Lewis Hamilton and the Humanity of Black Athletes

As a Black Woman, I never saw myself in racing culture, but as a teenager I liked to drive fast. My first car was a 1994 Suburu Impreza and it wasn’t much to look at, but I decorated it with blue flame seat covers all the same. On a few occasions, I raced my little Subaru through the backstreets of my very suburban town for nothing more than bragging rights. When other people were’t around, I raced the clock and my curfew home. It was goofy, and childish, and dangerous — but, at the time, it was fun.

Last year, I joined my husband in watching Netflix’s “Drive to Survive” series on Formula 1 Racing. I still didn’t see myself in racing culture, but at least now I saw humans that I could relate to. I saw people who were multi-faceted and funny, people who were deeply committed and thoughtful, people who were petty and struggling and resilient — and not only that; they liked to drive fast, too.

I teared up and cheered when Pierre Gasly won his first Grand Prix after being demoted, and underestimated, by Red Bull. I watched in shock as Romain Grosjean’s vehicle erupted into flames, and then in awe when he miraculously rose from those flames as the world watched on. I related to the vulnerability, and the uncertainty, expressed by Daniel Ricciardo as he changed teams in hopes of stepping closer to becoming world champion. And I’ve learned so much about internal stability from watching Lewis Hamilton; Formula 1’s first Black driver and a seven time world champion, demonstrate time and again that other people’s perceptions, do not need to determine your outcomes.

This is my first Formula 1 Season where I’m watching races, and following coverage, in real time. In some ways, it feels less intense than Netflix’s dramatizations but in other ways the intensity feels amplified. Outside of the politics and dialogue between teams — this is my first time watching tempers flare, cars collide, and the racism within the sport all erupt without the filter of a narrative. Not only that, but the context for these races is intense. We’re still living through a pandemic and a time of rising collective consciousness. Increasingly, it’s hard to ignore systemic racism when the systems that perpetuate it do so unabashedly and out loud.

On Sunday, the sport’s top two championship contenders Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton made contact on the first lap of The Silverstone Grand Prix in England. Max’s car spun out and flew into the wall, ending his race and sending him to the hospital to be checked out. Hamilton went on to overcome a penalty to win the race and celebrate in front of his hometown crowd.

This incident, the racism it provoked, and the rhetoric of Red Bull in particular demonstrate how more subtle perpetuations of racism take place.

I don’t believe that people are harmful for the sake of being harmful. I think that most of the vitriol we see is evidence of longstanding survival strategies that have been passed down across generations. Because we live in a culture of scarcity, and the perception that there isn’t enough for everyone; we’ve been conditioned to view our well being as in opposition to the well being of people who don’t look like us, or think like us, or worship like us, or love like us.

There’s a dehumanization inherent to this position. On the one hand, we must dehumanize ourselves; we must disconnect from our own humanity and our ability to empathize and love and relate. And on the other hand, we must dehumanize each other. If I don’t see other people as human, then it’s easier to see myself as separate from them and to not grant them the empathy and the consideration that I would hope to receive in their shoes.

Yesterday morning, Red Bull tweeted a statement condemning “racist abuse of any kind towards our team, our competitors, and our fans”. They acknowledged and condemned the abuse hurled towards Hamilton in the aftermath of yesterday’s race and demanded that “those responsible should be held accountable.”

And yet so much of racism itself is rooted in a fantasy of Black people that misperceives and dehumanizes us. This is a fantasy that Red Bull participated in fueling in the aftermath of Sunday’s collision.

In the racial imagination of white people; Black people are dangerous. Our existence is viewed as inherently threatening. It is this belief that causes a grown police officer to see a Black boy playing with a toy gun, and to reach for a real weapon. It’s the reason why Black people seeking out help, have the authorities called on them. It’s the reason why grieving protesters are consistently met with teargas.

In each case; the perception of who we are is inconsistent with the reality, and that perception is met with violence.

When we talk about unpacking unconscious bias; it’s not just about hiring practices and “diversity”, but about questioning how do I perceive this person when they are simply existing? How do I perceive this person when they make a mistake? What kind of intensity do I bring to this person when I feel unsafe, and is my own sense of safety rooted in reality or in a perception that I have inherited?

You have to remember that all of the racism and brutality that this world has ever witnessed was justified by perception. Our world is perpetually the outcome of the things we were told, that we believed, that we repeated.

Healing systemic oppression is not simply about memorizing facts and repeating slogans; it’s about questioning our perceptions as they arise. It’s about bringing consciousness to the things that we’ve been taught. Doing so is painful and uncomfortable and scary; because we don’t want to recognize our own worst impulses. We don’t want to be held accountable for what our Ancestors did. Even so, their beliefs created not only our bodies, but our world. If we aren’t accountable for them, then who is?

I find it helpful to separate my own sense of self-worth, from what I’ve been taught to believe. I’m not to blame for the world I inherited, none of us are; but if I choose to see it clearly, I can contribute to making it a world that reflects us more accurately. I can contribute to a world rooted in radical love.

