So can someone summarise for me whether its ok for me as a non Jewish spurs fan to say the 'y-word'?
Thanks
Thanks
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The Society of Black Lawyers...
- Thread starter SUIYHA
- Start date
Spursalot
Jimmy McCormick
I'm not reclaiming the word. I was ignorant for the early part of my life not having known too many Jewish folk, I didn't know yid was even offensive. Until I upset someone for saying it at work.
At the moment I realised it offended someone I stopped saying it other than in the ground. Now a dude who I work with is a spurs fan and is Jewish, and takes offense to it.
ledley's knee injections
Sean Davis
James Lawton sticking his oar in now
Before any more embarrassingly soft-headed debate on the latest football controversy, it would be very helpful if a small experiment was conducted by some of those who say, straight-faced, that no offence should be taken when large numbers of gentile Tottenham Hotspur fans sing that they are the Yid Army.
It would be easy enough to organise and hardly expensive. All you need in a relatively small space is a Jewish person of workaday sensitivity and pride and some bozo in a blue-and-white scarf addressing him as a Yid, however well-meaningly.
Only a miracle of forbearance would prevent a consequence guaranteed to confirm the absurdity of the proposition of both Tottenham and the Metropolitan Police that it is possible to use in a positive way a word that for centuries has represented an extreme of hatred and contempt.
There is no way to dress up the word "Yid" in irony or self-mockery or any kind of intellectually fractured benevolence. Like the N-word, even on the lips of a reflective Muhammad Ali, it evokes too much pain, too much horror, too much recall of the worst of human nature.
The word "Yiddish", we know, refers to a language developed in central Europe 1,000 or more years ago by Jews and is written into the Hebrew language. The word "Yid" is derivative only of hate and persecution and pogroms and systematic genocide.
It was used by the Nazi military governor of Kiev when he ordered the city's Jewish population to assemble at a certain point and make itself available for relentless slaughter and, as the understandably exercised comedian and film-maker David Baddiel has pointed out, it was the war cry of Blackshirts rampaging in the streets of east London.
Baddiel has been driving the debate these last few days and, if some of his assessments of support for Tottenham among those of Jewish origin seem somewhat low, his central argument is surely unimpeachable – not least when he claims, "The idea that Spurs are reclaiming the Y-word and are entitled to because so many of them are Jewish is simply not true."
Some argue that the Y-army is removing so many of the demons that came with the ghastly sound of rival fans hissing their attempt to reproduce the sound of the gas chambers. They say that the complainants are simply in search of another battleground of political correctness. They should, of course, contribute to that experiment. They should sing, whisper or just utter the word "Yid" in the presence of a Jewish person who, from his own experience or any vague working knowledge of his and his family's past, has a fierce awareness of what the word denotes.
Many of us have knowledge of insults based on the origin of our birth or religious affiliation and they are not among our most pleasant memories. But they do not threaten the core of our existence. They do not convey all the venomous hatred of the N and the Y words.
The compelling reality is that there is no circumstance in which Jewish people would describe themselves as Yids and those in White Hart Lane, who may be more numerous than Baddiel believes, who hear it regularly can only be touched by disgust and maybe even a little despair.
There is certainly plenty of incentive for the latter emotion when you go back over Tottenham's statement of toleration of the chanting. It is a compendium of woolly thinking, ill-disguised optimism or, you might say, a wilful refusal to tackle an essentially offensive practice.
"The club," say Spurs, "does not tolerate any form of racist or abusive chanting. Our guiding principle in respect of the Y-word is based on the point of law itself – the distinguishing factor is the intent with which it is used with the deliberate intent to cause offence.
"Our fans adopted the chant as a defence mechanism in order to own the term and thereby deflect anti-Semitic abuse. They do not use the term to others to cause any offence."
Where is the FA? Missing from the action, as it happens, but surely it cannot be for long. Tottenham say their fans adopted a defence mechanism to deflect abuse and, hey presto, they came up with the magic device of owning the term.
