May 30, 2014
This is both wildly insensitive and fucking hilarious. It’s also British football in a nutshell. The game is centuries old and goes back to one parochial mob of villagers bringing an inflated pig’s bladder to their neighbors and requesting “a game,” which is Olde English for “Let’s fight.” To take that out of it is to kill the whole experience. Violence may scare the upper classes but the poor still enjoy it. It’s fun. Banning hate isn”t going to create an environment where minorities feel safe. Having minorities join the game both on and off the field is the only way they can win. Whether it’s police dogs or academic dogma, forcing people to accept each other is cheating.
It’s hard to say where sports will go in the next ten years but it’s not looking good for Britain, and America is showing similar signs of mental extortion. The hissing scousers have issued a vocabulary list to themselves banning the use of words like “Half-caste,” “handicapped,” “That’s gay,” and “Don”t be a woman.” Millionaire footballer Yaya Touré has become so paranoically convinced his team’s owners are racist, he’s considering quitting Manchester City because they were not excited enough about his birthday. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has also noticed the onslaught of attention complaining gets you and responded to the Sterling controversy by claiming that “more whites believe in ghosts than they do in racism.” When Jackie Robinson’s 50th anniversary came around, instead of celebrating the colorblind enthusiasm of sports, we were mired in kvetching about how little has changed.
This is a depressing trend but there are still some sane ones left. A few years ago, when black hockey player Wayne Simmonds was asked about a banana that was thrown on the rink, he said it wasn”t a big deal and he just wants to “focus on playing hockey.” He should have eaten it, as Brazilian soccer player Dani Alves did in Barcelona last month. A few weeks ago, when black hockey player P.K. Subban helped destroy the Boston Bruins in a crucial game, a few fans made some racist remarks on Twitter but they were soon drowned out by non-racist Bruins fans condemning the remarks. This is the way you handle prejudice and ignorance in the game, not more rules. The fans ultimately have it under control.
Political correctness has nothing to do with equality or creating a safe environment for women and minorities. It is a tool the upper classes use to control the lower classes. This is especially evident in British football and now that private conversations are being recorded and the president is complaining about competition, it’s only a matter of time before they ruin everybody’s fun. We can let them tell us how to think or we can knock them out with a head butt. It’s your call.
