Racism in Sports

BOC, very good post there, as usual. The problem is that people will debate what sports fans do, assuming that the sports fan thought thoroughly about what they were going to say/sing before they said/sung it. A group of blokes, pissed and drugged up, don't think before they act. That's the whole reason. And if people think they can take beer out of football, they are kidding themselves.

 

I think it's tribalism of Europe in action.

You have it on the inside of European nations - agitation between cities and regions of one and the same nation. Toned down a bit; the motive is clear, however. One step up there is (sometimes bitter) contempt between European nations even now. Into this enter those who arent of European descend *gasp*, easily identified by the colour of their skin.

Most of the time the social atavist in us is suppressed, or kept to a minimal (but necessary ) level. However when contests are upon us... woe, the tribes go to war again. Bets are off, people get frazzled in the head and one is to witness all kinds of niceties (you should see the tantrums of our Dutch neighbors for instance hehehe).

It would seem current doctrine holds that perfectly acceptable, as long as one plays fair and doesnt aim at someone of a different "race". The uncouth masses dont care tho.

Finally, this isnt a European phenomenon, and others are always well advised to observe what is happening on their own doorstep. Racism, tribalism, 'us vs. them' etc is omnipresent, and it takes on many guises.

 

Felinoid: By your logic, I should be restricted from using "nigger"... because of my colour.

Interesting, isn't it?

 

No. White people shouldn't say it because we have misused it in the past. We said 'nigger' discriminatorily, and we shouldn't use it anymore because when we say it it has negative connotations. You sound surprised that Felinoid suggested you can't use it because you are white, implying that the word 'nigger' is not racial. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if I were you, it is all about race.

 

Yes, it is interesting. It's also interesting that Affirmative Action and the like fight discrimination with discrimination in the other direction. Sure, it works in the short run, which is a good thing, but it doesn't address the underlying problem, which is a bad thing, and may even aggravate it, which would be even worse. But this is going in another direction altogether...

 

That's rubbish, Saber. If it is offensive when 'whites' use it, then it should be the same when anyone uses it, otherwise you are just creating even more divisions, my colonial cousin.

 

And now we come into the realm of the friendly insult (between friends) vs. the aggressive insult (between strangers). But the problem remains that even a close white friend likely will not be allowed to use the word 'nigger', while a similarly close black friend will.

 

BA, Give me a sentence in context that a white person could use the word 'nigger' in that is not offensive.

 

Exactly my point. The word nigger is offensive, whether spoken by white people, black people, yellow people, green people, purple people...

An offensive word is an offensive word and should not be uttered by John, Jim or Jack. To take it any other way is double-standards and creates division.

 

BA didn't answer that, but I will. As a friendly appellation, in the same manner that black people use it. As in, "Hey, my nigga, what's up?"

 

There is no answer to it as far as I could see. Calling a black man a 'nigger' is the same as using a derogatory term for a white person, and I for one wouldn't really like that. There is no need to treat anyone differently purely because of the colour of their skin. That's no wannabe mother Teresa crap ( ), it's just fact.

 

Ah, but the real test is whether it can make the jump into common usage. A Native American calling an Asian "my nigga" in a friendly way would be great to see.

It may be looked on as derogatory now, but words are malleable. And really, I think it's better to make a word mean something nice for everyone than to simply bar its usage from everyone because it's offensive. It could even be a step toward ending racism if all the racist words (nigger, cracker, chink, etc.) could be turned into something nice that could apply to anybody.

 

Such a thing happening is fantasy though. There are so many people who get offended by the simplest things that offensive words will never be used in every day talk.

It would be nice, don't get me wrong, just highly unlikely IMO .

 

Oh, sorry BA, I thought you were refuting my point that white people shouldn't say nigger. I do agree that it creates a double standard if one race is allowed to say something another isn't, but not many people right now take offense if a black person says 'nigger.' Eh, I doubt it will chang, because as both you and Fel said, its unlikely because everyone finds offense at something.

Or we could all just use excellent linguistics, and forget about using slang and expletives and the like.

...



Hah, like that could happen.

 

Well, remember the word "queer"?

Besides, I'm almost certain I've heard an Asian call his Asian friends "niggas" of course it was in a specific context (friendship and an urbanized/pseudourbanized environment).

 

When I call my best (male) friend "my bitch" in public, everyone thinks it's funny. If I called my wife a bitch, she would probably slap me. And I'd deserve it. Context often changes the meaning of a word. Calling a woman a "bitch" is different than calling a man the same thing since it invokes a completely different meaning depending on the gender of the recipient of the epithet. The word "nigger" works in exactly the same manner. Keep in mind that white men had been calling black men "niggers" until @1960.....and still do in parts of the south (like Pensacola, for example). White people were allowed to call black peopole "niggers" for over 100 years. They've earned the right to own that word.

 

The black people have earned that right, or the white people?

Yes, but it changed in the opposite way. It used to mean weird or strange, and it changed into a derogatory term for homosexuals. What was your point with that statement?

 

Actually, the point I was trying to make was that because of the LGBT rights movement, the word "queer" has been, at least to an extent, been "reclaimed" as a less derogatory term. (If you will remember the Simpsons episode with Homer and the gay guy John.)

Indeed, you could say that using the word "queer" to degrade homosexuals wasn't much of a reinventing of the word, because "queer" meaning "strange" or "odd" seems to emphasize the difference of homosexuals and further divide people along lines of sexual orientation.

 

Here at Spain, racist 'chants' are something common; last year, Samuel Eto'o suffered lots of racist acts in football games, people started to shout at him "monkey", so after some games, whenever he scored a goal, he celebrated doing 'the monkey'. So many people (including the media) believed that Eto'o was provoking the fans doing that. This year, fans shouted 'negro de mierda' at him, that means sh**y nigger; he was so offended after 3 o 4 games that he wanted to leave the field in the middle of the match against Valencia, for some reason, people didn't say anything against Ronaldinho or Rikjaard, both part of the Barça team, or against Kluivert who plays in Valencia. Authorities warned against the racist acts so teams will get fined if something like that happens again.
Somehow, fans always shout to players from the opposite team, like BOC said, you never hear anything to the local players, at least here; for some reason, Eto'o reactions, made fans shouts worst.
Madrid fans are known to be hard, they even shout their own players when the team doesn't play well enough, and they never applaud to the opposite team players. The last derby (Real Madrid-Barça) was something special; Eto'o got his 'african monkey' shouts, buy just him; Ronaldinho has one of the best games of his life, and after the second goal (after dribbling 4 players and the goalkeeper) every Real Madrid fan stand in ovation, applaudin him for about 5 minutes. So why they just mocked Eto'o and applauded Ronaldinho? By the way, the ONLY other player who those fan applauded before was Maradona when he played for Barça.
What it seems to be clear here is that fans mock the player who mock the fans, because you only hear the trouble with Eto'o, and you hear him always complaining in the media. I guess that fans would forget about him whenever he forget about some shouts.
When Samuel Eto'o signed with Barça he said:
"I used to live like a 'nigger'; now I'm going to run like a 'nigger' to live like a white."