Hamilton calls for removal of racist symbols globally

BREMEN/MANCHESTER: The wave of protests against racism drew more support on Sunday as four more Bundesliga teams took a knee before their games. Prominent athletes like Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton England footballer Raheem Sterling and England pacer Jofra Archer came out backing the protests, urging victims to speak out against social inequality.

Borussia Dortmund and Hertha Berlin first kneeled ahead of their game Saturday and Wolfsburg

and Werder Bremen followed their example in Sunday’s opening game. Union Berlin and Schalke, whose player Weston McKennie was the first in Germany to protest, also kneeled ahead of their 1-1 draw. The referee and his assistants joined in.

Hamilton continued to lead his passionate campaigning against racial injustice. The Mercedes driver took to Instagram on Monday in support of demonstrators who toppled a statue of a 17th-century slave trader in the English city of Bristol during a protest.

“All statues of racist men who made money from selling a human being should be torn down!” Hamilton wrote. “Which one is next?” In a later post, the Briton issued a challenge to governments “to make these changes and implement the peaceful removal of these racist symbols.”

Sterling lashed out against racism in a BBC interview, equating it with the pandemic. “The only disease right now is the racism that we are fighting,” he said. “Just like the (coronavirus) pandemic, we want to find a solution to stop it. This is what all these protesters are doing. They are trying to find a solution and a way to stop the injustice they are seeing and they are fighting for their cause.”

Six-time Grand Slam champion Boris Becker claimed he was the target of angry comments “from Germany” on Twitter after participating in the anti-racism demonstration in London.

Becker spoke out in a video message on Twitter: “I must have hit a sore spot with my Tweet about my family history” and Black Lives Matter, said Becker, whose ex-wife Barbara is the daughter of an African-American, while the mother of his second wife Lilly comes from Suriname. “In our country it is swept a bit under the carpet and I think that’s a pity. We should talk about it much more publicly,” he said. “We are all one family.”

Archer, who was racially abused by a fan during a Test against New Zealand in November, has urged victims of racial abuse to speak out. “I’m very glad the Black Lives Matter campaign has got as vocal as this,” Archer wrote in Daily Mail. “As an individual, I’ve always been one for speaking out, especially if something bothers you. My personal view is that you should never keep things bottled up, because racism is not okay.”