Bubba Wallace blasted for 'playing race card' in his tweet on Rittenhouse verdict

NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace was slammed by social media users after he tweeted about what would have happened if Kyle Rittenhouse was Black, following his acquittal for all charges against him on Friday, November 19. Rittenhouse was accused of killing two men and wounding a third during racial unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that took place last year. 

"Ha, let the boy be black and it would’ve been life… hell he would’ve had his life taken before the bullshit trial.. sad," Wallace posted on Twitter on Friday afternoon, sharing his thoughts on the 'not guilty' verdict in the Rittenhouse trial. The tweet ignited a firestorm of comments from his fans, most of whom slammed the 28-year-old driver for needlessly worsening the country's racial divide with his divisive comment.

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'Why play the race card?'

One of them wrote, "Oh, the NASCAR hoax guy with the garage pulley is weighing in... adorable." Another third remarked, "Dude. As a longtime #NASCAR guy and someone who initially put myself out there for you when things went down last year, you need to stop sounding like Joy Reid and Nikole Hannah-Jones and get your facts right. I know the #NASCAR suits and journos will back you, but it's wrong." One more commented, "I swear man you play the victim more than anybody. None of this trial was about race. Quit interjecting it in the discussion. What happened to MLK's dream on a colorblind society. You all have abandoned that. You just ignored it."

The next added, "Clearly you did not watch the trial or look the facts. You just lost a fan who has followed from the Truck series." A commenter tweeted, "Why play the race card? Not one single person in the case has dark colored skin." One more noted, "Maaaaannnn I tried so hard to be a fan of yours, and the win at Dega and how you handled yourself last year really made me fight for you. But this just killed all that man." A person reacted with, "If a white nascar driver makes a controversial tweet like this he’d have to do sensitivity training and lose his ride."