Sports

Bomani Jones Schools Will Cain Over Remarks About Bubba Wallace and NASCAR

Bomani Jones called into Will Cain's ESPN Radio show to take issue with his stance about NASCAR's response to the noose found in Bubba Wallace's garage.

Bubba Wallace stands on the grid prior to the NASCAR Cup Series GEICO 500.
Image via Getty/Chris Graythen
Getty

Bomani Jones took Will Cain to task on his own ESPN Radio show Wednesday for comments about how NASCAR immediately responded to the story of the noose found in the garage of Bubba Wallace.

Earlier today, Cain appeared on First Take where he criticized NASCAR for "rushing to judgment" in their statement when they classified what was found in Wallace's garage as a noose, and condemned it as a "heinous act of racism." An FBI investigation concluded Wednesday that the rope, which was fashioned like a noose, had been there since last fall, and was "not an intentional, racist act against Bubba."

Before his First Take appearance, Cain took to Twitter to make similar points about NASCAR.

"In society, we have to be calm enough, rational enough to say, could it be true? Could it be false? Could it be a misunderstanding? And we didn't, and because of that, we undercut our credibility, and also, I believe, we undercut the improvement in racial relations," Cain said. "We are going to take a step back because we have sowed distrust, we have sowed division."

Jones called in and took issue with Cain's argument that NASCAR's action around the Bubba Wallace situation was an impediment to race relations.

"The issue is really, the impediment to racism is white people not treating black people as being of equal levels of humanity," Jones said. "Like, that's the answer for all of the time. The reason I wanted to call in, it's very important to note this especially considering the power dynamics. Me viewing you, for example, through the lens of just being a part of a group and not an individual, doesn't have any negative effect on your life. You viewing others the other way actually does have a negative effect on their life. It's not the same thing. We can't do the both sides and human beings are judged like this because there's has been a level of subjection to people in this country that is uncommon and is not something that we can look at across all the world and... describe all this necessarily as tribalism."

Jones continued, "The problem I have is, when you say that what happened with Bubba Wallace is going to be an impediment to race relations. Nah, man, those people rolling on Speedway Boulevard before that race with those flags flying, those are an impediment to race relations. The person that had a flag, had a thing that said 'defund NASCAR' on Sunday over the track, that's an impediment to race relations. [...] Those are far bigger impediments."

Check out their discussion below, courtesy of Black Sports Online.

After the discussion aired, people took to social media to praise Jones' analysis.

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