A world in which we meet each other and continuously ask; do I truly see this person? Or do I simply see a fantasy of who they are?

Following Sunday’s collision the Principals of Team Red Bull went to the media and insisted that Lewis had done this on purpose implying that it was his fault that Max was in the hospital. They said it was a “desperate” move and “dirty driving” and advocated that he be suspended. They implied that Lewis had not only threatened Max’s championship aspirations, but he had intentionally threatened his life.

They said this despite the fact that these kinds of collisions are commonplace in the Sport. They said this despite acknowledging just a few weeks ago, after a similar collision had nearly taken place, that if Lewis had defended his position (as Max had done on Sunday) that he “would’ve ended up in the fence.”

I can appreciate the hurt and even the love that motivated their actions. Max Verstappen is loved by the people who surround him, and know him, and root for him and he flew into a wall made of tires at an impossibly high speed. It was terrifying to watch as a race fan, and I’d imagine it was unbearable to watch as a mentor or loved one. I can appreciate that they wanted to protect him and to punish the person that they believed had hurt him. I believe that those are very human impulses. It’s human to feel helpless and lash out.

All the same, their rhetoric was not only charged; it spoke directly to the people who were already inclined to direct racism towards Lewis by confirming their worst suspicions. They spoke into a void that is ancestral, and primal, and full of unhealed trauma and told it to fight back. They said yes; this Black man is dangerous. Yes, he wants to win at all costs even if it means resorting to violence. They said yes; he’s so callous as to celebrate while his rival was sent to the hospital on his account.

They said yes to the fantasy of not only Lewis Hamilton but of Black people at large.

This perpetuates a culture in which Black people, and in this case Black athletes; aren’t given the space to be fully human.

Lewis Hamilton was disparaged for effusively celebrating a win on his home track, in front of his hometown crowd, that gathered for the first time since a pandemic has taken over 100 thousand lives in the UK alone. Last week, British soccer players Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka were met with violent vitriol for missing their penalty shots.

There’s no winning with a culture that denies us the right to our own humanity.

Society paints us as inferior and impenetrable at the same time. All the while; who we really are is left to exist in the shadows. And when we emerge, we’re frequently punished for failing to live up to this convoluted, and contradictory, fantasy.

Sometimes that punishment looks like racist attacks. And other times it looks like the system mobilizing against us; Naomi Osaka getting fined (and threatened with suspension) for prioritizing her mental health, Colin Kaepernick getting ostracized from the NFL for refusing to compartmentalize his lived experience from his football game, the Olympics banning Sha’Carri Richardson for her coping methods, and then banning Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi for their natural hormonal baselines.

These instances attempt to deny us the right to be self-aware, the right to have boundaries, and the right to be human. They each ask us to contribute to sustaining a lie of who we are, by existing as fragments of ourselves.

Because to hold us in our complexity is to shatter the legitimacy of the fantasy.

We are neither inferior or impenetrable; we are just human.

So much violence has been justified by the “necessity” of our dehumanization.

Because if the fantasy was never real; then what does that mean for the world that we’ve built?

What have we lost to be here? What has it cost us and and who must we become to heal the ramifications of a lie that for centuries; has been told, and believed, and repeated.

I don’t believe that the people who participate in brutality, and even subtle forms of white supremacy, leave those interactions unscathed.They are left to hold the reality of their own self-betrayal. Because in refusing to see us, they refused to see themselves.

The relentlessness of their actions leaves no room to doubt; that projecting your pain onto others doesn’t actually dissipate it. If it did, racism would be a contained experience. The fact that it endures, unchanged, is a constant reminder that it doesn’t deliver on its promise. People who are racist and violent are still left to sit with deep pain of their own disconnection regardless of who they attack.

It’s tempting to fall back on survival strategies; to view them as less than human, too. To even view them as unworthy of existence, but to engage in that mentality is to join them in the fantasy. It is to betray ourselves and allow our hearts to be corrupted by a pain that simply needs to be seen.

Being human is hard.

It doesn’t get easier when we dehumanize each other; it just gets more isolating.

Since Sunday, the Formula 1 community has mobilized to decry the racism being directed at Lewis. I hope that they take it a step forward, to questioning the context in which that racism takes place. To understanding the role that everyone has to play in bringing awareness and compassion to how we choose to relate to each other. Words and actions are powerful — but this isn’t simply an intellectual exercise.

The Black athletes who continue to stand up for something bigger than themselves give the rest of us space to do the same. When they exercise their power, they show us that it can be done. They show us the love of our times.

Seeing ourselves and each other accurately; holding our mistakes, our worst impulses, and our love, is to believe in a world that transcends what we have been taught.

It is to create a world in which the perceptions of others do not need to dictate our outcomes.

We do not need to convince others that we are who we say we are, we must simply give ourselves permission; to live from the truth that we know.