Comments on: Media hypocrisy is making the F1 racism issue worse

By: Racing For Ethics • La Canta Magnifico Blog

Racing For Ethics • La Canta Magnifico Blog — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:39:48 +0000

[...] by the end pit, or the realisation that the Brand Centre could do with somewhere to park… The press from the UK and Spain accused each other for fuelling the fire, giving further cause for concern for those who believed the standard of F1 journalism was [...]

By: doctorvee

doctorvee — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:34:51 +0000

Thanks Ponzonha, an interesting comment as usual.

By: Ponzonha

Ponzonha — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:00:40 +0000

And here we have another example of stereotypes and media trying to sell their own story.
As a Spanish F1 fan, I am well aware of my compatriots’ behaviour on Montmeló, and as a football fan, I have seen almost everything in a sports event.
First and foremost, F1 has taken a tremendous boost since the appearance of Alonso, and has attracted a lot of people more interested in defending “our Paladin” against everyone and everything than enjoying a sports competition. Needless to say, old fans like me, really appreciate Hamilton’s driving. However, I have to say that Hamiltons (both) behaviour last season is hard to forgive, and they will never be well regarded here. This does not justify racist insults.
Yes, there were racist insults in Montmeló, and I regret that. Just think that is the easy way of insulting another man, referring to its origins, race or religion. Sad, but true. However, I doubt that they were more than a hundred of retarded there. Did something strange happen in Jerez? No. Was Hamilton there? Yes. How many people watched the tests? About 20000 each day. Were racist insults reported? No. Is Jerez in Spain? Yes.
What I do not tolerate is being put by some british press in the same bucket as those morons. Spain as a whole is not a racist country. I know that some stupid people can make monkey sounds when they see a black player, I remember a match agaisnt England in the Bernabeú. But, do you really think that was the whole stadium? No, it is impossible that 100000 people would do that. We are a country who adored Romario, Ronaldo, Mazinho, Magic Johnson, Jordan… Guess what? They are black.
The problem here is more about sport newspapers looking for great stories to tell about how mean is Hamilton and how pure and brave is Alonso. Those stories easily catch the poor of mind eager to find someone to project his rage on. Those newspapers are Marca and As. As an example of their manners, the day before the match against France in the World Cup, a huge photo of Zidane (the Great, a Real Madrid player) and a sentence: “We are going to give your retirement”.
Another thing that annoys me is receive lessons from Britain about racism and behaviour in a pitch. If you know that Hooliganism is a part and not the whole. Don’t you think we deserve the same treatment?.
I really appreciate your post Doc, I felt really ashamed when I saw the harassment on McLaren. I think you analysed the situation perfectly and with your unbiased point of view, as usual.
Greetings.

By: Jose

Jose — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:42:17 +0000

Surprisingly enough, The Times posted an article by a british journalist living in Barcelona criticizing (spelling?) the treatment that british press had given to the nonetheless shameful events in Montmeló.

On my behalf i can only say that though disgusting and in bad taste, the photo of the fans with blackened faces had nothing to do with the actual harassment, insults (racists and other) and projectile launchment towards McLaren and Hamilton in particular. I mean, i don’t have any proof of that, but as a spanish fellow myself, i can so clearly see those people were just dressed up for carnival and wanting to scornfully impersonate Hamilton’s entourage. These are not the type of raving racist people that do the real harm. Yet they used the picture as if those people had been the ones at the very front of the mindless fanatists. To my mind comes the image of the oil-covered bird and the Exxon-Valdez…

By: F1 blogs review - Racism and more — F1 blog from F1Fanatic

F1 blogs review - Racism and more — F1 blog from F1Fanatic — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 07:05:29 +0000

[...] Media hypocrisy is making the F1 racism issue worse – Doctorvee. [...]

By: IDR

IDR — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:49:15 +0000

I’m still astonished after reading the lasts articles published at The Times.

It’s really incredible to see that kind of manoeuvres to mobilize the reader’s opinion, and they succeeded by far!!!!

There are much more xenophobic, racist and nationalist abuses in the reader’s comments, than in the facts occurred at Montmeló last weekend.

With this policy (and lies), The Times is creating xenophobic feelings to their readers.

I thought that The Times was a serious newspaper, but lately, I cannot distinguish between them and the typical tabloid of any nationality.

By: Pink Peril

Pink Peril — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:42:43 +0000

Unfortunately newspapers like The Sun (and I use the term newspaper in its loosest possible sense) sell papers by pandering to the lowest common denominator.

By: Santiago

Santiago — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:50:59 +0000

I think this has gone too far. Also politicians are now involved, trying to make a diplomatic issue between countries from it. It´s not amuzing?

There is a lot of biass above this matter. The famous picture shown in the newspapers is just rubbish. It was a major day during the Barna Carnival and also those people were interviewed on TV, the were wearing a fancy dresses (quite poor have to say under my point of view) trying to be LH´s family saying we are sorry Lewis, we love you but… (on the back of the T-shirts there was a legend) FA Nº1. I particularly did not find it funny, but neither insulting in that context. What it was bad was the insults to hamilton and McLaren by other not easy to identify people in front of the box, that obliged the authorities to withdraw them from there.

What I find hard is that the British press taking the tolerance´s flag (?) has made with the issue, putting the entire Spanish Society as racists saying like The Times, The Sun…. that Spanish people used to “enjoy” emigration to Southamerica up to 30 years ago and now find difficult to welcome latinos from Southamerica. Also fights between latin-bands against spanish-bands, not counting and isolated incident provoqued by a drunk-troublemaker in an underground wagon who had plenty of publicity on TV, and so on.

As I said. This has gone too far, and is giving ammunition to those stupid racists for going on, they now will be on the screen all over the world and that is important for those brainless.

By: Ollie

Ollie — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:49:03 +0000

Just before I arrived here I noticed a Sun AdSense ad on another site and immediately loaded my site and have started a quick auto-refresh test to see if it’s appearing on my site. If it is I’ll be adding the Sun’s URL to my list of unwanted sites in the competitive ad filter. The language and mentality of the advert only invites racism and it is things like this that make me sorry to be British; our media can’t even report properly. It really is quite shameful.

Yep. Added thesun.co.uk to my AdSense unwanted list.