Watson is a hero of black lives matter

SOMEBODY put a noose in his garage. A noose. A symbol of hatred and violence towards black people harking back to the days of the Ku Klux Klan, to lynchings and to Jim Crow. The message couldn’t haven been any clearer and really it couldn’t have made the case he was making much better than he made it himself.

Bubba Wallace is the sole black competitor in NASCAR – the stock car series popular largely in the American south – and has emerged as one of the heroes of the last couple of weeks with his thoughtful interventions on issues of race in the United States and in NASCAR in particular.

Wallace was the leading voice in pushing NASCAR towards banning the confederate flag at the organisation’s events, pointing out that what it stands for has no place in modern society. It’s seen by many people, rightly, as a symbol of nothing short of white supremacy.

After all that’s what the confederacy stood for, that’s what the people who marched under the banner of the so-called stars and bars fought and gave their lives for. It’s hard to see its continued use in the United States as anything other than an egregious affront to people of colour.

Sure some people can and do argue that it’s a symbol of southern pride – although we’re not quite sure what there’s to be proud of in getting routed in a war – but the fact that NASCAR’s flag ban last week was followed this week by somebody putting a noose in Watson’s garage suggests Wallace’s criticisms were on point.

All in all you might think it a depressing story of how far there’s still to go, but the reaction of the wider NASCAR community to what happened in Florida on Monday suggests that genuine progress is being made.

Wallace’s 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.

NASCAR 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 is an agent for change. Even if he never wins another race his place in the history of the sport is secure.