Post by QPR Report on Sept 27, 2009 6:43:48 GMT
re London's post re supposedly some QPR fans calling Taarabt "'yid twat' - That of course was a rerence to him being from Spurs. And that reminds me of previous debates re the use of the term. Should Jews use the term about themselves. Should non Jews use it to apply to Spurs. And other such questions
This is one article re Football and using the term "Yids"...
When Saturday Comes
The Y word
Tuesday 21 October ~ 2008
Arsenal have been among the most prominent backers of the various Kick It Out anti-racism campaigns. But in WSC 230 (April 2006) Jon Spurling asked whether the club could be doing more to address offensive chanting by a section of their support
In November 2005, Alan Sefton, the overseer of “Arsenal in the community”, announced that the club would be setting up five soccer schools across Israel. Arsenal are already involved in working with a number of primary schools in mixed Jewish/Muslim areas of London, and children are encouraged to co-present religious festivals before playing football together. Sefton later confirmed his and the club’s belief that “…football unites people of different classes, social groups, races and nationalities… We don’t want it to focus on divisions and tribalism.”
Sefton played down the claim that Arsenal had launched the initiative because he and several of the club’s directors, such as David Dein and Daniel Fiszman, are Jewish. Instead, he argued that it was due to Arsenal’s wish that “different races and cultures should mix together freely”.
With Thierry Henry the charismatic front man for the Let’s Kick Racism Out Of Football campaign, the Gunners appear to be the most forward thinking of all clubs in the battle to fight racial intolerance. Yet despite the club’s programme in Israel and the explicit warnings in and around Highbury that “racist and foul language will not be tolerated”, vast numbers of Arsenal fans continue to use the word “yiddo” freely in chants during games. Brendan Batson, the former West Brom star and Professional Footballers’ Association official, says: “The ‘Y’ word is much used among London football fans. Derogatory words used in connection with the colour of someone’s skin are considered more inflammatory than words to do with someone’s nationality or religion. That’s not to say that it’s right. It’s just how it is.”
Max Hyndes is lobbying the club in an attempt to persuade them to clamp down on the use of the word: “It started out as an insult to the large contingent of Jewish fans who supposedly went to watch Tottenham and was also part of a reaction to the large numbers of Jews who came to this country after the Second World War. I’ve always laughed inwardly at the belief many Arsenal fans have that Spurs are ‘the Jewish club’, as Arsenal also have a massive Jewish following.
“The word ‘yid’ is a derogatory term. You’re deliberately drawing attention to the fact that someone either looks different, behaves differently, or follows a different religious orientation to yourself. That – to my knowledge – is a form of prejudice. The chanting at Highbury used to be far more unpleasant than it is now. Up until the mid-1980s, you’d get songs about ‘gassing the yids’, ‘Spurs are on their way to Auschwitz’, and a hissing noise from thousands of fans to copy the noise of gas being slowly released. Is laughing about ‘gassing the yids’ as offensive as calling someone a ‘N-Word’? Well, no one’s ever insulted me on account of the colour of my skin, but as a Jewish man, I certainly find the word ‘yid’ offensive.”
But three decades ago Spurs fans began to adopt the word “yid” en masse, as a code of honour and to “protect” their Jewish fans from Arsenal fans’ anti-semitic chanting. When Arsenal played Spurs last season at Highbury, a group of Tottenham fans gave another airing to a chant from recent years: “One yid and his baseball cap went to war with Arsenal.”
As Batson comments, the term is used in “everyday parlance”. Hyndes explains: “All children learn about the Holocaust in school history lessons. Surely their history teachers tell them that the word ‘yid’ is an offensive term? Ashkenazi Jews use the phrase ‘Yidn’ as a way of saying ‘mate’ or ‘buddy’ to a fellow Jew. But if outsiders use the term, it’s not right. ‘Everyone says it’, argued one steward with me, ‘so how can it be offensive?’ Well, I used to go to Highbury in the Sixties when words like ‘N-Word’ and ‘coon’ were bandied about freely, but we’ve moved on since then. If we genuinely live in a multicultural country, the widespread use of the word ‘yid’ needs to be addressed.”
Arsenal’s official stance on the use of the word by their supporters is unclear. Max Hyndes claims that two letters on the subject directed to the club went unanswered. Other inquiries proved equally fruitless, although an Arsenal telephone operator was more forthcoming, claiming that the widespread use of the word ‘yid’ by supporters was the “last bastion of cultural ignorance among our fans”.
www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/1127/38/
And this is the other I was thinkin of (Many others I could find)
TIME OUT LONDON
Anti-Semitism in football
Peter Watts considers the complexities of fans using the word ’Yid‘ at Spurs games, he worries that the Carling Cup final could resemble the bad old days of the ‘80s
Where does name-calling end and anti-Semitism begin?
