For a few days I have held off on writing about the Bubba Wallace noose incident at Talladega because I wanted to wait until we got all of the facts. If you haven’t heard, it was reported that a noose was found in the garage stall of Bubba Wallace’s racecar.
When I first heard about this I was disturbed by it, like any normal person would be. I hoped that whoever did that despicable act would be caught, banned from NASCAR for life, and prosecuted. I also thought it was great how the NASCAR community rallied around Wallace and supported him.
There was also another part of me that felt a little bit of skepticism. After all, there have been plenty of hoaxes over the past several years ranging from Jussie Smollett to the Duke Lacrosse Team to the poop swastika’s at the University of Missouri, and others. For that reason, I felt it was best to hold off on a blog until now.
Today the facts finally came to the surface:
There were three possible ways that this could’ve ended. It was either going to be some racist person put it there, it was a misunderstanding by the team, or it was put there by someone on the team to make it look like a hate crime.
Now, it is good news that it looks like option two is what happened, but it has made Bubba Wallace, NASCAR, and the sports media look really bad.
Now I have to say that Bubba Wallace wasn’t the one who found the noose, he had already left the track before one of his crew members found it, but the fact that his team couldn’t tell that it was a garage door pulldown rope is just inexcusable. I’m not saying that Wallace pulled a Jussie Smollet, I mean, he didn’t walk into Talladega wearing a noose while holding a Subway sandwich saying he got attacked by two guys in MAGA hats, but the fact that he went on Don Lemon’s show last night and doubled down on his claim is not a good look.
I felt bad for Bubba Wallace at the beginning of this ordeal and even after it came out that it was probably a misunderstanding. I’m a big NASCAR fan and I’ve always liked Bubba Wallace and I think he’s a good guy, but any sympathy I had for him is waning. I wish he would’ve come out and said that he’s glad a hate crime was not committed against him, and he’s happy that NASCAR had his back. Instead he is sticking with his story when it has already been disproved by the FBI and NASCAR, and there are pictures to prove that the rope in question has been in that garage stall since last fall.
NASCAR looks bad because it looks like they jumped the gun and rushed to a conclusion. It’s an embarrassment. When asked by media members if there was anything NASCAR would change about how they handled this situation, NASCAR executive Vice President Steve O’Donnell said that they would do the same thing over again. First of all, if you would do the same thing over again, then you should be fired. I’m not criticizing their decision to support Wallace, that was absolutely the right call, but if you really thought that a garage pull down was a noose, then you need your eyes checked. Secondly, the fact that NASCAR leaked this to the media before they had any evidence that something threatening occurred is irresponsible and it’s a disgrace. It seemed like a ready, fire, aim response instead of a ready, aim, fire response. They made an unnecessary spectacle out of something that didn’t have to be turned into a spectacle.
The media looks really bad because they have fallen for these stories so many times. They wanted this story to be true so bad so they can push their favored narrative, but it makes them suck at their job. They have fallen for everything from Jussie Smollett, to the Covington Catholic kids, to hands up don’t shoot, and so many other fake stories because it fits their narrative. It’s all to help their own agenda. It’s so they can virtue signal and pat themselves on the back for their wokeness, and they can show how much better they think they are than everyone else. Journalists (and I use that term loosely) like Jemele Hill and others are activists. They don’t care about journalism, they care about themselves.
Hopefully this will be a wake up call for everyone in this country. In this day in age, nothing you see is real. You have to wait until all the facts come out because you can’t trust the media. They have bad intentions. The media will show a video of bullets flying and say it’s a battle in the middle east when it was really footage from a gun range in Kentucky. (Yes this really happened. Search ABC News Kentucky Gun Range.) Be weary. Verify these stories for yourself because you don’t know what’s real news and what’s fake news anymore.
As for Bubba Wallace, he’s painted himself into a corner. I can understand that he is on edge because he’s the only black NASCAR driver, and he led the charge to get rid of the Confederate Flag at NASCAR races (which I agree with), but he still didn’t have to keep this stance about the noose. Instead he’s stuck to his stance and unfortunately it could lead to some unintended consequences for him and others. Maybe more will come out about this incident over the course of the next several days, but for right now, no noose is good news.
