Racist fans of F1 (and most other sports)

[checkered]

It is time this thread being closed.

I can sympathise

with your emotion, but feel that closing the thread would amount to giving up hope on something that won't go away just by wishing alone. The conversation has gone "all over the place", aptly describing just how challenging and emotional an issue this is - even if its relevance is defined by some pretty peripheral extensions of how each of us experiences his/her own person. We're afraid of our own prejudices, and prejudice directed towards us - a "catch-22". It's part of the human experience to be suspicious of the unknown, especially in "other" people, but we're also sympathetic enough to realise that each of us feels the same. It's what you do with those emotions and that knowledge that matters.

In this sense I'm not afraid to admit that fighting the "racism within" is an ongoing personal process for me and I expect it'll always be so. I don't mind seeing that in other people either, as long as they also show a willingness and an ability to work through their misgivings about others. What set the Barcelona events apart was a highly cynical employment of these human qualities as a means to an end. That is another kind of racism altogether, something that no-one has an obligation to entertain and actually an obligation to confront constructively whenever possible. It stems from a darker, hopeless place where the lowest common denominators apply and personal advantage is sought despite any human cost imaginable. A conscious decision to act destructively, even by a small group of people, can and will lead to losses and tragedies. There are many examples to choose from.

I believe that a F1 rivalry developing to this unfortunate stage can be turned into a positive as well. The timing (and the publicity), as it is, can be viewed as inopportune and very risky: F1 is actively seeking to grow in places like Malaysia, Bahrain, Turkey, Singapore and China. India, Russia, South Korea and even South Africa are in the horizon. Do you think an open display of arrogance and racism will win F1 any friends in these societies? It will only serve to remind people of colonialism and make them suspect that they will be mere cash cows and be assigned a vassal status in the ranks of the F1 "empire". Now, the FIA and the commercial entities within the sport have an incentive to "go the extra mile" to show that any newcomers will be treated as equals, with all the opportunities to participate and benefit as they see fit.

How does this reflect on how I see Spain? While I'm disappointed at some level, I have enormous faith in the diversity, capabilities, innovativeness and imagination that can be found there. I have immensely enjoyed the Roman, Moorish and contemporary architecture to be found on the peninsula, revelled in the culinary delights of traditions that span millennia, had the rhythms run down my spine and cajole the fibres in my muscles to resonate; I've shed secret tears and rejoiced to the silver screen creations of Almódovar, Aménabar and Saura. It's a country where the lights and the shades can contrast sharply on the landscape. But I have nothing but faith in the absolute majority of the people having enough life, love and art in their hearts to realise we need both to truly see anything at all.

[Spencifer_Murphy]

I agree with nae. Principessa, it is very clear to me that they (not the spannish - but the aurthorities) are decades behind the english - we had to stamp out such behavior because we were banned from european football competitions due to the violent english fans.

2 years ago the english played the spanish in an international match at the Real Madrid Statium. Everytime a black english footballer got the ball, what seemed like half then entire stadium started chanting noises which mimicked the noise of a gorilla.

I'm sorry but regardless of any racism dished out by some english fans, while I accept it IS a minority of spanish fans that do these things it is FAR too widespread in spain.

As far as the Sun comment goes, the Sun isn't exactly a reliable sourse of information, I tend to ignore everything it says tbh. But the independant & the telegraph I have to agree with (except the statement where they suggest the aurthorities don't see it as a problem) I think its better put as, they don't see it as AS LARGE a problem as it really is.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the english fans are angels. They are by no means at all! BUT - we have been as bad, punished by our own and international aurthorities, learnt from our errors and improved. (Most os us anyway) If you go to a football match you may hear one or two people out of the 50,000 spectators make a racist remark - but not over 20,000 of them! It's disgusting, and that sort of behaviour has NOT been seen in the UK for nearly 20years. As such I see the independant & the telegraph as just, biasad and almost totally correct on the issue.

I don't mean to make out the English are role models, we arn't. I'm simply pointing out that we've improved - its not good enough yet tbh - but its a damn sight better than what happens in Spain. And I'm not saying that "The Spanish are racists" far from it in fact - a have a large group of Spanish friends both in mainland spain, and the Canary Islands. I'm simply saying that, while it is a MINORITY in spain, this minority is far too large a percentage of people, and the problem is not being dealt with properly.

[Tom]

The British press really are the scum of our country, along with the football hooligans and that 'comedian' who think repeating 'Garlic Bread' is good humour. I'm only glad that everyone on this forum is smart enough to realise that they in no way represent Britain as a whole.

Regarding the Spanish fans, sometimes I think we need to stop and remind ourselves that this is just a big game. Yes its a multi-million dollar game, its dangerous and its life for alot of people but it is just a sport and at the end of the season whoever wins makes little difference to the world as a whole.

