Controversial S#!T

Bubba Wallace -- the only Black driver in NASCAR's top series -- confirms a noose was found in his team's garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday ... and now the racing org is investigating.

The noose was found by a member of Wallace's team -- just hours after someone flew a Confederate flag over the legendary Alabama track to protest NASCAR banning the symbol at all events.

The crew member who found the noose immediately alerted NASCAR, which is now working with law enforcement to find the culprit.

"We are angry and outraged, and cannot state strongly enough how seriously we take this heinous act," NASCAR said.

"We have launched an immediate investigation, and will do everything we can to identify the person(s) responsible and eliminate them from the sport."

Wallace called the situation a "despicable act of racism and hatred" -- and says he's "incredibly saddened."

He added, "We will not be deterred by the reprehensible actions of those who seek to spread hate. As my mother told me today, 'They are just trying to scare you.'"

"This will not break me, I will not give in nor will I back down. I will continue to proudly stand for what I believe in."

LeBron James offered his support to Wallace -- calling the entire situation "sickening."

"[Bubba Wallace] my brother! Know you don’t stand alone," Bron said ... "I’m right here with you as well as every other athlete."

"I just want to continue to say how proud I am of you for continuing to take a stand for change here in America and sports! NASCAR I salute you as well!"

As for the confederate flag flyover which took place before the Geici 500 race was set to begin -- still unclear who was responsible for that. NASCAR says they're looking into that as well.

That wasn't the only display of the Confederacy either -- not by a long shot. While no Confederate flags were allowed inside the venue, a bunch of truck drivers rolled past the Speedway in what seemed to be a coordinated protest parade, with many flying the flag.

Some folks who wanted to show it off some more even set up camp across the street, and were proudly displaying the Confederate flag, alongside some Trump flags too.

Obviously, some people aren't all too pleased with NASCAR's new policy. But, it doesn't sound like the org gives a damn about them, 'cause one of their top dogs took a swipe at the people acting in defiance ... flatly rejecting their thinking, and calling them names too.

Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR's executive VP, addressed the fly-over on Twitter, writing ... "You won’t see a photo of a jackass flying a flag over the track here...but you will see this... Hope EVERYONE enjoys the race today."

One of Jussie Smollett's alleged attackers wants some personal belongings back from Chicago PD ... including some stuff that sounds like the exact items used that infamous night.

According to court docs, obtained by TMZ, Abel Osundairo had a number of personal items seized in February 2019 when cops executed a search warrant at his home ... and now he wants them returned.

Some of the seized items Abel wants are pretty interesting, because, if you've followed the case, this will sound familiar -- a black ski mask and a red hat. Yep, just a couple of the things Abel and his brother, Ola, allegedly bought and used on Jussie.

You'll recall ... surveillance video days before the "attack" showed the Osundairos buying the gear. Remember, Jussie said his attackers were wearing ski masks, and cops seized red hats when they raided the brothers' residence.

Abel, who was released from custody without any charges being filed against him, also wants police to hand over a script from "Empire" recovered from his place. He and Ola had been extras on Jussie's hit show.

Other notable items Abel wants returned include 2 firearms, 2 iPhones and 5 bottles of bleach -- relevant, of course, to the alleged attack.

In the new docs, Abel's lawyer, Gloria Schmidt, says her client's "been patient but has now been deprived of his personal property for over a year and there exists no good cause for any further delay in returning his items to him."

Abel's gonna have to wait a little longer for a final decision. A judge is giving the special prosecutor in Jussie's case at least another week to figure out if handing over the stuff would prejudice the case in any way.

A statue of Teddy Roosevelt that has greeted visitors for nearly a century at NYC's Museum of Natural History is set to be removed ... at the behest of the museum.

Honchos at the AMNH broke the news Sunday, saying a statue of the great trust-busting President that has stood at the foot of the entrance doors since 1940 will soon be gone.

In case you haven't seen it, the sculpture shows Teddy -- who once served as Governor of New York -- on horseback, with a Native American man on one side, and an African man on the other ... both of whom are below him.

Mayor Bill de Blasio says the museum asked the City for permission to remove the statue, because ... "it explicitly depicts Black and Indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior." He added, "It is the right decision and the right time to remove this problematic statue." It goes without saying ... New York's City Council has approved the request.

The statue has been a hot-button issue for a while -- some folks saw it as promoting imperialism and colonization ... which was alive and well in Teddy's day.