I’d been calling Spurs ‘the Yids’ for a couple of years before my dad told me it was racist. ‘Don’t you realise it’s an abusive term for someone who is Jewish?’ he said. I didn’t, nor had I worked it out from one of my favourite Chelsea chants: ‘He’s only a poor little Yiddo/He stands at the back of the Shelf/He goes to the bar/To buy a lager/And only buys one for himself’. Racial stereotypes were clearly not one of my strong points as a 13-year-old.
I’d like to say that I immediately stopped using the word, but I didn’t. Chelsea fans – like those at Arsenal and West Ham – had been calling Tottenham ‘Yids’ for decades. Given that Spurs devotees called themselves the ‘Yid Army’ I didn’t see how it caused any harm. I’ve since ceased, but at the Carling Cup final on February 24 cries of ’Yiddo’ will ring round Wembley – and they’re as likely to come from the Spurs end as the Chelsea one. Is anti-Semitism, the oldest hate, prospering in football or is this just a near-the-knuckle nickname for a rival football club?
Many supporters are convinced it’s the latter. David Baddiel, a Jewish Chelsea fan, wrote in 2002: ‘I told myself that it didn’t matter, that for most of these fans, “Yiddo” simply meant a Tottenham player or fan and that the negativity was about that and not about race.’ However, when Chelsea fans aimed the chant at non-Tottenham Israeli players, Baddiel ‘realised I was in denial: “Yiddo” may mean Tottenham fan but it also means Jew.’ Baddiel may be interested to know that my own eureka moment involved him. When he was spotted during a game in the mid-1990s and half the West Stand broke into a chorus of ‘Yiddo, yiddo!’, Baddiel smiled it off – but the penny finally dropped that this was racist abuse, pure and simple.
It used to be worse. In the 1980s chants about Auschwitz and hissing to imitate the release of gas were common, but I haven’t heard either in nearly 20 years of attending Chelsea-Spurs fixtures. Jeremy Vine, a Times journalist and another Jewish Chelsea fan, agrees: ‘I’m sure I would notice hissing as it would most likely come from the Matthew Harding Stand, where I sit.’ However, a lot of old faces will be on display at Wembley and the atmosphere could get ’80s ugly. Even if it doesn’t, the existing abuse is bad enough.
Vine, who briefly stopped attending games in the 1980s due to racism, says: ‘Without doubt some of those who chant “Yid” are anti-Semites at heart… but I don’t believe all are.’ The problem, Vine feels, is that ‘personal jibes are part of the language of the terraces. Anything goes. And so the boundaries of decency and offensiveness become blurred.’
What muddies the water further is that, since the 1970s, Spurs fans have proudly reclaimed what was originally coined as a term of abuse (nobody knows why, Tottenham being no more ‘Jewish’ than Arsenal or Chelsea) and now call themselves the ‘Yid Army’. Chelsea chairman Ken Bates, always torn between defending Chelsea supporters while confronting their excesses, argued that, ‘It is hard to criticise Chelsea fans for calling Tottenham supporters something that they call themselves.’
Spurs conducted a ‘full consultation exercise’ over the use of ‘Yid Army’ because of fears it led to ‘casual anti-Semitism’, but this was criticised by many of their own supporters who felt the chant united both Jewish and non-Jewish Tottenham fans against their abusers. ‘If you are Tottenham, you are a Yid,’ is the argument. Many agree there’s a distinction between chanting ‘Yiddo’ and singing about concentration camps, which is broadly true – unless you’re racist.
Simon Greenberg, Chelsea’s director of communications, disagrees and has denounced the Bates defence, leading to the curious situation where Chelsea – who now have a Jewish owner and manager – are promising to take a harder line on anti-Semitism than conflicted Tottenham. ‘We have a policy of zero tolerance,’ says Greenberg. ‘There is no justification in our eyes and we’re not going to get into a philosophical debate about it.’ The club strongly denounced the anti-Semitic hate mail they received after Avram Grant’s appointment as manager.
Fine words, though if zero tolerance is applied at Wembley next week both ends will be half-empty before kick-off. Nevertheless, Vine insists: ‘There is no comparison to be made between three decades ago and now. It’s not perfect. I stayed away from the ground once before because of the people it attracted. The difference now is that these people are an extremely small minority. I don’t like it but I accept it as a reality. And it is slowly improving.’ That said, as anybody who watches the Carling Cup final will discover, there is still a very long way to go.
