On Tuesday, the FBI released a prepared statement on its investigation at Talladega Superspeedway and determined that Bubba Wallace was not the target of a hate crime.
The whole thing started when NASCAR this past Sunday released a statement revealing that a noose was had allegedly been found in top driver Bubba Wallace’s Talladega garage stall.
The only problem is, there was no noose in the sense that race-baiters called it.
“The FBI learned that garage 4, where the noose was found, was assigned to Bubba Wallace last week. The investigation also revealed evidence, including authentic video confirmed by NASCAR, that the noose found in garage number 4 was in that garage as early as October 2019,” the FBI statement said.
Put in a different way, the garage door pull rope, used to open and close the door, wasn’t considered a noose until people constantly looking for racism everywhere, even where there is none, created the racism narrative. And during these last few weeks of racial animus in many cities across the country, it’s not good to jump the gun on something like this without getting all of the facts first. If it was a racist message, then I hope they would have found who did it, fired them, and charged them with terroristic threats, but when it turns out to be a hoax, and it was a hoax because there was no racist message found, or any animosity whatsoever among the crews and other drivers, just a pull rope on a garage door.
In a prepared statement, NASCAR revealed that the FBI report concluded and that the photo proof confirmed, the pull rope for the garage door that looked like a noose had been hanging there as early as last fall. So, the racists must also behave a looking glass to be able to see in the future.
Here’s a photo from a garage at Talladega speedway showing a rope ‘noose’ hanging down:
NASCAR should have looked into the situation quietly without allowing Bubba Wallace to rant and rave about a “despicable act of racism and hatred.”
Here’s what Wallace said on Instagram:
“Today’s despicable act of racism and hatred leaves me incredibly saddened and serves as a painful reminder of how much further we have to go as a society and how persistent we must be in the fight against racism,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Over the last several weeks, I have been overwhelmed by the support from people across the Nascar industry including other drivers and team members in the garage.
“Together, our sport has made a commitment to driving real change and championing a community that is accepting and welcoming of everyone.
“Nothing is more important and we will not be deterred by the reprehensible actions of those who seek to spread hate.
“As my mother told me today, ‘They are just trying to scare you.’ This will not break me, I will not give in nor will I back down. I will continue to proudly stand for what I believe in.”
Now that the noose has been debunked as yet another hate hoax, I think the fans and others are owed an apology from NASCAR and Bubba Wallace for jumping the gun and stirring up a bunch of anger for what amounted in the end to nothing. Think about the anxiety it must have caused for the other drivers, the pit crew workers, the thousands of fans, etc. who thought there might be a racist in their midst crazy enough to pull a stunt like that. The lesson here is you should wait for the facts to come in before running your mouth because as it turns out, there’s no one trying to scare anyone, no one tried to break anyone, and there was nothing to back down from.
