First of all, I want to point out that I perfectly understand how tricky this subject is. I ask myself things like "Can I, as a white man, say or think this?" way too often, and I came to the conclusion that, in order to stop racism, we should never think in color in the first place. So, yes, as a white man, I am allowed to say this, and yes I have a voice, just like every other citizen of earth. If I am not allowed, no matter who forbids me, than we are far from fixing this issue. In fact, we ALL have the same rights to express ourselves. The keyword here is having respect for the subject. I am also perfectly aware of the majority of black people being victim of racism, and I can personally never understand how it feels like to be among the black victims. I can't say more than that. There are however, a lot of stories and experiences shared by people first hand. And I read a lot of them. I can imagine, but never fully understand. If I have any privilege, my parents never raised me to look at peoples skincolor. I was raised by learning peoples names, and not how they look. That said, I did endure generalising, stereotyping all my life long as being bullied by most of my life. I got my scars. Different, yet they changed me big time. I'll ignore the fact for a while, that I've experienced racism against my skin color as well, and despite statistics being lower, I recieved it. But it made me believe that I am eligable to join the conversation, although in the slightest way. If you think, that I have no say to this, because I am white, do me a favor, and stop reading. I do believe you are also part of the problem, as exclusivity is a formula for diversion and diversion is what we now experience a lot. From now on, I'll try to avoid words like black and white, because these are shallow generalisations that won't help explain the issue and actually goes against everything I see. I decided to write this piece after what happened with Lewis Hamilton after the Formula One GP crash with Max Verstappen. Lewis recieved a lot of racial abuse on social media. I normally don't like to take public standpoints in certain matters. But lately, more and more things happened and I just felt the need to get this off my chest. You are welcome to read my perspective, and I am in no way forcing my perspective on you. In the end, it's up to you. I would appreciate it, if you shared your perspective, as long as it is with respect. It started with a tweet from @F1, saying they do not approve racism in any way and made people aware of consequences for their actions. While this is a good message, I 'kinda'agreed with a response from someone, who said F1 should also look at more things than just racism. However, he used a bad example. But I actually took time to respond after someone said how racism is the most important problem and told the guy, to which he responded, indirectly a part of the problem. That's when I disagreed, badly.
Racism isn't just racism. It's a deep rooted, combined problem, coming from various branches. People are racist, because they are being raised that way. People are being racist, because they experienced something bad and projects it to color. People are being racist, because they want to join the 'cool' gang with their friends, who are racists themselves. People are racists, because they are surrounded in a negative environment and hate everything arround them. People are racist, because they are afraid of the unknown. People are racist, because they endured a lot of racism against themselves, etcetera.
So, you can't just say "Let's eliminate racism." In order to fix this, you need to focus on ALL the branches. Hence why I understand the guy on Twitter when he said that racism alone isn't the most important thing to raise awareness of. He is right.
F1 social media is one of the worst communities there is. ( To my knowledge. ) Instead of a group of sport loving passionists, there is a fierce competition going on. There is hate. There is personal abuse. There is namecalling. There is trolling. (Trying to get negative emotions from others. ) It's literally a place where all the trash is dumped. Not only Twitter. But also their Facebook, which is even worse, in my opinion. To connect it with the issue of the abuse to Lewis Hamilton, is that the social media owners of the F1 pages in no way moderates or create awareness of the toxicity in general. This has led to a build-up of toxic behaviour that opened the doors to the most extreme of all: Racism.
And when F1 finally asked for awareness for racism, they were too late. They did not took any responsibility and tried to prevent such a toxic environment. That is why F1's call for awareness feels hollow. They should've started with calling awareness of bullying. Of general abuse. They needed to step in and punish those who break the rules. That way, a gateway to racism was either small, or non-existent. F1, is in my opinion, partially responsible for this to happen.
After I explained this on a response to Twitter, I get some comments back, ( probably from the toxic community ) that my opinion is actually worthless, or I am part of the "I am not racist, but"group, implying I am a racist in disguise. These are the typical abusive comments I get used to, on this platform. And not me alone. Everyone, actually. A growing club of online people forgot how to rationalize, and only see the (online) world in a black / white perspective. ( No pun intented. ) They believe, that when people do not (fully) agree with them, you are part of the enemy camp. They only want to hear "racism is bad." Any addition of a "but", is taboo. Because you will be the bad guy. This is also a bad way to fight racism. It does not help to make yourself 'exclusive' to a side. It's about listening to others. Sharing ideas, problem solving. Acknowledge multiple possibilities. Open for suggestions. Not to stand your ground, while looking at just one direction.
To get to my final point. In order to fight racism, you need to start from the ground up. You start raising awareness of behaviour in general. Personal abuse, stereotyping, assumptions, generalizing, bodyshaming, etc. The list is long. If racism is the thornbush, it starts with the roots and branches. Raise awareness for that. It's a base for the following improvements.
We don't need exclusivity. We need to understand that every person, no matter what color, deserves a fair treatment. That after every PC monitor, there is a living being with emotions.
This path takes a long time. But realise, racism exists as long as we can remember. We can't expect to deal with it in a few weeks, or months. It can take years, possible generations to overcome this problem. But if we can't manage the simple task of being friendly to eachother, racism will always be a too big of a hurdle to overcome, to some of us. We can drastically lower the numbers that way, and we won't rub peoples hair the wrong way, creating more division than ever.
A good start will be, that we are open to the unknown. That we accept looking at things, and not immediatly shut down. That we invite more people to our lives and not just stick around with the 'known' people around you. You can't judge what you don't know. We should hang out with eachother more. It would be easier to become more friendlier to eachother. We should complain less, or shield ourselves from complaints from others. Companies should enforce moderation more and more. And in longer term, if this all goes succesfull, it will be a lot easier to minimalise racism so it isn't the worlds biggest social problem.
Will racism ever be totally gone? No. We NEED to accept that. There are always individuals, who don't have the right brain capacity to deal with it and we can't expect them to magically grow braincells. It's naive to go for that. However, we should strife that racism should affect peoples entire lives. For example, that everyone haves the same chances during a job interview. That we all have the same chances to apply to college / universities. That we don't have to question ourselves everyday if we are allowed to say something, because... And as a BIG bonus, we can all generally have better lives, again no matter what color. Because how nice is it, that when we battle racism, we also battle toxic behaviour? So that kid, who weighs a little bit more in school, isn't bullied his whole life. Or the gay man, doesn't get beat up just because he is gay? Or the woman who gets belittled by sexists? We should make this is a new norm. It would be as close as Utopia for everyone.
The war against racism, starts from the ground up. I have my hopes up. But realistically, do I witness this in my lifespan? I doubt it.