[rjsa]

There is a way to look at FIA's attitude in a positive manner: If they act really hard the first time it happens, odds are it won't happen again. No matter who is acting bad, the good example would stick. The opposite of what FIFA did, being way too soft for way to long. Now they will have to fix it country by country.

[Spencifer_Murphy]

The British press really are the scum of our country...

Oh how right you are Tom! The british press do nothing but either complain about the country or complain about they way others are treating it...which 1's it gonna be guys, are you gonna side with or against the country? Oh I forgot morals have nothing to do with selling stories and making money.

Yet another reason why articles written by tabloids such as "The Sun" should all just be renamed "Bulls**t".

[P_O_L]

I agree with nae. Principessa, it is very clear to me that they (not the spannish - but the aurthorities) are decades behind the english - we had to stamp out such behavior because we were banned from european football competitions due to the violent english fans.

2 years ago the english played the spanish in an international match at the Real Madrid Statium. Everytime a black english footballer got the ball, what seemed .

No, the British authorities are really something. They dragged half of europe into an Iraq invasion costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, not the Spanish authorities. It was blair who warned Saddam would strike England within 20 minutes with nukes while the Spanish laid back and laughed. The number of teen pregnancies in the Uk is the highest in entire of Europe. Kids are forced to wear costumes to schools. You will not be admitted to universities like Cambridge or Oxford unless youve been through an expensive private school. None of that exist in Spain.

The xenophobic nature against the Germans and the French is nearing record heights and now theres the Spanish to curse about as well. Do the Brits actually have any friends left in the world? A survey showed not long ago the average Brit is the least wanted tourist from a list of 30. Here in Amsterdam hotels have taken measures against British tourists and refuse to take on any group bigger than 4. Taxis dont want British in their car.

And while the British press howl that the Spanish GP is under threat, it is actually their own Silverstone GP who has been the target of Ecclestone and various threats to be taken off the calendar. I remember F1 journos like Roebuck comparing Schumacher to a NAzi wartime officer in his column. Praising mclaren for their no race collusion tactics melbourne 98 while flaming Ferrari when they did the same in 2002. Pathetic.

In the meantime the Barcelona chief confirmed my idea that it was just a handfull of idiots with racist remarks where the other 54955 thousand behaved normally. Condem that nation at your peril.

[manchild]

I remember F1 journos like Roebuck comparing Schumacher to a NAzi wartime officer in his column. Praising mclaren for their no race collusion tactics melbourne 98 while flaming Ferrari when they did the same in 2002.

During one FIA gala (can't remember the exact year) Schuey was "joking" imitating some salutation or something belonging to Nazi officer. Even if he didn't do that his hypocrite ubermensch behavior certainly inspired people to think that if he was born in 1910 he'd be a role model for Nazi officer - arrogant, inhumane and immoral.

Mclaren's drivers made an agreement before the season started and no one from Mclaren team used team orders unlike Ferrari in whole Schumacher era including 2002 when Barichello raced Schumacher till the last lap when they ordered him to let Schuey pass him. Rubens confirmed that later in one TV show, you can find it on youtube. Australian GP is still very alive while Austrian GP organizers bankrupted thanks to shameless fixing of race outcome which lead to low sales of tickets and low interest of advertisers in following year.

Rest of your post about British people sounds as if your username was P_O_L P_O_T. (Nothing personal, just an observation). You mentioned Blair and UK government in a line or two and than poured a pile of xenophobic bullshit generalizing all citizens of UK trough hear-say stereotypes.

"Kids are forced to wear costumes to schools." Yes, and that is a tradition maintained not to make them feel like soldiers but to prevent exposure of social differences between rich and poor kids which has bad influence on personal development of poor kids, learning process and order of whole school. In fact, that is a measure some other countries are recently adopting and considering in order to decrease problems which arise when schools are attended by kids from various social levels.

I'm not going to condemn whole Spain based on certain amount of Spanish racists but I'm also not going to be silent on xenophobic crap about whole UK based on certain amount of shamefully groups and individuals from UK. (I'm not from UK, I'm not from Spain).

There is no place for racism in any sport, there is no excuse for racism globaly, there's no point to discuss about whole societies since that is off topic. The topic is Racist fans of F1 (and most other sports), not citizens of Spain, not Spain, not citizens of UK, UK or any other country.

If there was ever a thread threatening to divide people in this forum based on their citizenship than this is the one and it really should be closed.

[Ray]

I don't know. The Saddam dead thread started a pretty big fight.

[West]

Never heard of any of this kind of tripe during the Super Bowl, when the evil empire crumbled in about 2.5 minutes.

A recent UFC fight: Anderson Silva vs. Rich Franklin at the latter's hometown, and the former being a Brazilian. They kept calling him the n-word too. Classless.

Japanese MMA fights: they love beating the hell out of Koreans.

