Fabricated racial controversies are all the rage in the United States right now, as the demand for racism from “anti-racists” outweighs the supply. After all, how else are mediocrities supposed to validate their careers?

Bubba Wallace is a prime example. The NASCAR driver got caught up in a faux noose scandal before deciding to embrace it wholeheartedly. Even after the FBI was called in to investigate and determined the “noose” was just a pull rope that had been in the garage long before Wallace was assigned to it, Wallace continued to assert he was the victim of a racist crime.

And he is still doing so. With help from the race-baiters at ESPN, Wallace still insists the pull rope was, in fact, a noose designed to intimidate him.

“It’s so sad that people don’t want to take the time to read the facts,” he asserts.

The fact is Wallace needs it to be a noose, and he needs to be under constant attack from a faceless group of racist NASCAR fans. Wallace is a mediocre NASCAR driver, with one victory in his four full years of racing at the highest level of NASCAR. He has a total of only six top 5 finishes.

Wallace recently had a career year with the backing of NBA legend Michael Jordan and fellow NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin. He finished 21st in the standings, led 62 of 8,528 laps on the season (0.7%), and recorded his first and only race win.

Before the death of George Floyd and Wallace’s lobbying against the Confederate Flag at NASCAR events (and the subsequent "noose" controversy), he was just another face in the crowd. The biggest news he had made was quitting an iRacing event and losing a sponsor and being punished by NASCAR for spinning in a race on purpose. He was not nationally relevant then, but now ESPN is breaking down his door.

You can see relative nobodies and career mediocrities use fabricated racial narratives for their personal gain in sports, entertainment, and media. Colin Kaepernick is the most prominent example, turning his failing NFL career into a multimillion-dollar Nike deal by kneeling for the national anthem. Hammer thrower Gwen Barry won her 15 minutes of fame for doing the same, despite being easily beaten by two other Americans during the Olympic qualifiers.

Former Jeopardy! contestants, who apparently treat being on the show as the crowning achievement in their lives, accused another contestant of racism for putting up the number three to celebrate his third victory, creating a media-driven controversy out of nothing. Baseball analyst Doug Glanville took to the New York Times to decry he was the victim of racism because he never heard of the “circle game.”

There is the 1619 Project, a New York Times initiative built on a lie and peddled by a mediocre “historian” who contradicts herself at every turn, including walking back the entire premise of her activist project. And, of course, there is actor Jussie Smollett, who fabricated a racist hate crime against himself to raise his profile.

Author-activists Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi have struck gold by playing to this demand for racism for “anti-racists” to condemn. Racism is not a major issue in the U.S. and hasn’t been for years, yet liberals see it around every corner. Racism is not an ever-present shadow looming over every institution and daily interaction. It’s a good career move, which is why Wallace wants to pretend he was a victim as long as possible.