Former ESPN anchor Jemele Hill called the noose found in NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace’s garage a “stunning, shocking, appalling, disgusting reminder of who, again, this sport is for.”
The FBI and U.S. Department of Justice are currently investigating a noose reportedly found Sunday in Wallace’s garage at Talladega Superspeedway.
The NASCAR driver, who is African American, called it a “despicable act of racism and hatred” that left him “incredibly saddened and serves as a painful reminder of how much further we have to go as a society and how persistent we must be in the fight against racism.”
Wallace was a strong proponent of removing all Confederate flags from NASCAR events. Speaking on Monday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on MSNBC, Hill suggested that “people of color” have not felt comfortable or welcome at events.
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“Yeah, I mean, I think most people of color, if you’ve attended a NASCAR race or even thought about it, there are just certain symbols and a certain mood and a certain sentiment that has been bubbling at the surface of NASCAR events and NASCAR has been trying to somewhat move away from it,” Hill said.
“And I say somewhat in kind of air quotes but at the same time, you know, as someone who has attended several NASCAR races it’s hard for people of color to feel comfortable in these environments when you see the Confederate flag everywhere, when you just get this sense that you’re at something that you’re not welcome at,” she continued. “As much as NASCAR may try to distance itself from that it is a living, breathing part of their sport.” (RELATED: ‘Defund NASCAR’ Confederate Flag Flies Over Talladega, Noose Reportedly Found In Bubba Wallace’s Stall)
Hill went on to call the incident a “very stunning, shocking, appalling, disgusting reminder of who, again, this sport is for” before commenting on the upcoming investigation and speculating that it was likely an “inside job.”