hated to see something so sinister in a sport that is already going above and beyond in order to bring in a more diverse crowd.
Lucky for us, this was all just a case of mistaken identity.
NASCAR stood by its decision to alert federal authorities to a rope that resembled a noose found in Bubba Wallace’s garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway, even after the investigation determined it had been there since at least last October.
U.S. Attorney Jay Town and FBI Special Agent in Charge Johnnie Sharp Jr. said Tuesday an investigation determined “nobody could have known Mr. Wallace would be assigned” to that same stall. NASCAR said it was the lone garage stall with a pull down rope that resembled a noose.
Wallace is the only Black driver at NASCAR’s top level and has become a leading activist in the sport during a push for racial equality. He has worn an “I Can’t Breathe” shirt, had a Black Lives Matter paint scheme and successfully pushed NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag.
What seems most absurd is that it took 15 FBI agents to come to this conclusion.
