If the club and or the authorities genuinely felt that strongly, I'm sure far more forceful action would have been taken.
As demonstrated on this thread, it seems that this issue hasn't been very taken seriously thus far. Many issues of discrimination often start off with a sense of 'what are they whining about ? - it's just a name'. Whether it was derogatory names to describe Blacks, Gays, Travellers or any other minority group, eventually people were educated and reaslised that what they thought was harmless was actually quite damaging. Your club, the FA and the Kick it out campaign are starting to act on this issue, it's up to your fans to respond accordingly. You might be in denial at the moment, but eventually whether by cooperation or coercion, you will have to to realise that chanting a derogatory name for Jews is simply not acceptable anymore at football stadiums.
Anti-semitism has been unacceptable for years though whilst this chanting has gone on and has not only been allowed but accepted. That's also not what the club is saying what they're saying is it means something different to Spurs fans and shouldn't be taken as an insult to Jews. People can be offended by anything, hundreds wrote into to complain about a bloody storyline on Eastenders a year or so ago but that shouldn't have any bearing on whather they should be offended. It certainly is. The SBL are so offended by this chanting that they've gone years taking zero interest in it. Attempting to set the FA and club a deadline was ridiculous and I expect both were tempted to reply with "who the Hell are you?". That's an unfair analogy because it wouldn't be "white people" it'd just be "people" as there are Jewish fans that attend and join in too. There also wouldn't be any reason to "take" the word in the first place so I'd suggest the reaction would be more confusion than outrage.
My concern is, where does this stop? In the case of our club, whilst probably the majority of our fans are not Jewish, a significant proportion are. If the majority of these Jewish fans felt sufficiently offended, I'm positive far stronger representation would have been made to the clubs hierarchy. Personally, I feel that the more fuss that is made on this issue, the more publicity it is given, this will only be used by rival fan groups to heap even more of this abuse upon the Jewish contingent. So o.k. Who's next? People with ginger hair? Bald people? People who wear glasses? if you want to, you could take this to ridiculous levels. As I say, where does it stop? Again, if enough of our Jewish contingent are genuinely offended, then fair enough, something should be done. However, I don't think these people are in need of some publicity hungry black lawyer to hold their hands for them.
I would say it's been tolerated rather than 'accepted'. I also think the club's stance 'It's not meant to offend, therefore nobody is offended' is not a very robust defence. This has now been brought to the attention of the main stream and a group are threatening you with prosecution unless you address it. If it comes to court, there's no way you're going to be able to justify chanting a derogatory racist name, regardless of your intent. Some might see it as a case of P/C gone mad, but I'm afraid in the eyes of the law, you are fighting a losing battle.
Well thats pc (with small letters) gone mad for you. Piskie what thoughts do you have on my earlier comment regarding the "sheep shagger" chants aimed at Cardiff fans (and fans of other Welsh clubs) and our responses.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...9/Tottenham-fans-told-police-Yid-Army-ok.html Metropolitan Police have reassured Tottenham they will NOT face prosecution over their own supporters use of the word 'Yid' in matchday chants. The Met have advised Tottenham chants such as 'Yid Army' will not lead to prosecution on the basis that it is used with no 'deliberate intention to cause offence'.
Yes, exactly. As I've said, I'm sure most of your fans see it as a bit of banter. But, if that's banned, what's next? I'm sure that there's a few Liverpool fans who don't like being called Scousers - let alone car thieves! There may even be some from Manchester who object to being called Mancs. Do we have to stop calling Piskie and his ilk, Goons too? You could go on ad infinitum
I've already said that's not what they're saying and the bolded bit in particular is not what anyone is saying. Ultimately to be on the side of SBL you have to take on board the views of Baddiel and anyother Jews that are offended by it and ignore the view of Jewish Spurs fans who even join in. You also have to focus on the word being used in an abusive way to Jews and ignore that Jews and Spurs fans have used it in a different way that is not abusive. Then still you have to ignore any attempt to discuss the differences in opinion and instead give the otherside essentially an ultimatum to do as they say or face legal action. Obviously that makes it selective and therefore very objectionable, whilst Baddiel's video also only showed one side and distorted some of the facts making it no more than propaganda. We might disagree on the use of Yid but I think you can see why SBL and Baddiel before got peoples backs up with their actions especially when SBL have some rather questionable motives for appointing themselves chief racism in football stoppers.
For his next threat, Herbert says he'll get his big brother to sort us out... One thing that should've come to light when Baddiel had a bee up his ass a couple of years ago was the number of times jokes were made about Spurs fans' Jewish background on Fantasy Football League - a show hosted by Frank Skinner and the less funny one from Newman & Baddiel.
Can you imagine how Jewish Spurs fans must have felt when hearing a Chelsea fan say he finds it offensive? It's partisan point scoring of the highest order and people like him should know better. It's shameful really
Baddiel's take on the whole thing is just demented, frankly. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...ed-racism-out-of-english-football-614251.html Translation: Chelsea fans are anti-Semitic, even when they're not playing Spurs, so it's clearly the fault of Tottenham. It's funny when Chelsea fans do it anyway, so that's ok.
Baddiel's statement on the subject can be heard in full at 3:35 [video=youtube;9UMedd03JCA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UMedd03JCA[/video] Whenever we get a visit from West Ham or Chelsea.
Glad that's sorted then. You don't want fans heading to the match tonight wondering if they'll be arrested for certain chants around the ground.
Thanks f**k for that - maybe we will now also be able to avoid some of the insufferable claptrap from a couple of 'visitors'......
I only skim read but I don't think he ever mentioned reporting ant-semitic behaviour from Chelsea fans like he says is encouraged at Chelsea(as with all clubs). If he didn't and just chose to move to a different part of SB instead then he's a significant part of the problem and should probably be more concerned with his own behaviour than telling others what to do. Every person that shouts something racist sits next to 2 other people with 1 direct behind them. If all 3 either think it's acceptable or bottle notifying the club then it's more difficult for action to be taken so again, Baddiel should be looking at himself and Chelsea fans rather than trying to pretend Spurs are provoking them by using it as a positive.
Why can't fans at WHL say they're chanting "yid" in Yiddish, where, clearly, it's not an ethnic slur? Who's to say otherwise? And it's not like this would lead to a boatload of exceptions in the PC wars. I can't think of another example of a word that's considered an ethnic slur in English, but is not in its original language? Incidentally, I could see this coming since the time when I was asked, as an American/newbie/someone of half Jewish ancestry (can't remember which!), what I thought of using the word yid. If you consider everything about the particular use in context, it's perfectly acceptable, and even positive. If you're interested in applying PC rules in machine-like way, it's a racist term. And, of course, applying PC rules in a machine-like way is the rising trend.
What's to stop other people claiming that they are chanting 'Yid' in Yiddish, when they mean it as an insult ? I'm surprised by the Met's decision too. It would be interesting to see who exactly in the Met said this. I noticed there were no quotes in the Daily Mail's article and I highly doubt that they said 'Sing what you like' as the Mail reports. I think this opens a can of worms personally. If one person can chant a derogatory word, and claim they mean no harm by it, then it's going to be difficult to prove that somebody else did. In their defence all they need to say is that they did not say it to cause offence, it would be difficult to prove otherwise to the degree that they could be charged.
David Baddiel claims to be a comedian,Really,he's NEVER made me laugh,he's bored me.He's about as funny as piles is to a jockey
