Y-Word: Why the Leniency?

Debate surrounding ‘the Y-word’ has this week swirled, reflecting growing public dissent at the prospect of this controversial terminology continuing to be used.

Discussion is centred around London football, with better education on the matter a product of greater focus on one of the game’s final frontiers, which has been sharper and more concentrated since Jewish Chelsea fan and celebrated comedian David Baddiel created a short film three years ago titled The Y-Word, highlighting the widespread use of the highly emotive term across the majority of clubs in the capital and in some cases beyond, with the subject brought to the fore by recent Football Association and Government intervention.

It was poignant that Prime Minister David Cameron felt able to use the word ‘Y**’ during his statement addressing the issues surrounding its use. After Tottenham Hotspur fans voiced their concerns over reported clampdowns set to be enforced, not only on those proponents of its use as a catalyst for violence but also on those who have been victims of said antagonism and sought to take back the word in order to diffuse its potentially explosive undertones, Cameron declared:

“There’s a difference between Spurs fans self-describing themselves as Y*** and someone calling someone a Y** as an insult. You have to be motivated by hate. Hate speech should be prosecuted – but only when it’s motivated by hate.”

Baddiel has reacted by insisting that the proposals are "impractical" to say the least while raising a number of other crucial points. Meanwhile, the Society for Black Lawyers Chairman, Peter Herbert, has questioned the Prime Minister's legal standpoint by suggesting his comments "legitimize anti-Semitism", with the quotes also being condemned as both "an insult to anybody's intelligence" by Herbert's colleague David Neita and "ludicrous" by Race for Sport.

Cameron's obvious attempt to prove his point by freely incorporating the word whilst proposing a reasoned argument in a non-aggressive manner is a sensible and logical one, as is often shown by the use of words denoting sexuality, such terms having been reclaimed by those victims of their use in a derogatory manner; the word ‘gay’, for instance, is no more offensive when casually referring to another person than the word ‘Jewish’.

However, one wonders whether Mr. Cameron would have been so comfortable employing a word associated with race, for example, to illustrate his point. Replace ‘the Y-word’ with any that is deemed abhorrent by even the smallest demographic with regard to race or ethnicity and consider whether the leader of our nation would have seized the opportunity to display its place in structured conversation so readily as he has here.

“We don’t want your hooligans in our sport, Prime Minister” said former Football Association Secretary Ted Croker to then-Head of State Margaret Thatcher in 1985, referring to a problem that had manifested itself in football but was borne of problems prevalent throughout the population at that time. Perhaps the use of these terms remains too easily tolerated amidst the flawed notion that it in some way forms part of the football experience and this dangerous attitude certainly needs to be eradicated, but is this not also true of wider society?

“Hate” has never been far from our country’s football grounds, as punter after angry punter files through the terraces to release a week’s worth of aggrievance onto those better paid on the pitch below. The sport’s tribal nature further contributes to an atmosphere of hostility deemed conducive to the unique level of drama and emotion enjoyed while in thrall to the ever-deepening layers of our nation’s favourite pastime.

There is a Chelsea chant that talks of a “team we all adore” and how the “boys in blue and white…fight with all our might” but then becomes gradually more unwelcoming as it lists the club’s rivals: “Bring on Tottenham or the Arsenal, bring on the Scousers by the score, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Tottenham are a load of y***”, at which point it then breaks off into savage, snarling, unadulterated belligerence against Spurs and their renowned ties with the Jewish community.

In much the same way, the Crystal Palace tribute to “the boys in red and blue” to the same tune arrives at this juncture then morphs into a damning indictment of the chastity of former Chairman Ron Noades’ mother. The bile may be a different colour but it carries the same rancid odour that comes with the combined effects of those two most poisonous of spirits: fear and ignorance, as do songs about Auschwitz, or even Hillsborough, Heysel or Munich.

Sociological issues aside, this is, above all, a matter of language and the nuances that arise as a result of increased cultural development and integration. John Terry’s infamously less-than-charming quip to Anton Ferdinand in 2011 was met with outrage, with that which he eventually admitted to uttering drawing contempt not only for its content but more for the intent driving it.

It is ironic that the word ‘black’ is the one that was the main cause for unrest amongst those who witnessed its enunciation yet was the only word that was permitted to be transcribed in full by those authorities reporting the event with rules in this area.

In much the same way, this situation, where people feel able if not compelled to speak out on the subject and its place in footballing arenas, has only come about since a mercurial Frenchman, Eric Cantona, kicked a spectator in response to being subjected to explicit xenophobia at Selhurst Park in 1995, despite years of black players suffering sustained abuse of a far more sinister nature without lashing out. Regardless of repeated calls for regulatory reform from black professionals past and present, it took the actions of Cantona for serious preventative measures to be taken against the airing of prejudices inside stadia, with Lets Kick Racism out of Football formed as an organisation less than two years later, having only been classed as a movement up until that stage and, even then, only since 1993.

The word ‘black’ is by and large viewed as hate-free when used as Cameron did the Y-word on Tuesday. However, when flanked by its two asterisked friends ‘f***ing’ and ‘c***’, it without question offers an altogether different resonance due to its desired impact. What is interesting is that Terry’s defence – that he was using the language to incredulously inquire as to whether Ferdinand believed him to have employed it in the first place - though implausible, could not be disproven by the Courts and yet the FA still saw fit to impose a punishment by arguing that they required a "lesser burden of proof".

Luis Suarez, by contrast, was not taken to trial but was nonetheless dealt with in the most severe manner available, with the context of his take on ‘the N-word’ felt to be significant, despite the Liverpool striker’s defence that the word in said form has an alternative meaning in his native Uruguay.

Had Cameron casually included this language to form part of his point he would have been denounced as someone with no regard for what is appropriate and taken to task for his lack of sensitivity. And that’s in a world without Twitter.

Why, then, should Cameron be allowed to use the Y-word? Why are newspapers permitted to print it in full when they do not publish so-called ‘swear words’? And, perhaps most importantly, no matter the reason for its existence, why would Spurs fans want to continue to use this horrendous word, with all of its implications, once it is finally completely outlawed from the game; what does it achieve then?

The White Hart Lane faithful may feel harshly adjudged as the focus of the investigation appears to be on them, whereas the problem would seem to lie elsewhere. But, at the root of it all is the following question: If, by some miracle, the word was totally stamped out in time for kick-off tonight against Tromso IL, would the Spurs fans still choose to exercise their self-issued entitlement to use it? If the answer is yes, it is hard to imagine a set of circumstances, miraculous or otherwise, that would not lead to the game being right back where it started by the interval.