Give Racists The Cold Shoulder

I see there is a very minor fuss going on in regards to a song sung by some Chelsea fans at Highbury on Sunday. Having condemned the racist chanting at Porto and Madrid it would be wrong to overlook this. I have to say that my suspicion is that this is being promoted by some Arsenal websites as an 'issue' because it provides a bit of ammunition to fire at Chelsea. This shouldn't be about 'Gosh, you've got worse racists than us' which sadly is what it seems to be for some people.

I'm guessing the song in question was probably not intended to be racist... it's a variation of an Arsenal song sung about Vieira, so I'd imagine it was designed as a wind up. That of course is me making excuses for my own fans, but I do believe the intention to racially abuse someone was not the motive. That said it is a song which is racist and if it's racist then it should not be sung, it's as simple as that. Personally I wouldn't sing it because I'm aware it has definite potential to offend racially, and whilst I'm always very keen to offend anyone at Arsenal, in any way possible, I don't include racial abuse in that.

A lot of Chelsea fans, football fans in general in fact, may not remember what going to a game in England was like not so long ago. Any black player would be abused and screamed at, bananas would be thrown on the pitch, and all kinds of really horrible stuff went on. One time I went with a black Chelsea fan to a game away in the North East -- I won't mention the team because it will seem like I'm singling them out -- and the hatred aimed at him was unbelievable. We needed police protection to walk to the ground because of the sheer number of fans who wanted to attack us -- and it wasn't just because we were Chelsea fans, although I'm sure that didn't help. Nor am I exaggerating; we had literally hundreds of fans surrounding us, spitting, screaming, throwing things -- and this was with police accompanying us!

It was a real eye opener for me because I'm white, and I've never experienced racial abuse. It was unbelievable, literally an experience that defied belief -- and obviously it had to have been immeasurably worse for the guy I was with. Although I have to say, to his great credit, he was very cool about it. It was me who was complaining loudly to the police, he just laughed in the faces of these 'fans' and made w-anchor signs at them. I'm sure the symbolism will not be lost on you.

Thankfully those days are gone, but in order to ensure that kind of thing doesn't start to creep back I think we can all do our little bit. If that means asking a fellow Chelsea fan you are sitting next to not to sing that version of the Vieira song then so be it. If you want to abuse Vieira -- and I think he must be abused as often as possible along with all his very unpleasant team-mates -- I can think of countless extremely offensive ways of doing so, none of them racial.

I'm aware this is slightly surreal, discussing what kind of abuse is acceptable, but I cannot emphasise how much I am all for abusing anything Arsenal, just not racially. I've also a strong suspicion that this particular 'issue' is only an 'issue' for a lot of white, middle class, Internet-using football fans with too much time on their hands. There are better and more effective ways of fighting racism than simply scrambling for the moral high ground just to score a few points.

by Blingo Starr