Denny Hamlin is Showing NASCAR Still has a Racism Problem

 

On Sunday at Talladega coming to the checkered flag Kyle Larson set off an accident that ended up crashing both 23XL owned by Denny Hamlin out of the race. Kurt Busch and Bubba Wallace had been on track for a good finish in the race before this. Instead, neither car saw the checkered flag.  

On Monday Denny Hamlin shared a meme that implied Kyle Larson a driver of Asian descent, who was once suspended for the entire 2020 season for saying the N-word, could not drive because of his ancestry. This led to many reactions from people in the NASCAR community, some believing he did nothing wrong, others wanting there to be some punishment for his actions, and then of course myself who called for his arrest.  

Many people believed that Hamlin did not cause any harm by sharing the racially insensitive meme and nothing should happen to him, NASCAR did not agree with this and has informed him he must complete sensitivity training and begin the process by the end of this week.  

Asians not being able to drive a very harmful stereotype and one that in motor racing has been disproven and numerous Asian drivers have had success on the sport’s biggest stages. While Kyle Larson was serving his suspension from NASCAR, he won nearly 60 dirt races, the following year when he came back to NASCAR, he won 10 races and the cup series championship. Takuma Sato, another driver of Asian descent, is a two-time winner of the Indianapolis 500-mile race, the largest single motor race in all the world.  

This stereotype is harmful because it can make people of Asian descent less likely to get into motorsports, but it also has harm that extends beyond the racetrack. Many Asian-Americans pay a higher premium for car insurance because of this belief that they are more likely to cause an accident.  

These are things that people would learn in sensitivity training, many in the NASCAR community are saying Hamlin should have received no consequences for his actions because it was a well-intentioned joke, or because he did not know that what he did would cause harm. These are people that have either never attended sensitivity training or who have never been the victim of the types of microaggression that Hamlin committed, so they do not understand the real-world harm that was caused.  

Everyone agreed that Larson should have been suspended when he said the N-word because they knew the harm it created, this joke by Hamlin created harm and he should be punished appropriately. Toyota, his manufacturer, has stated they agree with NASCAR and will look to move on from this situation.