Bubba Wallace understands that people can continue to protest the NASCAR Confederate Flag Ban. And he also understands that they have the right to do it peacefully.
The Cup Series race at Talladega on Monday was the first on the track and in the state of Alabama since NASCAR banned fans from flying the Confederate flag on the tracks on June 10. Some fans protested with the Confederate flag off the track and a group paid for a Grand flag to be flown by a light aircraft on the track on Sunday.
“It is the right to peaceful protests,” said Wallace, when asked about the protests. “It is part of that. But you won’t see them inside the racetracks where we are having fun with new fans who bought their tickets and bought their favorite driver’s clothes. You won’t see it flying there. Outside, they are going to make a lot of noise. It is part of that. It is exactly what you see on the flip side of everything that happens in the cities as they peacefully protest. But we won’t see cops spraying them with pepper and shooting them with rubber bullets, right?
Wallace’s last line is, of course, a reference to police actions that have been documented across the country in social media posts and news videos during the largely peaceful protests after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. The most infamous example is the violent way in which peaceful protesters were driven from Lafayette Square, near the White House, to make way for President Donald Trump to take a picture with a Bible in front of the Episcopal Church of San Juan.
That was in contrast to scenes in Michigan and other states earlier this year during the coronavirus pandemic when armed protesters expressed disagreement with orders to stay home and other rules designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Wallace ran a car in support of the Black Lives Matter the same day that NASCAR banned the Confederate flag. NASCAR’s ban came two days after Wallace said NASCAR should ban fans from flying the flag on the tracks and three days after NASCAR maintained a moment of silence before its Cup race in Atlanta.
Bubba Wallace and Richard Petty on Monday. (Photo by Chris Graythen / Getty Images)
‘We will never shut them up’
Wallace, the only black driver to compete full-time in NASCAR, received a large amount of vitriol in the past five days when NASCAR and federal investigators investigated the discovery of a rope at his team’s garage stand. The FBI and the US Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama said Tuesday that no charges would be filed because the rope had been at Wallace’s garage stall since October.
Wallace never saw the rope on Sunday, the day it was discovered. NASCAR President Steve Phelps told him about the rope. However, those annoying facts, and the fact that federal investigators said it was a noose, did not prevent an unfortunate set of opinion advocates from claiming Wallace was part of an elaborate hoax or setup.
“I know people are going to try to hit me and take me off the throne, the pedestal that I’m on, the same pedestal that I’ve been on for 16 or 17 years since I started,” Wallace said. “So I’m fine with that. It’s okay. I love to go out and compete and have very good races. It’s just motivation to go out and have really good careers. We will never shut them up. They fear themselves. They are afraid of change. Sometimes those are the people you can’t help in all the chaos in the world. Those are the ones who need the most help. But, you quickly realize that they don’t give a damn and I don’t care either.
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