Trump asks Bubba Wallace to apologize for noose 'hoax', Twitter asks him to admit he was wrong about Central Park 5
Donald Trump was slammed after he launched an attack at NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace and asked him to apologize for perpetuating the "hoax" that a noose had been found at his team's garage at the Talladega Superspeedway in Lincoln, Alabama.
The president also suggested that the "hoax," along with the banning of the confederate flags at NASCAR events in its aftermath, was responsible for the motorsport registering its "lowest ratings EVER!"
"Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX?" he tweeted on Monday, July 6. "That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!"
Trump was referring to an incident last month where NASCAR had announced that a noose had been found in the garage stall of the 43 team for which Wallace currently races.
The timing led many to suggest that Wallace had been the victim of a hate crime – in the weeks leading up to the incident, Wallace, who is NASCAR's only black driver, had called out for the removal of Confederate flags from race tracks because there was "no place for them" and they made people "feel uncomfortable."
NASCAR had obliged. "The display of the Confederate flag will be prohibited from all NASCAR events and properties," they said in a June 10 statement.
However, the FBI later announced that the "noose" in the garage was a pull rope for the door and that it wasn't a hate crime. "After a thorough review of the facts and evidence surrounding this event, we have concluded that no federal crime was committed," FBI Special Agent Johnnie Sharp Jr and US attorney Jay E Town said in a statement on June 23.
"The FBI learned that garage number 4, where the noose was found, was assigned to Bubba Wallace last week," they continued. "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. Although the noose is now known to have been in garage number 4 in 2019, nobody could have known Mr. Wallace would be assigned to garage number 4 last week."
However, many have slammed Trump for suggesting that it was a hoax and pointed out that there was no reason for Wallace to apologize because the driver had not even seen the noose, and had been informed of the incident by NASCAR President Steve Phelps.
In the wake of the FBI's findings, NASCAR had released a photograph of the noose and said their checks showed that out of 1,684 garage stalls at 29 tracks, only 11 had a garage door pull-down rope tied in a knot. Of those 11, the only one fashioned in a noose was the one discovered by a crew member in Wallace’s No43 garage stall.
Wallace, for his part, had expressed relief that the noose was not real and thanked the authorities for investigating. "I want to say how relieved I am the investigation revealed this wasn’t what we feared it was. I want to thank NASCAR & the FBI for acting swiftly & treating this as a real threat. We’ll gladly take a little embarrassment over the alternatives," he said.
"Bubba Wallace owes no one an apology," one social media user wrote in a reply to Trump's tweet. "Did you see the "garage pull?" It looked exactly like a noose! Don't you understand what Black Americans go through every day, you bigot?"
"How low and despicable for the President of the United States to falsely accuse Bubba Wallace of perpetuating a hoax," a second tweeted. "Whoever made the noose as a “garage pull” before Bubba Wallace was assigned to that garage obviously didn’t have to tie it like that, which is a racist act whether or not it specifically targeted Wallace. Also, there is no way Wallace made the noose himself, so it’s not a hoax."
"President Trump is now just promoting unabashed hardcore racism," another wrote. "President Trump wants NASCAR's only black driver to apologize for the overwhelming concern about this noose found hanging in his garage. And NASCAR's decision to not fly pro-slavery flags at their races anymore, which Trump obviously blames their only black driver for."
Others called out Trump for his hypocrisy considering he had never apologized for calling for the deaths of the Central Park 5, five black men who were wrongly convicted of the assault and rape of a white woman. "So Trump wants Bubba Wallace to apologize & presumably NASCAR to apologize for banning the slavery flag (bc screw that Party of Lincoln stuff amirite?), yet he never apologized to Obama for Birtherism or the Central Park 5 for calling for their deaths. Sounds about white," one user wrote.