Scum of the earth, unite!

Late last year, I read a post on another skeptic’s blog which annoyed me. It had nothing to do with skepticism. It was about how pleased he was that his preferred footballing troupe had beaten what he called “the scum”. It was this term that annoyed me.

(I’m not going to link to the specific post because I don’t think it’s relevant. It’s an example of a wider trend and I don’t want to pick on anyone. Arguably I’m cutting out the opposing arguments by doing so but then he can link it himself if he reads this and wants to.)

Obviously I’m well aware that “scum” is a pretty common term for your footballing rivals. And in this case he was insulting the opposing players, not their fans, although this is why that doesn’t make it OK:

I just can’t see how calling Ipswich Town and/or their fans “scum” is any different from using a racial or religious slur, except that it’s less imaginative. In principle there’s nothing to stop you choosing what football team you support, but that’s true of religion and we all know that in practice you can’t really choose either. You get invested in one in childhood, and that’s generally it for life. There are people who will pick whichever is most popular or successful, but they’re widely agreed to be missing the point.

I would hope that any sport worth following would be interesting enough on its own merits without having to pretend that everyone in Ipswich is a massive cunt so you can convince yourself that anything of any genuine meaning or importance has happened on a football pitch since 1914.

When Ron Atkinson called Marcel Desailly as a “lazy, fucking thick nigger”, Jimmy Hill said

In that context, you wouldn't think that words like nigger were particularly insulting: it would be funny. Without meaning to insult any black men, it's us having fun. What about jokes about my long chin? I mean, nigger is black - so we have jokes where we call them niggers because they're black. Why should that be any more of an offence than someone calling me chinny?

While I agree that calling him “Chinny” is no cleverer than calling Desailly a nigger, neither qualifies as a “joke” to anybody who understands how to construct a joke. It’ll serve the same purpose as a joke, in certain circumstances, but that doesn’t make it one any more than it makes my lap a banqueting table. Quite rightly, nobody bought it and Atkinson resigned. I don’t see how this is different, except that ‘scum’ is as common now as ‘nigger’ was in the fifties. ‘Scum’ is perhaps the worst thing I can think of you can call someone without actually knowing anything about them, and here it is being applied to people just based on where they’re from. I think that’s a very ugly aspect of football culture that is very probably putting people off getting into it, and I think it’s a downright vindictive thing to say while celebrating a win.

I think that just because it’s accepted doesn’t mean it’s OK, I think that fans of a skeptical bent should be more self-critical about these things, and I think that “banter” implies a level of wit well beyond chanting “we all hate Ipswich scum” for an hour and a half.