The museum justified the move, explaining ... "Over the last few weeks, our museum community has been profoundly moved by the ever-widening movement for racial justice that has emerged after the killing of George Floyd." They added, "We have watched as the attention of the world and the country has increasingly turned to statues as powerful and hurtful symbols of systemic racism. Simply put, the time has come to move it."

While Teddy's officially out ... another historical statue in our nation's Capitol, no less, is currently on the hot seat -- and may very well be the next slated for removal, unless protesters get to it first. Out in D.C., the Emancipation Statue featuring Honest Abe is being discussed as the next to go ... because of racial insensitivity.

There's a slave below Abe breaking free from his shackles, with AL hovering above him. A petition's circulating to remove it.

Less than a week after New York City said no more chokeholds to cops, an NYPD officer used one while making an arrest ... to the point the person he's subduing loses consciousness.

A handful of NYPD officers were filmed Sunday near Rockaway Beach attempting to detain and arrest a black man -- with one of the cops wrapping his entire arm around the guy's neck and putting his body weight on him from the ground, while the others put cuffs on.

You hear bystanders -- who are filming the whole thing -- start to scream out in a panic, telling the officer to stop choking him, which eventually gets him to release.

At that point, it appears the man being arrested has gone limp and is unresponsive -- some of the folks standing around say "he's out." He had indeed passed out and was led away by police moments later.

It's unclear if and when he regained consciousness -- his current condition is also unknown.  We also don't know why he was being arrested, and the NYPD isn't saying.

The NYPD did say, "We are aware of the video and there is an active investigation underway by the Internal Affairs Bureau. This matter is taken extremely seriously and we expect to have an update this evening as the investigation unfolds."

Bear in mind ... the City JUST made it illegal for cops to do this, unless their lives are in immediate danger. They even named the law after Eric Garner.

Again, and again ... what is so remarkable about these encounters is that cops know they're being videotaped but it doesn't seem to deter much.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez heaped praise on countless teens who punked Donald Trump and his campaign Saturday night in a big, big way.

Trump and co. had been touting that huge crowds -- 100,000 strong -- would show up for his Tulsa rally, yet he couldn't even fill a 19,000 seat arena ... it was only 2/3 full.

Enter TikTok users and K-pop fans, who started their own campaign, registering for tickets to the Trump rally with obviously no intention of going. This is why, in part, the Trump campaign bragged 1 million people had registered.

AOC was beside herself, saying ... "you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID. Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud."

The founder of a gaming company is seeing the light -- she's aborting efforts to create a "Black Lives Matter" board game, and admits, despite good intentions ... there's a better way to fight racism.

Shari Spiro's the owner of AdMagic Inc., and last week she filed to trademark the 'BLM' phrase. Spiro told TMZ her plan was to help the organization create some type of educational tool -- possibly a 'BLM' card or board game -- to teach people about the movement.

Spiro added, she was not doing it for financial gain or publicity, and told us she was even going to donate the trademark -- if approved -- back to the Black Lives Matter org.

A couple days later, however, she reached out to tell us she's abandoning her application ... saying she now understands it was "tone deaf" to try it in the first place.

Spiro says even though her goal was to do good for the BLM movement, she recognizes "that 'good intentions' can still be unhelpful."

She adds ... "Moving forward, I will listen and learn so that I can be a better ally in the fight against racism." Spiro says her withdrawal of the trademark will be officially on the books within a few days.

It should be noted ... Spiro's not the first person to run to the trademark office since BLM protests started spreading after the death of George Floyd. Another businessman also recently withdrew applications for "Black Lives Matter" and "I Can't Breathe."

Ex-NBA star Shawn Marion says the LAST thing players should do is sit out the 2020 season ... saying sitting out will diminish their chances at making a bigger difference in the fight against racism.

Superstars like Kyrie Irving have expressed their uncertainty over restarting the season in the middle of the Black Lives Matter movement ... with the Nets star saying players' focus should be on fighting for social justice.

Ex-NBAer Stephen Jackson -- who was friends with George Floyd -- sided with Kyrie ... saying, "now ain't the time to be playing basketball, y'all."

But, the Matrix disagrees with the idea of sitting out ... saying the biggest platform to fight for social justice is on the NBA stage.

"In order for you to advocate and go out here and show what you're fighting for and the causes, you need to be on TV," Marion says.