Yid – it is some term to own, is it not? It is one unleavened by even a crumb of redemption. You hear it in the night and if you are a natural-born abuser, a malignant purveyor of hate, you say to yourself, "Oh, the Spurs fans have claimed that term, so it is beyond my use."
So what does he do? Dream up, perhaps, something more capable of inspiring instant hatred. But then how many thousands of years does he have? Where does he ransack his language, anyone's language, for a word that is so representative of horrifically refined hatred?
Where can he find a phrase so damning, so flavoured with the poison of persecution, of Auschwitz, of stars of David attached to the coats of children?
He doesn't because one doesn't exist and the sooner Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, the Football Association, the Metropolitan Police and the authors of one headline decorating a sports page yesterday which said, "Try targeting the real racists", understand this the better.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...nham-hotspur-fans-seek-to-own-it-8301466.html
Before any more embarrassingly soft-headed debate on the latest football controversy, it would be very helpful if a small experiment was conducted by some of those who say, straight-faced, that no offence should be taken when large numbers of gentile Tottenham Hotspur fans sing that they are the Yid Army.
It would be easy enough to organise and hardly expensive. All you need in a relatively small space is a Jewish person of workaday sensitivity and pride and some bozo in a blue-and-white scarf addressing him as a Yid, however well-meaningly.
Only a miracle of forbearance would prevent a consequence guaranteed to confirm the absurdity of the proposition of both Tottenham and the Metropolitan Police that it is possible to use in a positive way a word that for centuries has represented an extreme of hatred and contempt.
There is no way to dress up the word "Yid" in irony or self-mockery or any kind of intellectually fractured benevolence. Like the N-word, even on the lips of a reflective Muhammad Ali, it evokes too much pain, too much horror, too much recall of the worst of human nature.
The word "Yiddish", we know, refers to a language developed in central Europe 1,000 or more years ago by Jews and is written into the Hebrew language. The word "Yid" is derivative only of hate and persecution and pogroms and systematic genocide.
It was used by the Nazi military governor of Kiev when he ordered the city's Jewish population to assemble at a certain point and make itself available for relentless slaughter and, as the understandably exercised comedian and film-maker David Baddiel has pointed out, it was the war cry of Blackshirts rampaging in the streets of east London.
Baddiel has been driving the debate these last few days and, if some of his assessments of support for Tottenham among those of Jewish origin seem somewhat low, his central argument is surely unimpeachable – not least when he claims, "The idea that Spurs are reclaiming the Y-word and are entitled to because so many of them are Jewish is simply not true."
Some argue that the Y-army is removing so many of the demons that came with the ghastly sound of rival fans hissing their attempt to reproduce the sound of the gas chambers. They say that the complainants are simply in search of another battleground of political correctness. They should, of course, contribute to that experiment. They should sing, whisper or just utter the word "Yid" in the presence of a Jewish person who, from his own experience or any vague working knowledge of his and his family's past, has a fierce awareness of what the word denotes.
Many of us have knowledge of insults based on the origin of our birth or religious affiliation and they are not among our most pleasant memories. But they do not threaten the core of our existence. They do not convey all the venomous hatred of the N and the Y words.
The compelling reality is that there is no circumstance in which Jewish people would describe themselves as Yids and those in White Hart Lane, who may be more numerous than Baddiel believes, who hear it regularly can only be touched by disgust and maybe even a little despair.
There is certainly plenty of incentive for the latter emotion when you go back over Tottenham's statement of toleration of the chanting. It is a compendium of woolly thinking, ill-disguised optimism or, you might say, a wilful refusal to tackle an essentially offensive practice.
"The club," say Spurs, "does not tolerate any form of racist or abusive chanting. Our guiding principle in respect of the Y-word is based on the point of law itself – the distinguishing factor is the intent with which it is used with the deliberate intent to cause offence.
"Our fans adopted the chant as a defence mechanism in order to own the term and thereby deflect anti-Semitic abuse. They do not use the term to others to cause any offence."
Where is the FA? Missing from the action, as it happens, but surely it cannot be for long. Tottenham say their fans adopted a defence mechanism to deflect abuse and, hey presto, they came up with the magic device of owning the term.