And commenst responding to Time Out Article
www.timeout.com/london/sport/features/4221/Anti-Semitism_in_football.html
This is one article re Football and using the term "Yids"...
When Saturday Comes
The Y word
Tuesday 21 October ~ 2008
Arsenal have been among the most prominent backers of the various Kick It Out anti-racism campaigns. But in WSC 230 (April 2006) Jon Spurling asked whether the club could be doing more to address offensive chanting by a section of their support
In November 2005, Alan Sefton, the overseer of “Arsenal in the community”, announced that the club would be setting up five soccer schools across Israel. Arsenal are already involved in working with a number of primary schools in mixed Jewish/Muslim areas of London, and children are encouraged to co-present religious festivals before playing football together. Sefton later confirmed his and the club’s belief that “…football unites people of different classes, social groups, races and nationalities… We don’t want it to focus on divisions and tribalism.”
Sefton played down the claim that Arsenal had launched the initiative because he and several of the club’s directors, such as David Dein and Daniel Fiszman, are Jewish. Instead, he argued that it was due to Arsenal’s wish that “different races and cultures should mix together freely”.
With Thierry Henry the charismatic front man for the Let’s Kick Racism Out Of Football campaign, the Gunners appear to be the most forward thinking of all clubs in the battle to fight racial intolerance. Yet despite the club’s programme in Israel and the explicit warnings in and around Highbury that “racist and foul language will not be tolerated”, vast numbers of Arsenal fans continue to use the word “yiddo” freely in chants during games. Brendan Batson, the former West Brom star and Professional Footballers’ Association official, says: “The ‘Y’ word is much used among London football fans. Derogatory words used in connection with the colour of someone’s skin are considered more inflammatory than words to do with someone’s nationality or religion. That’s not to say that it’s right. It’s just how it is.”
Max Hyndes is lobbying the club in an attempt to persuade them to clamp down on the use of the word: “It started out as an insult to the large contingent of Jewish fans who supposedly went to watch Tottenham and was also part of a reaction to the large numbers of Jews who came to this country after the Second World War. I’ve always laughed inwardly at the belief many Arsenal fans have that Spurs are ‘the Jewish club’, as Arsenal also have a massive Jewish following.
“The word ‘yid’ is a derogatory term. You’re deliberately drawing attention to the fact that someone either looks different, behaves differently, or follows a different religious orientation to yourself. That – to my knowledge – is a form of prejudice. The chanting at Highbury used to be far more unpleasant than it is now. Up until the mid-1980s, you’d get songs about ‘gassing the yids’, ‘Spurs are on their way to Auschwitz’, and a hissing noise from thousands of fans to copy the noise of gas being slowly released. Is laughing about ‘gassing the yids’ as offensive as calling someone a ‘N-Word’? Well, no one’s ever insulted me on account of the colour of my skin, but as a Jewish man, I certainly find the word ‘yid’ offensive.”
But three decades ago Spurs fans began to adopt the word “yid” en masse, as a code of honour and to “protect” their Jewish fans from Arsenal fans’ anti-semitic chanting. When Arsenal played Spurs last season at Highbury, a group of Tottenham fans gave another airing to a chant from recent years: “One yid and his baseball cap went to war with Arsenal.”
As Batson comments, the term is used in “everyday parlance”. Hyndes explains: “All children learn about the Holocaust in school history lessons. Surely their history teachers tell them that the word ‘yid’ is an offensive term? Ashkenazi Jews use the phrase ‘Yidn’ as a way of saying ‘mate’ or ‘buddy’ to a fellow Jew. But if outsiders use the term, it’s not right. ‘Everyone says it’, argued one steward with me, ‘so how can it be offensive?’ Well, I used to go to Highbury in the Sixties when words like ‘N-Word’ and ‘coon’ were bandied about freely, but we’ve moved on since then. If we genuinely live in a multicultural country, the widespread use of the word ‘yid’ needs to be addressed.”
Arsenal’s official stance on the use of the word by their supporters is unclear. Max Hyndes claims that two letters on the subject directed to the club went unanswered. Other inquiries proved equally fruitless, although an Arsenal telephone operator was more forthcoming, claiming that the widespread use of the word ‘yid’ by supporters was the “last bastion of cultural ignorance among our fans”.
www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/1127/38/
And this is the other I was thinkin of (Many others I could find)
TIME OUT LONDON
Anti-Semitism in football
Peter Watts considers the complexities of fans using the word ’Yid‘ at Spurs games, he worries that the Carling Cup final could resemble the bad old days of the ‘80s
Where does name-calling end and anti-Semitism begin?