Racist fans hide behind fences and officers of the law because they would never say that kind of sh*t in people's faces. I knew one guy at our school, when he was part of the school's "Asian gang" calling a black guy the n-word in his face. The black guy socked him in the temple and put the guy into convulsions. He was later asked if he was scared of the Asian guy and he said "no"

[Spencifer_Murphy]

No, the British authorities are really something. They dragged half of europe into an Iraq invasion costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, not the Spanish authorities. It was blair who warned Saddam would strike England within 20 minutes with nukes while the Spanish laid back and laughed. The number of teen pregnancies in the Uk is the highest in entire of Europe. Kids are forced to wear costumes to schools. You will not be admitted to universities like Cambridge or Oxford unless youve been through an expensive private school. None of that exist in Spain.

The xenophobic nature against the Germans and the French is nearing record heights and now theres the Spanish to curse about as well. Do the Brits actually have any friends left in the world? A survey showed not long ago the average Brit is the least wanted tourist from a list of 30. Here in Amsterdam hotels have taken measures against British tourists and refuse to take on any group bigger than 4. Taxis dont want British in their car.

And while the British press howl that the Spanish GP is under threat, it is actually their own Silverstone GP who has been the target of Ecclestone and various threats to be taken off the calendar. I remember F1 journos like Roebuck comparing Schumacher to a NAzi wartime officer in his column. Praising mclaren for their no race collusion tactics melbourne 98 while flaming Ferrari when they did the same in 2002. Pathetic.

In the meantime the Barcelona chief confirmed my idea that it was just a handfull of idiots with racist remarks where the other 54955 thousand behaved normally. Condem that nation at your peril.

I agree with a lot of what you say in as much as they may be factual, but I fail to see any relevance to most of it. We are talking about racism at sporting events here - a POLICE authority. The police did not drag people into an unjust war in iraq - which frankly the VAST majority of brits actuially didn't want to get involved with.

Also about this:

The number of teen pregnancies in the Uk is the highest in entire of Europe. Kids are forced to wear costumes to schools. You will not be admitted to universities like Cambridge or Oxford unless youve been through an expensive private school.

What does teen pregnancy have to do with racsim? I agree its at a high level and it should be stopped, but what's it got to do with rascim. Those costumes are uniforms, and the whole point in them is to instil a sence of discipline, which surely based apon your post is something we need as the british are lacking in that respect. And you can quite easily get into oxford or cambridge without going to an expensive private school. I went to a state school and no less than 6 of my peers gained entry to the oxbrige universities. Once again though I see not link to racsim in sport with any of those points.

The xenophobic nature against the Germans and the French is nearing record heights and now theres the Spanish to curse about as well. Do the Brits actually have any friends left in the world? A survey showed not long ago the average Brit is the least wanted tourist from a list of 30. Here in Amsterdam hotels have taken measures against British tourists and refuse to take on any group bigger than 4. Taxis dont want British in their car.

Any figure to back up the xenophobia? Because there's a large group of french people at my university who feel quite comfortable here and lest we forget the UK is the most racially diverse place on earth! You're right we probably don't have many friends left as a nation, partly because we joined the EU and thus destroyed all trade with countries like south africa. But that's the governments fault - not the populations. Surely not allowing brits in cabs or hotels is, in itself a form of racial prejudice, based upon a stereotype? Because once again, I know a large number of brits who don't just binge drink - it's a problem, but not all of us are yobs. If I was you can bet my post wouldn't be so long, and would probably be littered with swear words lol.

And while the British press howl that the Spanish GP is under threat, it is actually their own Silverstone GP who has been the target of Ecclestone and various threats to be taken off the calendar.

What relevance does that have to anything, nobody here has said our GP is NOT under threat - it has been for years and we all want the government to support it so we don't loose it. And the british press aren't howling the Spanish GP, the FIA themselves have warned that the Spanish GP could be axed!

Most of your post has been nothing more than a rant about the problems in the UK. Almost none of which is about racsim in sport, and most of which is based upon racial prejudice and/or stereotypes, which is the anti-thesis of this thread. Based upon you're post I can only assume that you mean there are problems in the UK and the government is at fault.

Well guess what? Most people in the UK agree with you on that one, and cannot wait for the next election, so we can once again elect another sub-standard leader to further drive our country into the ground.

And I'm a partiot! lol

[waynes]

And I'm a partiot! lol

is that anything like a Patriot?

[Tom]

This thread is getting out of hand, yet again as a forum we all agree on the same point (racism=bad, should not be tolerated) and yet we bicker amongst ourselves about finer details when we all know full well that Spain as a country is really just the same as Britain, yes its geography is different but the people are the same, you get great people there, funny witty people who'd invite you into their home for a cup of Tea or a glass of Sangria in both countries. However Newton's law dictates that you must also get childish simple people that would start a fight if you look at the the wrong way, whats more Sod's law ensures that the latter generally have positions of authority in this world, probably because they're the only ones who would bully and antagonise or asskiss enough to get there!