"Social media is a great platform, but TV is a bigger platform because you can post whatever you post on TV, you can post to your social media platform."

"So, with the season resuming, it adds to that cause."

Matrix -- who acknowledges Uncle Drew has a valid point -- says players will be able to speak out in interviews and press conferences ... which brings a much bigger audience than a Twitter account.

But, as for sitting? -- "I don't agree with that."

"What is sitting out, boycotting, not playing the season -- what is that gonna accomplish really?"

An apparent newborn baby got dragged out to the crockpot of potential disease festering in Tulsa -- and like mother, the kid too is unmasked ... and surrounded by hordes of bodies.

This screenshot is from a video that was filmed and posted on social media Saturday outside of the BOK Center in downtown, where Trump is hosting a rally -- the first one he's held in months since the start of the pandemic, and which promises to be packed.

The person who posted this was documenting her day ahead of the actual rally later this evening, and one of the last posts on her IG story shows this woman with what looks like a recently born child. The woman who posted says 3 weeks old -- tagging it #BabiesForTrump.

It looks like she had a convo with the mother -- in her original story, the woman comes over and seems to mouth some words to her.

A Louisiana city official who resisted taking Robert E. Lee out of a school's name got taken to task by a black activist, who forced her to leave a meeting in utter shame.

This epic take-down of words went down Thursday during a Baton Rouge School Board meeting, where District 8 member Connie Bernard was publicly called out by Gary Chambers Jr., who stepped to the mic and unloaded on what he described as her inherent racism.

A bit of context ... part of the purpose for Thursday's meeting was to circle back to an issue that'd been discussed recently in the community -- namely, taking the "Lee" out of Lee High School, which was already a stripped-down version of Robert E. Lee High School.

Several members of the community have been calling for a full-blown name change of late, and School Board Member Bernard said last week folks offended by REL needed to brush up on their history. Welp, Mr. Chambers Jr. here had some things to say about that.

For starters, he addressed the fact that it appeared Ms. Bernard was captured on camera online shopping from her laptop during the meeting, while members of the public were airing out their grievances on the topic.

Tulsa police just did something that does not bode well for a peaceful protest .... they arrested a woman wearing an "I Can't Breathe" shirt for trespassing -- despite the fact she had a ticket to Donald Trump's rally.

Sheila Buck was taken into custody by a group of cops as she sat and protested Saturday night's rally.

She was locked in a standoff with cops for 8 minutes, when police decided they had enough and dragged her away in cuffs.

Check out the video of Sheila before she was arrested ... tensions are fast-approaching a boiling point.

It's unclear if the cops are following through with Trump's threats Friday, when he tweeted, "Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!"

Seems like the President wants a repeat of the scene outside The White House a few weeks back, when protesters were gassed and shot at with rubber bullets so Trump could nonsensically hold a bible in front of an historic church.

A woman was shot in the leg during a protest Friday night near the Wendy's where Rayshard Brooks was shot in the back and killed.

The protest, which was held on Juneteenth, was peaceful until suddenly, shots rang out. Eyewitnesses say they heard around 20 shots, and you can certainly hear a number of them in the video.

The woman who was shot was conscious and her injuries seem to be non-life-threatening. She was taken to a hospital by ambulance.

It was the third shooting in Atlanta Friday night, as the city grapples with the tragic death of Rayshard Brooks and the arrests of the 2 officers.

Tiffany Haddish has become a strong voice in the Black Lives Matter movement, and on Friday she mixed in a little comedy to make a point about how to deal with white guilt.

Tiffany was outside The Laugh Factory in WeHo Friday afternoon, which was hosting a Juneteenth forum to "celebrate, protest, and learn from community leaders and star-studded comedians."

So, Tiffany talked about the American dream, which in the past has partly involved ownership of land and other things of value. She said if some people are processing white guilt and trying to figure out how to make things right ... well, Tiff's got some ideas.

She suggests a little redistribution of wealth ... maybe an acre or 2 here and there. For a more modest redistribution of wealth, Tiffany suggests buying some herbs, vitamins and Moon Juice.

Her message ... "Don't just own debt, own a piece of America."

Adrian Peterson tells TMZ Sports he applauds the decision to remove a monument dedicated to a racist ex-Washington Redskins owner ... saying, "It makes me feel good."

