Wallace is a hero of black lives matter

WE have to admit we got it wrong. When it emerged on Monday that a ‘noose’ was found in Bubba Wallace’s garage we put two and two together and came up with five.

We assumed that because Wallace had been a leading proponent of the removal of the confederate flag from NASCAR events and was the sport’s sole black competitor that somehow the two things were linked. They were not.

The FBI investigated the potential hate crime and found that the so-called ‘noose’ had been in place long at the garage long before Wallace took up residency of it this week. The two things weren’t linked at all. It probably shows a bias on our part. Bias comes in many forms and we have to be aware of that too and fess up when we get things wrong.

Still, even though the whole ‘noose’ thing turns out to have been a storm in a tea-cup, there was actually something really encouraging about the way the entire NASCAR community rallied around Wallace when it too was under the impression he was the victim of a hate crime this week in Florida.

His fellow drivers made a powerful statement by pushing his car to the front of the grid for the race in Talladega. The symbolism of that action was more powerful even than NASCAR’s initial statement on banning the use of the confederate flag, which to be clear was very much the right thing to do.

The stars and bars are seen by many as a symbol of oppression and Wallace’s thoughtful interventions of its place in American society have made him one of the heroes of the last couple of weeks. We just hope that the ‘noose’ or rather the ‘noose’ that wasn’t controversy doesn’t undermine his and NASCAR’s good work.

NASCAR – the stock car series popular in the American south – may well seem like an unlikely place to find itself at the forefront of the black lives matter movement given its reputation as a bastion of the good ol’ boys, but it’s the very dissonance that makes what’s happened over the last couple of weeks so powerful. If racism is to be challenged it has to be challenged everywhere, not just in liberal enclaves.

Wallace – even just by his very presence on the grid at this time of change and turmoil – has been an agent for change, for debate and for positive action.

Even if he never wins another race his place in the history of the sport ought to be secure.