261 replies to this topic

[Myrvold]

The death of a habitual offender, recidivist, who was 5 times on jail before.
Not saying he deserved death, but he was not an innocent gentle giant, and the media, who are supposed to inform of everything, hide this, I wonder why.

Because it's not really relevant for the situation he got killed?

[Heyli]

I mean, thats not what I said but would it be a problem if it did?

The paddock simply highlights the inequality in sport in general.

That's why I put a question mark behind my comment .

 

There is an inequality in a lot of sports, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Extreme example: if we would start to force the NBA to also represent the society when it comes to height (more rights to short people), I'm sure many people would argue that this would be very weird?

 

Just to make it clear, I do think racism is a problem and it's obviously a problem that should be tackled. I sometimes feel that blaming stuff on racism is just taking the easy way out though.

 

I would argue that in motorsport the bigger problem could be money-related (and obviously this would hurt people from colour more). The solution should then be more in the direction of thinking how people with less money can get better access to motorsport, regardless of color. 

 

Racism is A problem, but it's not the only problem, and inequality is not always caused by racism. 

[Marklar]

This year teached me more about people on this forum than all those years before

[shure]

The death of a habitual offender, recidivist, who was 5 times on jail before.

Not saying he deserved death, but he was not an innocent gentle giant, and the media, who are supposed to inform of everything, hide this, I wonder why.

Probably because it wasn't really relevant to the way he died.

 

I don't think he should be held up as a saint, but the point is that he died purely as a result of unwarranted aggressive action being taken against him by a person in a position of power.  His own less than salubrious history is a red herring because it wasn't a factor in the sequence of events.  That's what the focus is on and discussing his past will only dilute it

[Nemo1965]

My five cents: good for Hamilton he is supporting the BLM-movement, including going to a demonstration. As long he or others do not shame or try to cancel other people either refusing to comment on the matter or refusing to do the PC-speak, it is all fine with me.

 

Kudo's for him taking a stand.

[absinthedude]

The left is showings its true colors in this thread.

 

Apparently if you are a white heterosexual male you are both privileged and guilty. By definition! And you are not even knowing it.

 

Unfortunately this will only lead to more racism, aggression, segregation.

 

 

 

No, Please read the posts. 

 

There is nothing wrong with being white, straight, male and even middle class. I am pretty much all those things myself. Nobody blames anyone for having privilege. It's what you do with it that counts.

 

Saying "Oh woe is me, I'm hated because I am white" is unhelpful. Your and my skin colour has never hindered us. We have all surely faced problems in our lives but skin colour wasn't making them worse. 

 

While George Floyd was no angel there is a LOT of misinformation about his past and I encourage everyone to read the Snopes article on this. And to remember that everyone is innocent until proved guilty. 

[Anja]

If your white, straight, middle class then your just never going to understand this but I'd absolutely emplore you to support those less privileged when they ask for their basic human rights to be protected.

 

That's a very crucial part of this whole thing in my opinion and I don't think it's getting highlighted enough.

 

Being white, I'm not going to pretend I really know anything about racial discrimination. But for some reason so many white people think they're experts on the subject and they have the right to judge it. It's not possible to really understand how it is to live in such different situations and we don't need to ask ourselves of that. What we can and should do is simply to listen to what black people are saying and believe them. That's all it takes to make that first, extremely important, step. It's at the very foundation of creating some change in the right direction yet many people simply refuse to listen, convinced that they know better. 

[discover23]

The death of a habitual offender, recidivist, who was 5 times on jail before.
Not saying he deserved death, but he was not an innocent gentle giant, and the media, who are supposed to inform of everything, hide this, I wonder why.

Because it has nothing to do with how he was murdered.
Or you think it does?

Edited by discover23, 24 June 2020 - 10:49.

[Myrvold]

I would argue that in motorsport the bigger problem could be money-related (and obviously this would hurt people from colour more). The solution should then be more in the direction of thinking how people with less money can get better access to motorsport, regardless of color.

Indeed. And this goes for lots of different minorities as well. I personally know of more than one, non-straight racing driver who doesnt dare live anything but a straight life. As they all have said "I need sponsor money to carry on, I am afraid I will lose too much by being open about it. It must be kept a secret".

This is more of a society thing than strictly a racing thing. As it doesn't really matter how welcoming the racing community is, if the sponsors isn't interested for different reasons. No matter if that is gender, skin-color, sexuality or whatever.

[shure]

If you truly believe that activism for racial, gender and sexual equality has actually increased the divide in society then I can only believe you have an incredibly warped view on reality.

In sport, race and sexuality are both being discussed at length, why? Because we still have football fans throwing bananas onto the field and anti homosexual chants being sung.

We've had one black driver in F1, no females and the paddock is prodomently made up of white males, not even a slight reflection of the diversity in the human population.

Things are getting better because people are standing up for themselves and will continue to do so visibly until a true level of parity is reached.

I understand what you're trying to say, but I don't think F1 should necessarily be a rainbow reflection of society.  If that's the goal then I think it's always going to fail.

 

The lack of female drivers, for example, is not an F1 problem.  It's a problem for motorsport in general as there aren't enough women entering at grass roots level.  But if there was a woman driver today who was good enough to compete I do believe that teams would be falling over themselves to sign her.  F1 is all about marketing these days and that would be marketing gold.  I'm inclined to think something similar about black drivers, but I know less about that so would admit that's a guess.  

 

But any pinnacle sport should be about the best athletes only, not ticking boxes.  It's the feeder series that need the spotlight more than F1 here I feel.  F1 can have a part top play in that but I don't think it's something they should think is their fault.

 

I'm happy to be shown wrong on this, by the way.  But I have't seen anything in F1 in particular that indicates it's discriminatory in any way.

[Heyli]

I think you're misunderstanding the issue, it's not about economic inequality although that may be a part of it. Its a much broader issue. These people are systematically *automatically treated with suspicion* by society in all sorts of things. Including by an heavily armed police force in the US which is what started these protests. Imagine being constantly harassed by the cops and treated as a suspect by default, just because your skin colour is a little darker. You basically would never be able to feel safe anywhere. On top of all the bullshit stereotypes people would constantly assume applies to you, such as being less intelligent, more aggressive etc. All of this also compounds indirectly into less financial opportunities yes, but that's just a part of it and not the main point of the argument.

This is why as a white male I am "privileged", because I don't have to deal with any of that. Ultimately the goal isn't to remove us from that privilege though, it's to extend it to everyone so that everyone can be treated as a first class citizen. I didn't ask for this special treatment, I have no reason to feel guilty about this special treatment, I have no reason not to feel well how I am and proud of how I am, however I do have a reason to acknowledge these people have a point to ask to just be treated the same.

I had a reply typed out, but I deleted it, because I fear that anything I will say on this subject can only be taken the wrong way (especially on an internet forum   ).

 

I'll just stick to the generaly summary I made before. Racism is a problem, it's a problem that should be dealt with, but it's not cause of everything and not every inequality is down to racism. The US police force being a prime example of that (that is seems to be made out to be only due to racism, whereas I think this is only a part of the problem, who knows how big the part is exactly).

[midgrid]

This thread has gone off-topic and is now closed.

 

Discussion about broader issues of racism, George Floyd's death, and the role of sports in this are welcome in the Paddock Club forum.

 

In Racing Comments, we have the NASCAR 2020 thread to discuss the Bubba Wallace incident and the thread on the FIA's "We Race As One" initiative to discuss how motorsport can address racial (and other) equality issues.

 

If there are any further developments relating to Hamilton attending the protest, please report this post to request that the thread is reopened.