And a quick point regarding teen pregnancies, those statistics could be interprited to suggest that Brits are just hornier than other nations, surely an enviable quality

[Rob W]

The xenophobic nature against the Germans and the French is nearing record heights and now theres the Spanish to curse about as well. Do the Brits actually have any friends left in the world? A survey showed not long ago the average Brit is the least wanted tourist from a list of 30.

That survey must have been done only by European nations because I can say without doubt that the most annoying tourists I've encountered are Germans. I've been to over a dozen countries on holiday (none in Europe to be fair - but almost everywhere else) and almost every single time I've been in a really annoying, disruptive, anti-social and downright rude situation at a hotel, beach, shopping etc - it is invariably a German.

But - and more related to this thread - maybe it's the sport fans alone that have given the British a bad rap or the cheapness of the flights from UK to some parts of Europe, because the British people I've met are usually pretty cool.

Blanketing sporting racism on a whole country? Don't think so? The UK had serious problems for year and they largely prevented the worst activities by being brutally strict about the rules. Spain, if they're as bad as Max is saying, will need to follow suit.

Personally I think Max is being a bit of a PR head-line grabber. He's got a little stack of stories which are side-issues to the sport which he drags out whenever things are quiet on his news-making. Next week he'll say the Australian GP is on notice for veto-ing the idea of running night races.

R

[Spencifer_Murphy]

LOL I am really a patriotic kinda guy waynes. But that's why I put the smiley at the end of the post - lots of what I said wasn't patriotic.

Truth me told, I love being a Londoner, I love my country and I love having our own currency, and a queen, and all these crazy landmarks - it gives us a real identity. I love where I live. As such I believe I'm fairly patriotic.

BUT, patriotic or not, I'm not blind enough to believe that everything is all rosey in the garden od eden.

Binge drinking is a massive problem, a problem not see in most places to this scale, we have a poor quality of life compared to countries like Spain or Italy, where they seem to be able to balance work and play much better than us. They also have a better diet and a lower rate of obeisity. The motorist is also far too heavily taxed (you watch, if Ken is re-elected, here in London the LEZ will incude cars - not just commercial vehicles! - Its another tax to add to his C-Charge) Petrol costs too much, in fact everything costs too much, all of the taxes the motorist pays obviously doesn't go on the roads because they're craop when compared to those in France, Germany, Sapin or Italy to name but a few. We also have a cronic inability to organise road works.

In Germany a company has to apply for a permit to dig up the road, and if they run late they get fined - Here people can come and dig up the road as and when they please - as long as somebody else isn't there first - which is unlikely lol!

So yeh we have our problems, but most of them are down to poor government decisions. There are problems with living here - just like there are problems with living in every place in the world. But compared to places like Zimbabwae where a dictator does as he pleases we're in pretty good shape.

Despite our problems, I love England. *cue "Rule Britania" lol.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not a skinhead, I holiday in mainland Spain and the Canary Islands frequently, and often find myself wanting to rip up my return ticket - I love it there so much! hehe.

@ Tom I totally agree with you. I myself tend to think I can be outspoken, and as such always find myself explaining things I've said so as not to give people the wrong impression. Like just now I said I love England, but somehow felt the need to also explain I love it where I holiday also. I hate racsim that much.

In fact, I'm half indian, and at school was at one point subjected to racial abuse - despite the fact you wouldn't think I was in any way foreign to look at me. That soon stopped after the intervention of my right fist. But it left a lasting impression.

My participation in this thread has been do agree that racism is wrong - not to say who's the best or worst at coping with it. I simply look at the most recent (in spain) and the closest (in the UK) and form my opinions based on that. I still think that the Spanish aurthorities are lacking on this matter - but I'm not saying that the UK are the best - there are some disgusting people here who I'm ashamed to say I live within 2000miles of.

At the end of the day this forum is a perfect example of how good some people are. Look at everyone here, we're from all over the world and nobody is being disrespectful to one another - we simply debate. Without debate life would be boring wouldn't it. Imagine if we all suppoorted the same drivers!

In fact only once in the 4years that I've been a memeber of this site have I seen one racist comment. (Something about Bernard being french and as such we shuddnt trust him - what a lot of cobblers) and even that (i think) was posted by a cowardly guest.

In short this forum is the perfect example that while racsim is wrong, and a problem, it is only a minority who participate in such disgusting acts.

[waynes]

LOL I am really a patriotic kinda guy waynes. But that's why I put the smiley at the end of the post - lots of what I said wasn't patriotic.

i was mocking the spelling sir

and this thread is amusing

racism = bad and rightly so

nothing else should come into it