Yid – it is some term to own, is it not? It is one unleavened by even a crumb of redemption. You hear it in the night and if you are a natural-born abuser, a malignant purveyor of hate, you say to yourself, "Oh, the Spurs fans have claimed that term, so it is beyond my use."
So what does he do? Dream up, perhaps, something more capable of inspiring instant hatred. But then how many thousands of years does he have? Where does he ransack his language, anyone's language, for a word that is so representative of horrifically refined hatred?
Where can he find a phrase so damning, so flavoured with the poison of persecution, of Auschwitz, of stars of David attached to the coats of children?
He doesn't because one doesn't exist and the sooner Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, the Football Association, the Metropolitan Police and the authors of one headline decorating a sports page yesterday which said, "Try targeting the real racists", understand this the better.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...nham-hotspur-fans-seek-to-own-it-8301466.html
SpurMeUp
Gary Stevens
All these arm chair experts - trumped up lawyer, pundit, comedian (sic) - are the ones insighting racial problems.
For the last ten or twenty years, Yid, Yid Army, Yiddo have been evolving into non racial terms relating to Spurs players and supporters, who are mostly not Jewish. As people refer to Goons or Gooners, so people refer to Yids. Prior to this flimflam which only heightens racial problems, it wasn't a big deal.
The term is that much more affectionately chanted now, as to do so is to stick two fingers up at racism, as Spurs supporters did back in the 70s. Back then, as now, the majority of supporters were not Jewish.
I see it as a unifying term, Spurs against the rest. Expect now, it's not fascist NF scum attacking the club and its supporters, but a bunch of 'experts' who want to stir up any old rubbish to shed light on themselves or sell a newspaper article. Supposedly taking the moral high ground, they should know better.
For the last ten or twenty years, Yid, Yid Army, Yiddo have been evolving into non racial terms relating to Spurs players and supporters, who are mostly not Jewish. As people refer to Goons or Gooners, so people refer to Yids. Prior to this flimflam which only heightens racial problems, it wasn't a big deal.
The term is that much more affectionately chanted now, as to do so is to stick two fingers up at racism, as Spurs supporters did back in the 70s. Back then, as now, the majority of supporters were not Jewish.
I see it as a unifying term, Spurs against the rest. Expect now, it's not fascist NF scum attacking the club and its supporters, but a bunch of 'experts' who want to stir up any old rubbish to shed light on themselves or sell a newspaper article. Supposedly taking the moral high ground, they should know better.
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You know this is a good point. If you were to ask the majority of people football fans or not what they thought the word meant I think most people would say 'spurs fan'. The fact that I was so ignorant so far into my life that I didn't know what yid meant kind of proves the words usage has evolved so much that what we as fans have changed the perception of the word.
However I do understand the problem still with opposition fans. Can't we just redefine it in the collins English dictionary
SpurMeUp
Gary Stevens
The term was redefining itself quite happily, as you point out. But for the James Lawton's who have to write something, anything to get paid or draw attention, Yiddo is an affectionate term. If you as a Spurs supporter scratched the surface and looked into the term - you'd be pleasantly surprised that it has its roots in combating racism.
Chances are most of these idiots inciting racism in the name of 'fair comment' or journalism, are not Spurs supporters, and will take any chance they can to have a dig at the club. That article above from James Lawton is quite disgusting. As someone who is Jew-ish (half) I find it cheap to draw in concentration camps as a way to spice up his article. Very low.
Rather than focus on opposition supporters hissing - far more relevance to concentration camps - he focuses on a chant and a term that is personal to Spurs, which stood up to racism. Those subtly suggesting that Badiel is a little jealous are probably correct. Moreover, he can't write comedy any more (could he ever?) so he has to drag something up to write about, and no doubt he is getting paid to write this drivel.
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johnola
Jermaine Jenas
Modric THFC
Jimmy McCormick
I love how Lawton says this....
"The compelling reality is that there is no circumstance in which Jewish people would describe themselves as Yids and those in White Hart Lane, who may be more numerous than Baddiel believes, who hear it regularly can only be touched by disgust and maybe even a little despair."