As we previously reported, the people who run RFK Stadium dug up and removed their George Preston Marshall statue on Friday -- citing his racist policies of not signing black players for decades.

Peterson, who's been with Washington since 2018, says it's about time.

"Obviously, in different states all over this country, you've got monuments, buildings and stuff and statues that are named after people that owned slaves, people that were racists."

AP believes the tributes were part of a bigger plan to "keep the minorities and the blacks, colored people down."

But, now that there's a movement to get rid of tributes to racists and other bad people, Peterson says "It just shows that God is watching over us to be able to get to a point now where they are removing some of those statuses and trying to pave a new way."

We also spoke with AP about the controversy over the Redskins name.

Peterson says he's constantly trying to educate himself on the issue -- but understands both sides of the argument.

There's more ... AP also talked about how A&A Peterson Family Foundation is helping out during the COVID-19 pandemic and what steps he's taking to protect himself.

Brett Hankison, one of the 3 Louisville cops who fired their weapons during the deadly March 13 raid at Breonna Taylor's home ... is about to be tossed off the force.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer just announced Hankison will no longer be employed by the Louisville Metro Police Department.

A letter from police Chief Robert Schroeder says Hankison had "violated obedience to rules and regulations," and use of deadly force while serving the no-knock warrant at Breonna's home.

The letter also says, Hankison "displayed an extreme indifference to the value of human life when [he] wantonly and blindly fired 10 rounds into the apartment of Breonna Taylor." The chief also calls out Hankison for firing on someone he did not know posed a threat, and also for firing through a patio door without knowing who or what was on the other side of it.

As we've reported ... the 3 officers -- which includes Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove -- had been placed on administrative reassignment but were still part of the force, until Hankison's Friday firing.

On Thursday, KY Attorney General Daniel Cameron addressed the investigation into Taylor's death, saying his team was working nonstop ... but had nothing to report yet in terms of possible charges for the officers.

Instead, he pled for patience and peace and vowed to follow the truth and be "thorough and fair" to everyone involved.

"Dear Whore ... "

That's how it began -- a disgusting piece of hate mail some racist coward sent to Lakers owner Jeanie Buss -- and now she's calling him out publicly.

"After 60 years as a huge Lakers fan, I now say to hell with the overpaid n***** traitors and the NBA."

"Go to hell and join **** Kobe Bryant."

The letter was signed by a man named Joe.

Jeanie says she thought a lot about what to do with the letter after receiving it on Monday -- but ultimately decided to post it on social media "so that everyone can see the hate is real and living out there."

"This is happening in our world TODAY. It's real and it exists."

Buss also posted a message to Joe ...

"Did sending this letter make you feel better? Really all you did was waste your time, and energy and your postage stamp. (But thank you for including your return home address) Why don’t you look in the mirror and see your ugliness because I refuse to."

Jeanie says she's received similar letters over the years and always thought it was best to just ignore the haters -- "but not anymore."

"On this day, Juneteenth, I ask my white friends to join together, acknowledge the racism that exists in our country and around the world, and pledge to stop ignoring it. We all must do better."

Jeanie's post is already resonating with LeBron James -- who showed his support for Buss on Instagram.

Well that didn't take long -- a day after AMC Theatres announced plans to reopen without a strict mask-wearing policy in place, it's reversed course ... all of its guests will now have to cover their faces when it reopens.

AMC CEO Adam Aron sparked a major controversy Thursday when he revealed he was trying to do the opposite ... by NOT requiring guests to wear masks when it resumes operations on July 15.

Aron said, "We did not want to be drawn into a political controversy ... We thought it might be counterproductive if we forced mask wearing on those people who believe strongly that it is not necessary."

So, Aron said it would be up to guests in states where mask-wearing is not required to decide if they want to wear one or not. He added ... "We think that the vast majority of AMC guests will be wearing masks. When I go to an AMC feature, I will certainly be wearing a mask and leading by example."

No need to be an example now, though, because AMC announced Friday it had made an error. The theater chain says its lax mask policy "prompted an intense and immediate outcry from our customers, and it is clear from this response that we did not go far enough on the usage of masks."

AMC's 600+ venues have been closed for almost 4 months, but it's set to reopen 450 of those locations in mid-July, and plans to be fully back in business by the time Disney’s “Mulan” is released, on July 24.

Seating capacity will be greatly reduced, however, and eating popcorn ... well, that will simply be more challenging.