NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace made headlines back in 2020 when he be publicly backed the Black Lives Matter movement by wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt while racing. He’s opening up about this in an upcoming Netflix docuseries called “Race: Bubba Wallace,” which you can check out a trailer for below.
"To be in that NASCAR space, and to wear a shirt that says 'I can't breathe' I have a responsibility." – @BubbaWallace
RACE: BUBBA WALLACE follows Bubba's rise through NASCAR as the only full-time Black driver and the obstacles he faced after speaking out on racial injustice. pic.twitter.com/fXEoVp6FwR
— Strong Black Lead (@strongblacklead) January 27, 2022
Wallace Supports Black Lives Matter
People Magazine obtained a clip from the docuseries in which Wallace’s fiancée Amanda Carter talked about him “wanting to do something” to publicly support Black Lives Matter during a race in Atlanta, Georgia in June of 2020.
She said that while he knew this would put him in a “sticky situation, Wallace says, “But you know what? This is what needs to happen.”
Wallace reportedly wanted to do this because this race was occurring one month after the death of George Floyd.
“He was so dead set on making a statement,” Carter continued, with Wallace adding, “I was just gonna show up with that shirt on. I thought I was gonna lose my ride, to be honest with you.”
Check out this clip below.
Of course, there was never any danger of Wallace losing his ride for supporting Black Lives Matter, as it’s only conservative celebrities who need to worry about losing their careers for the political beliefs.
As Colin Kaepernick had shown years before, going “woke” and supporting the leftwing Black Lives Matter movement can be incredibly lucrative.
Related: NASCAR’s Bubba Wallace: ‘I Get Booed A Lot’
Wallace Gets Confederate Flags Banned
After supporting Black Lives Matter with his shirt, Wallace demanded that NASCAR ban all Confederate flags from races, something that the league quickly did.
“My next step would be to get rid of all Confederate flags,” Wallace told CNN in 2020. “No one should feel uncomfortable when they come to a NASCAR race.”
“It starts with Confederate flags,” he added. “Get them out of here. They have no place for them. The narrative on that before is I wasn’t bothered by it, but I don’t speak for everybody else. I speak for myself. What I am chasing is checkered flags, and that was kind of my narrative.”
Related: Bubba Wallace Brags How He Made NASCAR Woke – ‘I Pissed A Lot Of People Off’
Netflix Announces Wallace Docuseries
Weeks after wearing his Black Lives Matter shirt, Wallace debuted his new race car with the words “Black Lives Matter” displayed on the side. This firmly cemented Wallace as the Colin Kaepernick of the NASCAR world, and led to Netflix announcing this docuseries about him last year.
“The series will take viewers behind the scenes of the 2021 NASCAR season through the eyes of the only Black driver at the top level of the sport, and will explore Wallace, 23XI Racing, and NASCAR’s efforts to advocate for inclusion and equality in racing and beyond,” Netflix said in a statement announcing the series.
In a statement from Netflix, Wallace said: “This is unlike any project I’ve ever participated in; it’s a raw, emotional and completely transparent account of the events that took place throughout the 2020 and 2021 NASCAR seasons. With me, what you see is what you get. You’ll witness the peaks and valleys of the sport and see how one’s actions off of the race track are just as important as the ones on it.
“You know me…I like to keep things real and raw,” Wallace himself added after the announcement. “Pumped to have @netflix capture these moments to share with you guys.”
The Netflix show is focused on reaching a non-NASCAR audience unfamiliar with Wallace’s emergence.
Black Lives Matter has been shown time and time again to be a radically liberal political organization that is masquerading as a group that is only concerned about race. While it’s frustrating to see yet another celebrity be rewarded for going “woke” with a fawning Netflix docuseries, it’s sadly not surprising either at this point.