NASCAR's Bubba Wallace still insists he saw a noose, but does this merit comparison to Jussie Smollett's case?
Following a thorough investigation, the FBI concluded on June 23, that the noose found in Bubba Wallace’s No 43 Richard Petty Motorsports garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway in Lincoln, Alabama, was, in fact, a rope and it wasn’t a hate crime targeting the NASCAR’s only black driver.
FBI Special Agent Johnnie Sharp Jr and US attorney Jay E Town issued a statement saying, “After a thorough review of the facts and evidence surrounding this event, we have concluded that no federal crime was committed”. They further established that the rope which was being treated as "noose" had been lying there since October 2019. However, in a recent interview with CNN, Wallace refused to believe that it wasn’t a “noose”. He said, “I've been racing all of my life, we've raced out of hundreds of garages that never had garage pulls like that.” He states further, “From the evidence that I have, it’s a straight-up noose. The FBI has stated that it was a noose over and over again. NASCAR leadership has stated it was a noose. I can actually confirm that what was hanging in my garage, over my car was a noose and never seen anything like it.”
Ever since the FBI investigation revealed that it was a pull rope for the garage door that was left hanging in the stall, internet users took to Twitter to share a string of tweets questioning Wallace’s professional integrity. Responding to Wallace’s statement in the interview, one wrote, “I was of the belief that Bubba Wallace was an innocent party in all of this & he was just stating what was reported to him before the FBI conducted an investigation. Now, by doubling down, he’s lost all credibility & is a willing participant in gaslighting all of us. For shame.”
Soon people on Twitter started to compare the latest incident with Jussie Smollett's alleged assault. Smollett is an American actor, accused of staging a hate crime against himself in 2019 by hiring men to physically attack him after racial and homophobic slurs. Many started calling Wallace, Jussie Smollett 2.0 for allegedly faking hate crime. While one wrote, “He's a liar. Almost all of the garaged have door pulls with LOOPS. You couldn't hang a mouse with what he claiming was a "noose". Jussie Smollett 2.0."
NASCAR drivers are not allowed to enter the garage before races and must head to the trailers and to their cars before the start of the race, but few could back from accusing the 26-year-old Alabama native of making up the noose story.
“So we were all correct? It was another Jussie Smollett opportunity for a mediocre Somewhat black NASCAR driver to gain recognition. He hopped all over that lame chance did he not? I am still ashamed That Petty and so many others came running to kiss his ass. We seen through it,” added another.
However, some defended Wallace saying he wasn’t lying about the noose as even NASCAR had previously confirmed it. “You dumb f*cks are pretending this was a lib agenda. It was reported / treated as srs by Nascar & ppl simply reacted. Maybe it was coincidence, a garage rope fashioned as a noose where Bubba happened to be just after ur racist flag was banned, but this isn't some #Jussie bullshit” tweeted one.
While another Twitter user wrote, “I actually do feel for Bubba. A lot of people are demanding apologies from him and saying this was a hoax like the Jussie Smollett case. Based on all I've seen this was just a really unfortunate misunderstanding on all sides.”
Thanks to Smollett's case getting a negative outcome, any celebrity stuck in a similar situation finds himself/herself being compared with the same standards. Unfortunately, this continues to foster the feeling that Black Lives Matter only when there is someone to witness it (read on camera). Assuming that Wallace faked his own hate crime can also be called 'racist'.