I’d been calling Spurs ‘the Yids’ for a couple of years before my dad told me it was racist. ‘Don’t you realise it’s an abusive term for someone who is Jewish?’ he said. I didn’t, nor had I worked it out from one of my favourite Chelsea chants: ‘He’s only a poor little Yiddo/He stands at the back of the Shelf/He goes to the bar/To buy a lager/And only buys one for himself’. Racial stereotypes were clearly not one of my strong points as a 13-year-old.
I’d like to say that I immediately stopped using the word, but I didn’t. Chelsea fans – like those at Arsenal and West Ham – had been calling Tottenham ‘Yids’ for decades. Given that Spurs devotees called themselves the ‘Yid Army’ I didn’t see how it caused any harm. I’ve since ceased, but at the Carling Cup final on February 24 cries of ’Yiddo’ will ring round Wembley – and they’re as likely to come from the Spurs end as the Chelsea one. Is anti-Semitism, the oldest hate, prospering in football or is this just a near-the-knuckle nickname for a rival football club?
Many supporters are convinced it’s the latter. David Baddiel, a Jewish Chelsea fan, wrote in 2002: ‘I told myself that it didn’t matter, that for most of these fans, “Yiddo” simply meant a Tottenham player or fan and that the negativity was about that and not about race.’ However, when Chelsea fans aimed the chant at non-Tottenham Israeli players, Baddiel ‘realised I was in denial: “Yiddo” may mean Tottenham fan but it also means Jew.’ Baddiel may be interested to know that my own eureka moment involved him. When he was spotted during a game in the mid-1990s and half the West Stand broke into a chorus of ‘Yiddo, yiddo!’, Baddiel smiled it off – but the penny finally dropped that this was racist abuse, pure and simple.
It used to be worse. In the 1980s chants about Auschwitz and hissing to imitate the release of gas were common, but I haven’t heard either in nearly 20 years of attending Chelsea-Spurs fixtures. Jeremy Vine, a Times journalist and another Jewish Chelsea fan, agrees: ‘I’m sure I would notice hissing as it would most likely come from the Matthew Harding Stand, where I sit.’ However, a lot of old faces will be on display at Wembley and the atmosphere could get ’80s ugly. Even if it doesn’t, the existing abuse is bad enough.
Vine, who briefly stopped attending games in the 1980s due to racism, says: ‘Without doubt some of those who chant “Yid” are anti-Semites at heart… but I don’t believe all are.’ The problem, Vine feels, is that ‘personal jibes are part of the language of the terraces. Anything goes. And so the boundaries of decency and offensiveness become blurred.’
What muddies the water further is that, since the 1970s, Spurs fans have proudly reclaimed what was originally coined as a term of abuse (nobody knows why, Tottenham being no more ‘Jewish’ than Arsenal or Chelsea) and now call themselves the ‘Yid Army’. Chelsea chairman Ken Bates, always torn between defending Chelsea supporters while confronting their excesses, argued that, ‘It is hard to criticise Chelsea fans for calling Tottenham supporters something that they call themselves.’
Spurs conducted a ‘full consultation exercise’ over the use of ‘Yid Army’ because of fears it led to ‘casual anti-Semitism’, but this was criticised by many of their own supporters who felt the chant united both Jewish and non-Jewish Tottenham fans against their abusers. ‘If you are Tottenham, you are a Yid,’ is the argument. Many agree there’s a distinction between chanting ‘Yiddo’ and singing about concentration camps, which is broadly true – unless you’re racist.
Simon Greenberg, Chelsea’s director of communications, disagrees and has denounced the Bates defence, leading to the curious situation where Chelsea – who now have a Jewish owner and manager – are promising to take a harder line on anti-Semitism than conflicted Tottenham. ‘We have a policy of zero tolerance,’ says Greenberg. ‘There is no justification in our eyes and we’re not going to get into a philosophical debate about it.’ The club strongly denounced the anti-Semitic hate mail they received after Avram Grant’s appointment as manager.
Fine words, though if zero tolerance is applied at Wembley next week both ends will be half-empty before kick-off. Nevertheless, Vine insists: ‘There is no comparison to be made between three decades ago and now. It’s not perfect. I stayed away from the ground once before because of the people it attracted. The difference now is that these people are an extremely small minority. I don’t like it but I accept it as a reality. And it is slowly improving.’ That said, as anybody who watches the Carling Cup final will discover, there is still a very long way to go.
And commenst responding to Time Out Article
www.timeout.com/london/sport/features/4221/Anti-Semitism_in_football.html
