Would you ever tell you clients to go to the scene of what the FBI is investigating as a threat on your life?
Whether the driver saw it or not, why didn’t any of the other NASCAR people recognize it as a pull rope? Is a pull rope a standardized thing or are they all just haphazardly formed? Either way it’s something that’s probably lying around a lot of NASCAR garages… why did it take the FBI to determine it was a pull rope?
That’s a bit hyperbolic. It was a rope in a garage. You can go to the garage and look at it.
Its not that that they didn’t know it was pull rope. Of course it was a pull rope. Everyone who has ever been in a garage knows it’s a pull rope. I imagine it was just some bored mechanic fucking around and tied it into noose like knot, not thinking of anything other than alleviating boredom months prior. It just so happens bubba’s team got assigned that garage and in these tense times and…safety first. No. This went the way it should. It’s fucking ridiculous to think anyone made this up or anyone should be punished. Least of all Bubba himself.
Wallace was a CNN a day or so ago. He said that it was normal to just tie a knot in the end to grab hold of.
Because it was tied in the shape of a noose. I saw the picture on your link, it’s a noose. Nobody ties a hangman’s knot at the end of a rope because they need to grab the rope, they tie it because they want the rope to look like a noose.
The only actual fact that has changed is that this particular noose was not tied to intimidate this particular black man. Was it tied to intimidate a different black man, all black men, or tied as an unthinking goof? When I was a kid I tied nooses all the time as unthinking goofs, literal gallows humor, with zero appreciation for the racial history.
So, the crew member who reported it was absolutely right to report it. HE didn’t know when the noose was tied, how the fuck could he? All he knew, all he reported, was a noose found in the garage of a black NASCAR driver.
Do we have situations where white people call the police when black people do something that looks suspicious? And it turns out it is something innocent.
Yup. It looked creepy, and the assistant was right to report it. And the investigation showed it was completely harmless. All’s well that ends well.
And it wasn’t a a spliced loop. It was something that sure looks like a noose-knot, in this fuzzy photo I managed to find on twitter:
Yes, I’m pretty sure this is what happened. I used to tie noose knots. It’s sort of a fun knot to tie, and I imagine someone was bored and screwing around. Or maybe someone had some general racist thoughts as he tied it, but there’s absolutely no way to know that, and I’m going to assume “bored” unless some contrary evidence emerges. But either way, it was directed against anyone in particular. It wasn’t a threat. It was just bad luck that someone tied a noose into the pull rope eventually assigned to the one black driver.
I just want to point this out:
It looks like a noose. In a subsequent tweet, Pockrass states:
So it didn’t look like any other rope in the garage and looked like a noose. I think it’s fairly reasonable for someone on Bubba’s team to contact NASCAR. Though NASCAR should have not made a public statement until the FBI finished their investigation (then again, it is the sort of the thing that would have gotten out anyways, I’d imagine).
Also this:
So ONE pull rope had a noose like knot, and from the interview I saw with Wallace, the team member checked nearby garages before reporting it- and none that he saw, or apparently ANY other pull ropes, were tied that way. So it’s not “normal” to tie pull ropes in that fashion.
Tensions are high right now, and it was absolutely the right thing to report it for investigation.
Wallace was interviewed by Trevor Noah on The Daily Show last night. I’m sure he’s been interviewed other places as well, but this is the interview I saw most recently. Just to be clear about it, Wallace himself did not report the incident to NASCAR. That was done by the crew member who found the rope. The first Wallace knew about it was when the president of NASCAR came to tell him about it. “With tears in his eyes,” as Wallace described it. Likewise, neither Wallace nor his crew member had anything to do with getting the FBI involved. That was NASCAR’s decision.
As mentioned above, no other pull ropes in any of the other garages were tied in that way. It’s not some “standard” way to tie a garage pull rope. So it’s certainly not something that anyone would look at and say, “Oh, that’s no big deal. Just a pull rope.” It was quite proper to investigate. It turns out to have been nothing in this case, but it might easily have been something more serious. The only way to know is to investigate it.
I can’t see that anyone involved in this situation has acted inappropriately in any way. Pretty much everyone, from the crew member, to NASCAR, to the other drivers, to Wallace himself, has responded just as they should.
Given your fury at people who make wild allegations based on flimsy evidence, what would be an appropriate consequence for your wild, irresponsible allegation about Wallace?
More news…
https://www.nascar.com/news-media/2020/06/25/nascar-completes-investigation-into-no-43-garage-stall-at-talladega/
There’s a picture of the rope - and that’s a hangman’s noose. I can’t see how anyone could think of it as anything else. It may have been being used to pull down the door, but someone very carefully tied it in a hangman’s knot.
Supposedly, it’s been hanging there for months; how many people walked under it, I wonder.
I will say, it’s the sort of thing I might do, due to my weird sense of humor. I can also say I can understand why someone working for a black driver would be rightfully…concerned.
[Moderating]
Ike Witt, calling someone a horrible person is a personal insult, a violation of the board rules. If you feel the need to insult other posters, do so in the Pit. This is an official Warning.
This is 100% noose. Big surprise that UltraVires jumps all over it being a hoax…
I’m just thinking that since UltraVires thinks Wallace deserves punishment for acting on unseen evidence- since UV advocated punishment without even seeing the actual NOOSE what kind of punishment is best for that?
He put forth the position that it was made up, before seeing the noose! Surely as deserving of punishment.
UltraVires opening his mouth before actually reading what happened, and refusing to pay attention when other people correct him with the facts? Never happens!
I imagine all the prosecutors of West Virginia love seeing him as opposing counsel.