Kyle Larson is going to get a second chance in NASCAR, after a six-month exile for using the N-word.
It's fair to debate whether Larson suffered enough for this awful mistake. He's coming back with a better job than the one from which he got fired.
But there's no debate about this:
Almost always, people should get a second chance.
In this case, Kyle Larson should get one, too.
I've gotten a second chance before in life. You probably have, too. Rick Hendrick — Larson's new employer with Hendrick Motorsports — certainly has.
There are horrendous criminal acts that a person can never come all the way back from. Murder. Child molestation. I'm sure you can come up with more.
But to me, saying the N-word once in a public forum isn't an unforgivable offense.
Larson is on an apology tour now, trying to rehabilitate his image after using the racial slur in April during an esports racing event. He said all the right things in a 50-minute press conference I listened to Thursday, seemingly repentant and willing to fall on the sword as many times as it took.
When I asked him why he used the word in the first place, Larson replied: "Me just being ignorant and stupid, really."
Larson's exile has included a lot of education and interaction with Black youth and adults around America — mostly listening, he said. As he wrote on his website in early October: "It was past time for me to shut up, listen and learn."
One of the odder parts of this story has always been that Larson has seen discrimination firsthand before for years. He's half-Japanese, the son of an interracial couple who got ugly stares. During World War II, his maternal grandparents were held in an internment camp.
Larson's family had a personal history with discrimination. And he said the N-word, anyway. There's no excuse. He destroyed his reputation with a single word — directed casually at a white person who was his spotter for the virtual "race."
"I definitely didn't think that I would get another opportunity in NASCAR," Larson said.
