A sponsor announced on Friday that it has ended its partnership with NASCAR driver Conor Daly after it was reported that his father used racially insensitive language during an interview in the early 1980s.
Lilly Diabetes pulled its sponsorship from Conor’s No. 6 car in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity race, citing his father’s alleged use of the N-word 35 years ago, reported Fox News.
Derek Daly, a retired Indy 500 and Formula One driver, was fired days earlier from his role as WISH-TV’s Racing Analyst due to the controversy.
In a statement, the elder Daly admitted to using the word, but denied its connotation.
“I was a foreign driver now in America, driving for an American team, with an American crew, and with an American sponsor – and that if things did not go well, the only ‘”n” in the wood pile’ would be me,” Derek Daly wrote, saying that the expression was common in his native Ireland and didn’t carry the same racist connotation.
He added that he was “mortified” after he was informed of the derogatory nature of the word and has not used the word since.
“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 in a statement.
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9 comments:
Sounds like there are many in the wood pile. Thirty five years later, those in the pile sure hold a unwarranted grudge. The ones complaining probably weren't even born when this was allegedly said.
Virtue signalling over something his dad said over 35 years ago. How pathetic can you get? I remember Grandpa teachings, "Eenie, meeni, miney mo, catch a N__ by he toe. If he hollers make him pay, fifty dollars every day! That's how we picked our teams for basketball.
Want to kill my career over that now?
Sheesh! What a bunch of pu$$ies!
35 years ago .... not right
Yet 1000's of priests who did the most vile/cruel things ever to innocent children get NOTHING!
Priorities are truly mixed up in our country!
Friggin ridiculous.
Lilly Diabetics should be ashamed of themselves, and that's just for starters.
The driver they dropped is a Type 1 diabetic himself, which they knew; undoubtedly why they chose him to start with.
So his father made a one-time comment years before he was even born. And he's to be dumped for that? Further the father has put the comment in context; as a foreigner then, he did not understand how the word was understood in the US and was using it as part of the slang in his native country, again without a US context. He says he never used the term since.
We are in weird times when one comment by a relative before your birth is a disqualifier! Shame and ridicule on Lilly for this.
A lot of blacks use that word everyday.
Ridiculous, i will boycott their products. I guess all companies that promote rap music will be following Corporate Americas lead ?
What are you all upset and complaining for? You let these people do as they please, ignoring them, thinking it won't affect you, well lookie here, I was right yet again, everything will effect you eventually, it is just a matter of time, not if it will or will not happen... Oh now that it affects you, now all of a sudden you care, but you didn't before when we all told you this would happen, this would be the outcome... Nooo don't listen to people then, only listen when you can't fix the damn problem... as usual!!!!
Just wait for the laws from Canada to make its way over here, where the govt will force you to use the right pronouns for gays and trans and the like, and if you refuse, or don't or you make a mistake and call them by their name or he or she, you will get fined or jailed... But I guess that is what it will take before you people stand up and say enough is enough...
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