NASCAR Xfinity Driver Loses Sponsorship Over Father's 1980s Racial Slur

Conor Daly has found himself with one less sponsor for his NASCAR Xfinity car over the use of a racial slur. Except Conor Daly isn’t the one who uttered the racial slur. His dad did, and it happened before the driver was even born.

Someone losing their job and endorsements over the use of racial slurs and racism in general is now common news. While I’m not a fan of people losing their livelihood over things they say, tweet, or otherwise express while away from their job, I have a hard time finding enough sympathy to go to bat for racists. I get that there is a larger principle at stake, but, repeating myself, I have a hard time finding enough sympathy to be willing to go to bat for racists.

Conor Daly, on the other hand, is evidence that society has crossed the Rubicon on the larger principle. Children are now being punished for the sins of their parents.

ESPN reports:

Lilly Diabetes has pulled its sponsorship of Conor Daly‘s No. 6 car in the NASCAR Xfinity race at Road America, citing a racially insensitive remark made by the driver’s father in the 1980s that surfaced this week.

Lilly said in a statement Friday that its sponsorship was intended to raise awareness for treatment options and resources for people living with diabetes.

“Unfortunately, the comments that surfaced this week by Derek Daly distract from this focus, so we have made the decision that Lilly Diabetes will no longer run the No. 6 at Road America this weekend,” Lilly said.

The father, Derek Daly, “admitted to using the racial slur for African Americans during a radio interview in the early 1980s.”

Conor Daly is 26 years old. He was born in the early 1990s, a full decade after his dad uttered the slur. Not that the timing should matter, but it highlights the absurdity of it. What about his grandfather? Or his great-grandfather? Did either of them say or do anything wrong? If so, maybe NASCAR should consider suspending Conor Daly. Maybe society should consider dragging young Mr. Daly to the guillotine over something that his great-grandfather said.

While writing those previous sentences with my irritated tongue pressed firmly against my cheek, I also wrote them with the growing fear that my sentences are prophetic.

If we’ve reached the point where people are being held accountable for things their parents did, there’s little reason to stop society from upping the punishments and extending the convictions to include things done by relatives who are long dead and gone. Conor Daly losing his sponsorship may seem a like a minor blip on the radar of problems, but that blip signals that we are facing a growing cavalcade of vindictive blips targeting people over things said and done by others. No one is safe in the leftist dystopian nightmare we are entering.