Did anyone else see the England-Serbia game in the U21 this summer. The Serbian fans started up with what defiantly sounded like racist taunts. Within a few seconds the England fans started singing ENGLAND ENGLAND ENGLAND..... They drowned them out. I thought it was a great moment seeing as English football had to deal with their own issues and then to stand up for their guys. As I said in the other thread I just think its great that Beasly scored the winner and shut the bastards up.
On the note of Beasley scoring... Has anyone found a link of his goal? If so, could you please post it. Thank you much.
Well, to clarify, the Serbs made racist chants which were not drowned out by England. The PA announcer came on and asked them to stop. They continued, but to a lesser extent. After that Serbia were warned and the referee for the final game (Holland-Serbia) was told to call it off if Serbia did the racist chants again. I was at some of the games. Even before the Serbian incident, anti-racist stuff was everywhere. On the tickets, on the billboards, all the mascots wore anti-racist t-shirts, an announcement was made before every game that officials would not tolerate racism, etc. Afterwards, UEFA said they didn't have the power to kick Serbia out of the tournament. Serbia was fined 16k pounds and England was fined 2k pounds. It should be remembered that around the same time, UEFA fined Denmark, forced them to forfeit their match versus Sweden, play games behind closed doors, and forced them to play 250 miles away from Copenhagen, all because ONE fan ran on the pitch and tried to hit the ref. For my money, UEFA and FIFA are obstructing efforts to clamp down on racism. They are all talk, no action.
why do people have such a hard time accepting that THIS is exactly what I'm advocating! And sorry, Bal'more, you seem to have totally missed my point. What you have written is eloquent and impassioned and an excellent advocation for suppression of race inspired hate-speech. And after we've done that... we can define hate-speech as anything that makes people feel uncomfortable. Or unloved. Or singles them out as differenet from anyone else... OH WAIT.. we already do that, dont we! That is unless the speaker is dressed in a designer bedsheet and has a towel wrapped around his head and is calling "joos" the pig muck peoples of the earth.... THEN it's justifiable as 'free-speech' Are you starting to get the drift?
I have to agree with 'fog here, and I'm the one who posted this to begin with. The importance of free speech is exactly that it protects offensive or unpopular speech. There is no need to protect inoffensive speech because that speech would never be threatened. Once you start regulating what people can say, even if we all agree that it's a horrible thing like hate speech, who's to say where those regulations will stop? I hate that this happened to Beasley. I think it's horrible and I think there's no place in the world for racism. I genuinely ache for a day when it no longer exists. But I do not think there should be institutionalized regulation of such speech. That is the road to a society where all speech is regulated.
Thank you... I'm sure NONE of you agreed with what happened. And it's hard to get the head around this sometimes. But do you know what articulated this for me? Sean Hannity, of all people. The same guy who makes my teeth ache and who Don Imus constantly belittled and made fun of, was the ONLY mainstream conservative guy who was outraged that Imus was fired for what he said. And I started thinking... he's right! When imus said what he did, the proper response was widespread and universal ridicule of him and the premise under which he said it. And that is the answer here... NOT sanctions and more laws telling us how we must act... rather SOCIAL ridicule and shunning by our peers. Not physical violence but social pressure to rethink attitudes. What do you REALLY think changed the southern attitudes to blacks? As much redneck jokes as anything. Not 100% effective but as good or better than any law or edict.
Talk about missing the point! FFC Baltimore is NOT talking about suppression of free speech, and he's not talking about the USA, 'fog. Every club in EUFA has pledged to penalize and bar fans who consistently use race baiting as part of their "support." Similarly, each national team is also pledged to do the same. EUFA and FIFA step in when the club or the national team side does little or nothing to honor the pledge that they have made. This is completely legal and has precedent even in the states where players are not allowed to gamble on the sports they play, even though gambling is not illegal and others may engage in it. The problem is that in many countries and especially so with many club sides, defiling "the other" is part of the team culture. Witness AS Romas use of the NAZI salute and Beasley's own Rangers Catholic baiting. This is something that we DON'T have in the United States, 'fog, since our professional teams are not drawn from working men's sporting clubs that, over time grew up to be Real Madrid, Manchester United, and FC Kaiserslautern. Many of these clubs were, at their inception anti-semitic or were founded on racial exclusionary policies. And this was fine, until sponsorship and global television came along. The word was out: stop all forms of hooliganism, including racism, or you're out of the club that gives you 95% of your money. Almost all clubs in Central Europe and Italy don't want to conceive of enforcing such a rule, since many of their supporters clubs are out and out gangs and club owners would prefer that their hatred and violence be directed towards clubs other than their own. 'fog, we [and I think I can include FFCBaltimore in this "we"] are talking about an institutionalized form of racism that we don't see all that often in the states. And we're not talking about suppression of anything, just the need for EUFA and FIFA to enforce the rules they themselves mandated and that the clubs and national associations agreed to abide by.
ANd Don, let me go back to the 'big picture' again. This is as you say a by-product of classism. Where does class-ism come from? The exclusion from what is seen as proper society. The reason we dont have it as much in the US is because we admire those who have made themselves something from nothing or the classic Horatio Alger story. We also dont accept anti-social behavior from either rich or poor, at least we dont as a nominal point. But as outlined in the Imus example and the attitude BEHIND what he said... Think Bill Cosby's viewpoint.. it gets really hard to draw the line unless we ridicule anti-social behavior from anyone. Now again, Tito put the lid on and much of the ills of the region instead of going away only simmered until he died and the pressure was released. Believe me... I'm one of those who at a young age learned my lesson the hard way, through personal humiliation and embarrassment. But it wasnt by having my ass whipped or any other 'punishment' it was by having my dad haul me up to the family of the boy I'd taunted, though I meant nothing 'cruel' about it, and issue a personal apology. It was then I got the message. And later when I was on liberty WITH a black shipmate and I heard it from someone else, was just a reinforcement.
Well I was mostly hung up on FFC in Baltimore's saying, in which he said exactly that. He wrote a very interesting and intelligent post, but I can't get past that. If we're talking about FIFA and UEFA, which are self-regulating and non-political bodies that's one thing. It's another to bring government into it.
This may not be an appropriate time to be glib, but of all the subjects I thought would be controversial, saying "Racism is despicable" never was one! Just kidding, I'm sure we all agree on that. And I agree with much of what everyone is saying, but not all of what anyone has said.
That's right... but FIFA and UEFA ARE seen, by the fan, as the 'Government of Football'. So, whatever action is taken had better be to the exact point and address the exact offense and the exact offenders. I've said elsewhere I am totally against long-term sanctions as international diplomacy, i'm against long term sanctions in this as well.
FFCBaltimore and Don... "they fought like warrior poets. they fought like scotsman" Have no idea what premise that has in the conversation, but I decided to lighten the mood a bit.
I am that transparent. Touche' my good sir you have foiled my plans for world domination once again. (Waving my fist in the air) Blast You Don!!!
