NASCAR on Tuesday expressed support for South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s (R) call for the state to remove the Confederate flag from its capitol grounds.
“As we continue to mourn the tragic loss of life last week in Charleston, we join our nation’s embrace of those impacted. NASCAR supports the position that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley took on the Confederate Flag on Monday,” the NASCAR statement reads. “As our industry works collectively to ensure that all fans are welcome at our races, NASCAR will continue our long-standing policy to disallow the use of the Confederate Flag symbol in any official NASCAR capacity. While NASCAR recognizes that freedom of expression is an inherent right of all citizens, we will continue to strive for an inclusive environment at our events.”
As Haley urged the South Carolina legislature to take down the flag after the deadly shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, numerous businesses leaders, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, echoed her concerns.
Walmart and and Sears Holdings Corporation said on Monday that they would stop selling merchandise with the Confederate flag. And eBay on Tuesday announced that it will ban Confederate flags and items depicting the flag from its site.
Maybe not yet quite out front but quick to jump on the band wagon, NASCAR has earned a level of respect recently other franchises will just have to dream about…
Wow. I am really very pleasantly surprised. Thank you, folks at NASCAR. This is the right thing to do. Thank you.
Note: I’m also very happy to hear folks like Tim Cook and Marc Benioff reached out to Gov. Haley. Ideologically, they are very different than she, but this is a human story on so very many levels and these guys’ opinions do hold a lot of sway in the bigger industries. Unfortunately, sometimes the only things some people listen to are the cha-chings on a cash register (look it up, younger ones).
They must have been anxiously running around in circles before coming up with this decision.
Oval-tines.
Damn, the Dixie troglodytes have lost Walmart, lost their GOP governor, lost NASCAR, and probably will lose their statehouse flag.
By my count, that leaves them clinging to god, guns, and whiskey bottles. Gunmakers and distillers probably won’t have anything to say on the topic, but I’m hoping (perhaps with undue optimism) that we hear from some major evangelical leaders soon.