...without even asking a single Jewish Spurs fan what they think.
He doesn't need to, he knows it all.
"The compelling reality is that there is no circumstance in which Jewish people would describe themselves as Yids and those in White Hart Lane, who may be more numerous than Baddiel believes, who hear it regularly can only be touched by disgust and maybe even a little despair."
...without even asking a single Jewish Spurs fan what they think.
He doesn't need to, he knows it all.
The section highlighted in bold is the crux of it.
I don't believe that Baddiel's intention is to blame Spurs fans for anti semitism. I think he understands where we're coming from. He's merely trying to explain why he thinks we are wrong.
But, as you rightly point out, all the focus is on what Spurs fans ought not to do (however well meaning) rather than what a small number of fans from other clubs should be locked up for doing.
And that can't be right.
Gordinho
Banned
D'you know what? I've always maintained that every word we use is about context, it can be negative or loving depending on the curl of your lip, I've been told there is no positive use to the words Paki, Paddy or Itie or negative use to the term Brit but they all in my mind can be used as a hate phrase or comradely embrace depending on context and intent, is there anybody had their opinions changed by the debate within this board?
DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
Them versus us; is that what it's becoming now?
Sigh. I have no doubt that Baddiel originally brought the matter up with the best of intentions, if not with a great amount of foresight. But, inevitably, there will always be coat-hangers who follow on, desperate for their fifteen minutes of fame, and they saw a prime opportunity to establish themselves here, on this issue. The Society of Black Lawyers, James Lawton, and all the others who have crawled out of the darkness, into the lime-light of public scrutiny, they're all doing this for very different reasons. They want to establish themselves as moral paragons, as arbiters of what is and is not racism; they want to craft an image, and they want to sell papers; and they want to be remembered as the people who brought the disgusting Spurs fans down and rid the Premier League of anti-semitism, once and for all.
But it is never that simple, and attacking football fans, who are famous for being aggressive in their reactions, will only provoke stronger responses. As far as I can tell, judging from trawlings of the Spurs corner of the web (which is incidentally more research than I suspect Lawton bothered to do before composing his self-important diatribe), Spurs fans are determined to keep singing the chants they've sung for so long. Not to abuse the Jewish population; on the contrary, they were sung to support them, to turn an ugly term into one that identified all Spurs fans, not just the Jewish sub-section. The songs were being sung with the best of intentions, and now they are sung as an identifier, and are as much a part of the club as any 'come on you lilywhites' chant ever was.
After this media storm ,however, I suspect we will hear it a lot more, if only to spite the media and the high-minded moral arbiters who, in the fans' eyes, are trying to define what they can and cannot sing, and are chastising them for something that was wholly innocent of any bad-will, at any time. And this means that any real Jewish supporters who actually feel offended by the words used will be more compelled to stay silent than ever before.
As an aside, why on earth Lawton doesn't demand that 50 Cent or whoever stop calling his friends and fellow African-Americans 'niggas' is beyond me. Or even Eminem, for that matter? Surely the same principle applies? After all, the N-word has painful historical connotations that are very much the equal of the terms the SBL and Lawton are demanding we cease using?
Sigh. I have no doubt that Baddiel originally brought the matter up with the best of intentions, if not with a great amount of foresight. But, inevitably, there will always be coat-hangers who follow on, desperate for their fifteen minutes of fame, and they saw a prime opportunity to establish themselves here, on this issue. The Society of Black Lawyers, James Lawton, and all the others who have crawled out of the darkness, into the lime-light of public scrutiny, they're all doing this for very different reasons. They want to establish themselves as moral paragons, as arbiters of what is and is not racism; they want to craft an image, and they want to sell papers; and they want to be remembered as the people who brought the disgusting Spurs fans down and rid the Premier League of anti-semitism, once and for all.
