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Last week, Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton unloaded at a few people involved in Formula 1 for not providing sufficient support for his stand on Black Lives Matter. Funny thing for me is that his skin colour was never an issue. Not for me, not for his teams, not for his competitors. Most people neither noticed nor cared, except the media which kept mentioning that he is the first black Formula 1 world champion. Okay, so what?
I’m pleased Lewis has taken on an interest other than driving race cars, but I’d appreciate it if he’d not lecture me or anybody else about what we should or shouldn’t believe. If I go to a car race (or any other sporting event), I go to watch the sport, not to be lectured or made to feel bad about BLM or anything else.
Taking the knee during the national anthem of a European country that you are a welcomed guest in is disrespectful, and urging others to join you is manipulative. So grow up, rich kid, and just do your job which you do happen to be very good at. Save your preaching for somewhere else and leave the other drivers and teams and fans out of your personal machinations.
With Mercedes painting their cars black in support and announcing they would work at becoming more diverse and inclusive, I shake my head in despair.
We really need to get a grip, be honest about this stuff and call it out for the virtue signalling that it is: politically correct, unnecessary, judgmental and, of course, highly selective.
The self proclaimed virtue signalling wankers who are activists for diversity and inclusion are so full of their own sanctimonious opinions that the irony of their position doesn’t even seem to occur to them. They stand strongly for diversity and inclusion provided that the diversity doesn’t stretch to opinions that might be diverse from theirs.
Remember diversity and inclusion, the buzzwords of the 2020s, are nothing more than words which in this context become largely meaningless, other than to batter people with or to create conflict.
We need to grow up, face facts and stop trying to neutralise the very thing that makes humanity what it is. Diversity is very real and is as much a part of us as eating and breathing. It makes us all different. How hard is it to grasp that and what’s wrong with wanting to be different?
Most of us don’t want to be like everybody else. Most of us are social animals. We like to live around family and friends with whom we feel comfortable but, for as long as we’ve graced this planet with our presence, we humans have had strong similarities and many equally strong differences. We congregate in tribes of similar thinking individuals for a reason and that’s how nature is.
Throughout history, conflicts and negotiations for various reasons have brought tribes together. In some cases with great success; in others, not so much. We have family members we like and some we don’t like. We sometimes get into relationships and friendships that we thought were okay and then they turn out not to be. So what? That’s how life is.
You don’t hear anybody suggesting that you have to remain friends with your ex-girlfriend, ex-husband, ex-wife or ex-anything. Why therefore is there this strong world wide campaign that wants to drag people kicking and screaming into company they don’t particularly want to keep?
I don’t care what skin colour, race or gender the pilot of the aircraft or the surgeon operating on me is. I do care that they are qualified and are the best person for the job.
The criteria should never be race or gender. Diversity and inclusion, as they are being pushed, are a recipe for disaster.
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