Lewis Hamilton won many plaudits and respect for joining the chorus of anger over the killing of unarmed African Americans perpetrated by what is a brutal police state. Hamilton has shone a light on the Black Lives Matter movement, giving it a voice and spotlight in the world of Formula One that is as about as diverse as a colony of Macaques. He even defied Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, after wearing a protest T-Shirt, which is against a yet to be discovered code of conduct. This defiance has led the FIA to launch an investigation into Hamilton’s breaching of the rules.
The FIA may be referring to an age-old code of sporting conduct that forbids the mixing of sports and politics. If ever there was a sport that blurred the line between sporting conduct and politics then Formula One is guilty from it’s very inception to now. Formula One is politics, from within. And the sport relies on politicians from the outside to green-light new venues and stadiums. So going after Lewis Hamilton for wearing a protest T-shirt for breaking a rule that is more verbal than written is mind-numbing.
But we digress. The real issue here is Lewis Hamilton and his friendship with a British billionaire retail mogul, Phillip Green. Green himself has been accused of racism among other dreadful personality traits. And for Lewis Hamilton to holiday with a known racist whilst at the same time lending his voice to the Black Lives Matter movement must be deeply gut-wrenching for those who supported such a high profile sportsman with a global reach. And it must be somewhat confusing.
And it’s also a mockery of the very movement that Hamilton has given his heart and soul too. Holidaying with a racist while saying, Black Lives Matter and taking the knee… it was all for nothing. Or worse… it was all just for publicity. Not that Hamilton is short or shy on publicity. It is not for us to say who Hamilton should holiday with or whom he should befriend. It is not for us to be judgemental. We did not want to write this article. But as the old saying goes. Live for something, or die for nothing.
