David Baddiel simply does not get it. Actually he refuses to get it. Listening to him drone on about the issue is withering.
If this debate hadn’t reached the point of exposure whereby the FA and the Prime Minister have got involved, one could be forgiven for thinking his purpose here was to redefine the word ‘obtuse.’
Baddiel says himself that all the hatemongering and abuse comes from supporters of teams other than Spurs. Yet he refuses to see that it isn’t the word, it is those hurling it like that; to cause harm, that are the ones to blame.
The English language is littered with words that can be deployed in a sinister way, with the aid of cruel intent. If we start banning words that can be used in a bad way we’re on the path to book burning.
Look, if there was a outbreak, a twisted fad, call it what you will, of people chanting ‘You’ve all got cancer!’ at football matches, what possible argument would there be for the unilateral banning of the word cancer? It doesn’t make any sense.
I initially believed that Baddiel meant well in all this. That he was a Jew that didn’t like a word that was absolutely used as a term of derision, to attack Jews some time ago. I genuinely believed that.
But now, he has revealed himself as a plummy pseud who’s completely uninterested in thinking about who is actually using this word and to what end.
Intent and context are anathema to Baddiel.
Baddiel refuses to even discuss the fact that a very vocal element of Chelsea fans (there are others, but Chelsea are the market leaders) delight in singing songs about Auschwitz, making hissing noises to represent concentration camp gas chambers etc. He simply will not factor this in. Sure, he mentions it, but he doesn’t care to dwell upon it, because it pulls the rug from underneath his blinkered crusade.
In Baddiel’s mind, Spurs fans are a bunch of predominantly non Jews causing pain and suffering to an entire faith by giving a licence to racists. Eh?
Of all the anti Semitic vitriol I’ve encountered over the years, I can’t remember one instance of Chelsea fans using the word Yid. When not throwing coins, hissing or merrily singing about concentration camps, the preferred weapon of choice is Jew and all the the horrible race hate variants thereof. Dirty Jew this, fakin Jew (insert nasty word of own choice here) that.
So if Baddiel would have us believe that a word can trigger faith hate, then what else can? Will the sight of bagels for sale result in understandably uncontrolled choruses of ‘Where’s your foreskin gone?’ Okay, we’ll remove bagels from sale.
Could spotting a gentleman sitting in the stands wearing a yarmulke quite rightly cause banks of fans to point and shout ‘What the fakinel is that?’
Fair enough. We’ll ban all head wear just in case.
No. Of course that’s utter nonsense. Those are stupid and far fetched examples of how vile people might seize upon anything that was going in order to be offensive.
The root of this issue is not language, but the use of it.
https://audioboo.fm/boos/1606789-how-offensive-is-the-word-yid
Preview of Tromsø IL after lunch.