But it is never that simple, and attacking football fans, who are famous for being aggressive in their reactions, will only provoke stronger responses. As far as I can tell, judging from trawlings of the Spurs corner of the web (which is incidentally more research than I suspect Lawton bothered to do before composing his self-important diatribe), Spurs fans are determined to keep singing the chants they've sung for so long. Not to abuse the Jewish population; on the contrary, they were sung to support them, to turn an ugly term into one that identified all Spurs fans, not just the Jewish sub-section. The songs were being sung with the best of intentions, and now they are sung as an identifier, and are as much a part of the club as any 'come on you lilywhites' chant ever was.
After this media storm ,however, I suspect we will hear it a lot more, if only to spite the media and the high-minded moral arbiters who, in the fans' eyes, are trying to define what they can and cannot sing, and are chastising them for something that was wholly innocent of any bad-will, at any time. And this means that any real Jewish supporters who actually feel offended by the words used will be more compelled to stay silent than ever before.
As an aside, why on earth Lawton doesn't demand that 50 Cent or whoever stop calling his friends and fellow African-Americans 'niggas' is beyond me. Or even Eminem, for that matter? Surely the same principle applies? After all, the N-word has painful historical connotations that are very much the equal of the terms the SBL and Lawton are demanding we cease using?
AuroRaman
Chris Armstrong
you have expresed just what I feel. This has turned in to a cause celebre to further the aims of self publisists who only care about theirnown agenda. If we just ignore them then the Met will have no interest and they will sink back to the hadows where they belong
Notmegov
Roman Pavlyuchenko
From the Independent.
The Society of Black Lawyers appears to have a lot
of spare time on their hands.
Its latest project is to re-educate Tottenham Spurs Football supporters and ban chants like ‘we are the yid army’ from the terraces. Last night Spurs fans sang ‘we’ll sing what we want’ in defiance of the imperious command to censor their voice. The response of the Society of Black Lawyers was to again repeat its threat to report the fans to the police for their alleged anti-semitic chanting.
The chair of the SBL, Peter Herbert has adopted the project of censoring Spurs fans as his personal crusade. But who made Herbert GHod? And how did he gain the authority to define who is and who isn’t an anti- semite?
As a life-long football and Spurs fan I can confirm that as in all walks of life, football is not immune from the scourge of racism and anti-Semitism. And after many years of sitting next to fans yelling Yiddo I can also confirm that what they are doing is giving expression to their self-chosen identit and not insulting Jewish people.
Indeed, when my fellow Spurs fans shout ‘we are the yid army’ you can feel their palpable sense of pride. For many of them, their positive embrace of the word yid expresses an act of self-determination. To turn what for some is a term of abuse into a positive expression of self identity represents a significant accomplishment. To flaunt the phrase ‘we are the yids’in the face of the rest of the world is to deprive those who perceive this word to be a slight of its power to degrade and insult.
It is actually quite an empowering experience to hear the word ‘Yiddo’ shouted by thousands football fans. This chant can last for 30 to 40 seconds and for a brief moment everyone has a sense of emotional solidarity with their self-consciously chosen identity.
I say this as someone who is not only a Spurs fan but also Jewish and also as someone who has faced real anti-Semitism on more than one occasion. At the age of eight, I was suspended from school for two days for hitting out at a classmate, who called my mum a ‘fudging Jewish kitten’. In the seventies I had my share of direct confrontations with the racist and anti-semitic National Front in East London. And throughout my adult life I have encountered my fair share of more subtle forms of middle class anti-Semitism. Since most of my family died in the Holocaust I am naturally sensitive to any manifestation of anti-Jewish prejudice. But unlike Peter Herbert and his mates that is not what I hear when Spurs supporters chant ‘we are the Yids’.
We should be very careful about policing language. The meaning of words is not always self-evident and depends on the context. Yes, the word Yid is usually used as a term of insult. However, it is sometimes used as a positive term of self-definition. So according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the 1874 edition of Hotten’s Slang Dictionary notes that the word Yid is used by Jewish people ‘very frequently’. In my own lifetime I have heard the word used positively, neutrally and as a term of venomous hate. But then I have also heard the word Jew used in a variety of ways. In any case anti-Semites do not need to use a specific word to communicate hate. As an undergraduate at a North American University in the late sixties I knew that references to someone as ‘really New York’ was a not too subtle way of saying that he was ‘too Jewish’. Fortunately SBL has not yet come up with the idea of zero-tolerance towards the word New York.
