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London, June 28 (IANS) Six-time world champion Lewis Hamilton said that former Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone's recent comments on racism shows why the sport has failed to bring in more diversity or do more about racial abuse. Hamilton said that Ecclestone's comments were "sad and disappointing" and that they demonstrated "how far we as a society need to go before real equality can happen."
"Bernie is out of the sport and a different generation but this is exactly what is wrong," wrote the 36-year-old on his Instagram page.
"It makes complete sense to me now that nothing was said or done to make our sport more diverse or to address the racial abuse I received throughout my career.
"If someone who has run the sport for decades has such a lack of understanding of the deep-rooted issues we as black people deal with every day, how can we expect all the people who work under him to understand? It starts at the top.
"Now the time has come for change. I will not stop pushing to create an inclusive future for our sport with equal opportunity for all. To create a world that provides equal opportunity for minorities."
Ecclestone, who ruled F1 for nearly 40 years, earlier said that while what Hamilton is doing for the Black Lives Matter movement is "wonderful," he doesn't think that the Mercedes star setting up the Hamilton Commission is going to have any effect on the sport.
He later went on to say that black people are more racist towards white people than the other way around and criticised protestors pulling down statues of historical figures in the United Kingdom who were accused of makingn their riches through slavery.
"It'll just make people think which is more important. I think that's the same for everybody. People ought to think a little bit and think: 'Well, what the hell. Somebody's not the same as White people and Black people should think the same about White people,'" he told CNN.
"In lots of cases, Black people are more racist than what White people are."
"I think they need to start being taught at school," said Ecclestone. "So they grow up not having to think about these things. I think it's completely stupid taking all these statues down. They should've left them there. Take the kids from school to look and say why they're there and what the people did and how wrong it was what they did."
--IANS
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