By Quibian Salazar-Moreno on Feb 4th 2008 5:39PM
Filed under: Casually Obsessed
For those unaware, Lewis Hamilton is a 23 year-old British Formula One racing driver out of England who currently races for the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Team.
Our good friend Delinda at Athlebrities.com hipped us to Hamilton last year, who is the first Black driver to compete in Formula One racing. He came in second at the 2007 Formula One Championship but in the last few years he has won the British Formula Renault, European Formula Three and GP2 championships.
Even though Hamilton is revered among racing fans, Spanish fans have beef with him. When he was in Barcelona, doing some test runs, fans came out in blackface and wigs and jeered and yelled racial remarks at Hamilton as he walked from his team's garage and motorhome at the Circuit de Catalunya race track.
"The truth is that I feel somewhat sad, I am in love with this country, and especially the city of Barcelona and this circuit, which is one of my three favorites," Hamilton told sportlifepress.com. "The people in have always been very warm with me, and even though I imagined what might happen it has not been pleasant. But maybe these types of things make you learn to appreciate more the warmth of the public, who although you always try to be there for them, you never know how important they are to you until these types of things happen."
What's the beef you ask? Well, Hamilton's former team mate, Fernando Alonso, who is Spanish, left the McLaren Mercedes team and joined the Renault Racing team. Spanish fans are blaming Hamilton for Alonso's departure since the two had a falling out, apparently because Hamilton continually gets all the attention and the ladies too. Last year he was linked to Pussycat Dolls singer, Nicole Scherzinger.
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By: Phyllis on 2/11/2008 1:13PM
It is so sad that racism will NEVER EVER go away. The ONLY areas where it does not exist are heaven and hell. I am a women who is multi-racial and I hate it that while living in the South, I am constantly facing this issue. I hold 2 degrees; have a very high IQ and yet, every single day of my life, I have to qualify who I am to the "Good Ole' Boy Network". IT is really sad. It doesn't help that I am in an interracial marriage and he doesn't quite get the difference between racism and prejudice. While both are ugly...they are vastly different. I've told him countless times...I cannot go into the shower and press a button and come out white...HE is white and while he may face prejudice because of mistakes made in his past...he can lie about them. I CANNOT nor would I wish to change the color of my skin!
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By: Edward on 2/12/2008 11:08AM
This is a joke, right?
Spain and Italy are two of the most mixed countries in the world, but yet they're between the most racist.
Don't they know what's in their blood? AT LEAST 1% of spanish genes is non-white! I'm not saying that is a problem, but 3/4 of the spanniards look just alike most pakistanians - and they claim to be "pure"!
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By: carl prather on 2/12/2008 6:42PM
Racism is not unique to any country in this world. The problem is no government is willing to tackle the problem for fear of alienating a certain segment of it's society. If any country wanted to put a complete halt to racism, all it has to do is 'say it and mean it'. What would happen if all of the major employers told it's employees 'no more racism' or 'we will fire anyone found guilty of racism, or 'racism is banned just like smoking' or 'anyone found to be racist will be fired and prosecuted'. Who has the guts to do this? No one because racism is used by these same employers to keep their employees fighting against one another in order to keep their minds off the money being made but not being shared. Without racism or sexism, the suckers will wake up and realized their being suckered by the rich and super rich. Racism and sexism is the buffer the rich and super rich use to keep the poor even poorer. This situation is no exception. If the powers-that-be wanted to put a stop to this, they could do it in a heart beat. And everybody knows it.
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