You must start at the top. People choose in every election (BLM.)
Norris, like him!
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You must start at the top. People choose in every election (BLM.)
Norris, like him!
Don't you see how the two statements contradict each other?
One of the reasons why there are so few black people in motorsports (as Asian, as African) is that black parents typically don't have the necessary income to support a career in motorsports. For a very fast kid to get a sponsor who'd pay for their career, the parents would have needed to spend at least several thousand bucks, possibly tens of thousands. Surely you can see how that's a very tough ask on people who typically have a notably lower socioeconomic level than whites.
There is a fascinating documentary on Willie T. Ribbs on Netflix and all that he had to go through.
It is an excellent insight as to how the sport was (and still is) to drivers of color and all they had to overcome just to get an honest opportunity.
His first indycar engineer literally tried to kill him with sabotaged equipment.
His first nascar engineer and pit crew were open racists and ruined his races
so many other incidents etc. from a racer who was arguably one of the fastest and skilled driver of his generation, having to watch guys he beat easily get bigger and better opportunities.
death threats, on track stuff, all of it. smh
As far as drivers, that's a valid point. But my post to Zico was about team members and engineers, not so much drivers. I just watched FP1 on my DVR. I happened to take notice of the females (all White) who are in PR roles in the various teams. It just seems odd to me that S&P 500 companies recruit and hire MUCH more diverse workforces than F1. F1's major diversity push seems to be along the lines of gender. Females are being encouraged, sought out and supported. But those females tend to be Caucasians. As I mentioned in that previous post, even NASCAR (which has a pretty dodgy reputation when it comes to racism in its past, as in refusing to recognize or accept a race win by a Black driver and another incident when a mob threatened to lynch him at a race: Wendell Scott) is doing a better job in this area than F1.
IMO, a team painting its cars black, and all the cars sporting rainbow decals and superficial slogans is pretty meaningless.
they don't contradict at all.
every time i go amateur karting, i see almost only white males. from time to time you see a women, but ususally they are their with their boyfriend.
colored people are even more rare, the few times they show up, its usually a group that has no idea what to do except crash into each other.
yet karting is available for everyone. it will cost you about 15 euro for a 15 minutes drive. it's not about daddy's money, it's only about being interested in it.
I don't get your point. He did the fist salute and you say that is racism? Hamilton does the fist, Vettel does the finger. Don't be intimidated by that.
I graduated in a Masters degree class with six black students out of twenty. So your comment is the type of racism BLM is trying to stamp out. The idea that black people can only do sport.
I see your point, but it is unfortunately very ignorant.
Not about daddy's money? It most certainly is about somebody having money (or connections). Unless it's to get a 5 year old interested in the fundamentals of karting and racing (and there's nothing wrong with that), what does the cost of an afternoon at KiddyLand on a putt-putt kart have to do with working your way into professional motorsports?
A friend of mine looked at a used shifter kart for his son several years ago. For a good 10 year old kart, complete with spares, it was $5500. Now, let's assume the kid could show his stuff in that and could progress to junior formula cars. I don't know anything about the situation in Europe (which is where a serious F1 prospect would need to be at some point), but when my buddy and I looked at costs here in the U.S., one season of F4 was just shy of $200K. That's cost prohibitive to most people... Black, White, Brown or whatever. Only a person with money, or connections to money, is able to provide their kid with that.
Does any career that's motorsports related start with having an interest in cars and/or racing? Sure, it does. That's where it starts for everybody. But letting kids from non-typical demographic groups (whether it be race, gender or whatever) know what's available is also going to be part of growing a more diverse pool of engineers, team members, as well as drivers.
In case you'd like some figures on income by ethnicity, this is from the UK government website.
https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures....-income/latest