Of course the SBL is entitled to peddle its fantasy about the spectre of anti-semitism haunting White Hart Lane. But they have no right to force people to chant according to their sanctimonious script. Their moral crusade seems to be little more than a publicity stunt, but one that is at the expense of a much loved way of life.
The Society of Black Lawyers appears to have a lot
of spare time on their hands.
Its latest project is to re-educate Tottenham Spurs Football supporters and ban chants like ‘we are the yid army’ from the terraces. Last night Spurs fans sang ‘we’ll sing what we want’ in defiance of the imperious command to censor their voice. The response of the Society of Black Lawyers was to again repeat its threat to report the fans to the police for their alleged anti-semitic chanting.
The chair of the SBL, Peter Herbert has adopted the project of censoring Spurs fans as his personal crusade. But who made Herbert GHod? And how did he gain the authority to define who is and who isn’t an anti- semite?
As a life-long football and Spurs fan I can confirm that as in all walks of life, football is not immune from the scourge of racism and anti-Semitism. And after many years of sitting next to fans yelling Yiddo I can also confirm that what they are doing is giving expression to their self-chosen identit and not insulting Jewish people.
Indeed, when my fellow Spurs fans shout ‘we are the yid army’ you can feel their palpable sense of pride. For many of them, their positive embrace of the word yid expresses an act of self-determination. To turn what for some is a term of abuse into a positive expression of self identity represents a significant accomplishment. To flaunt the phrase ‘we are the yids’in the face of the rest of the world is to deprive those who perceive this word to be a slight of its power to degrade and insult.
It is actually quite an empowering experience to hear the word ‘Yiddo’ shouted by thousands football fans. This chant can last for 30 to 40 seconds and for a brief moment everyone has a sense of emotional solidarity with their self-consciously chosen identity.
I say this as someone who is not only a Spurs fan but also Jewish and also as someone who has faced real anti-Semitism on more than one occasion. At the age of eight, I was suspended from school for two days for hitting out at a classmate, who called my mum a ‘fudging Jewish kitten’. In the seventies I had my share of direct confrontations with the racist and anti-semitic National Front in East London. And throughout my adult life I have encountered my fair share of more subtle forms of middle class anti-Semitism. Since most of my family died in the Holocaust I am naturally sensitive to any manifestation of anti-Jewish prejudice. But unlike Peter Herbert and his mates that is not what I hear when Spurs supporters chant ‘we are the Yids’.
We should be very careful about policing language. The meaning of words is not always self-evident and depends on the context. Yes, the word Yid is usually used as a term of insult. However, it is sometimes used as a positive term of self-definition. So according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the 1874 edition of Hotten’s Slang Dictionary notes that the word Yid is used by Jewish people ‘very frequently’. In my own lifetime I have heard the word used positively, neutrally and as a term of venomous hate. But then I have also heard the word Jew used in a variety of ways. In any case anti-Semites do not need to use a specific word to communicate hate. As an undergraduate at a North American University in the late sixties I knew that references to someone as ‘really New York’ was a not too subtle way of saying that he was ‘too Jewish’. Fortunately SBL has not yet come up with the idea of zero-tolerance towards the word New York.
Of course the SBL is entitled to peddle its fantasy about the spectre of anti-semitism haunting White Hart Lane. But they have no right to force people to chant according to their sanctimonious script. Their moral crusade seems to be little more than a publicity stunt, but one that is at the expense of a much loved way of life.
chicken_badge
Gudni Bergsson
No but I hope he is in Rome tonight with his notebook.
Would be interesting to know what he writes when 50000 Lazio fans start monkey chanting him.
DHSF
Les Ferdinand
I bet he will come out with - the assaults justify why the use of the word Yid should be abolished from its use. I think he will come out with another nonsensical remark. He will say if spurs fans didnt use the term yid none of this would have happened. ****