Call for NASCAR to ban the display of the Confederate flag on its race tracks is made by the 26-year-old driver Bubba Wallace.
Wallace wore a shirt that read “I Can’t Breathe/Black Lives Matter” ahead of his call to action before Sunday’s race in Atlanta.
The circuit’s only black full-time driver is using his platform requesting on Monday, “My next step would be to get rid of all Confederate flags. No one should feel uncomfortable when they come to a NASCAR race. So it starts with Confederate flags. Get them out of here. They have no place for them.”
He adds, “There’s going to be a lot of angry people that carry those flags proudly, but it’s time for change. We have to change that, and I encourage NASCAR — we will have those conversations to remove those flags. What I’m chasing is checkered flags, and that was kind of my narrative. But diving more into it and educating myself, people feel uncomfortable with that, people talk about that — that’s the first thing they bring up.”
While answering if he thought his opinion on the removal of the Confederate flag was unpopular, he says, “We should not be able to have an argument over that,” he said. “It is a thick line we cannot cross anymore.”
