Should Tottenham Hotspur Force Their Fans to Stop the Yid Chants?

[deansaliba]

There has been a lot of coverage in the media lately about how Tottenham Hotspur should force their fans to stop calling themselves Yids, Yiddo's, or Yid Army as it is an offensive word. Tottenham has a rich Jewish history and their fans are very proudly of their Jewish history and happily call themselves by the aforementioned names in an act of defiance towards rival fans who like to ridicule them about their Jewish links.

What do you think? Should Tottenham fans be forced to stop this? Is calling a Jewish person a yid really offensive as calling a black person the 'N word'?

 

[Hedonologist]

I don't think they should try to stop it. Some of this Anti-racism stuff in football is really getting ridiculous, sort of like the list of banned words produced by Liverpool FC. There clearly is no ill intent and at the end of the day it's just a football chant.

 

[Denis Hard]

Why should they be stopped? If I'm not wrong the Jews spoke Yiddish at one time in the past [or they still do in some parts of the world. . .I don't know] so the fact that they call themselves Yids is more like just cultural identification.

As for the "N" word you mention, let's not forget that blacks use it frequently [even inner-city whites use it without offending the receiving party] but if someone who's not part of that group uses it then all hell breaks lose.

If the Spurs fans are OK with calling themselves Yids, they're free to do it. And still retain their rights to sue you if you call them that.

 

[deansaliba]

I don't think they should try to stop it. Some of this Anti-racism stuff in football is really getting ridiculous, sort of like the list of banned words produced by Liverpool FC. There clearly is no ill intent and at the end of the day it's just a football chant.

You are right, recently on a football show Robbie Fowler was ordered to apologise because he said that two players were fighting like a couple of girls. Nobody complained, but the BBC panicked and made him apologise.

I don't know if anyone has seen the words banned at Liverpool, here they are:

poof
fairy
midget
spaz
man up
You play like a girl

The only word I find offensive in that list is the word 'spaz' which is short for spastic.

I remember a few years ago at Millwall the board wanted to eliminate swearing and chanting among the Millwall fans, they threatened to throw fans out and ban them, every game 10,000-15,000 of us would DELIBERATELY swear and chant things that the board had banned, the police pointed out that they can't arrest 10,000-15,000 people in one go and the board climbed down.

One of the chants they wanted to ban was our infamous "No-One Likes Us" chant!

It is ridiculous.

 

[Chaos]

This is a very complicate problem that can have negative outcomes. The club doesn't have the power to make the supporters accept a rule because it's a democracy,and the word is not a racist one, and if they somehow manage to ban this chant they could loose supporters and the money they bring (buying tickets, t-shirts etc).