The fine line between hating ‘the filth’ and ‘religious vilification’.

Homophobes and Racists rejoice! God botherers, zealots and barrow pushers unite! If you’ve got an opposing belief or a bubbling hatred and you want to pick on a minority group, it’s open season. So bleach the bedsheets and hastily assemble a cross or appropriate effigy. Call a spade a spade. Get on Twitter and do a ‘Stephanie Rice’. The days of political correctness are officially over.

We are currently experiencing a bigotry explosion.

And before you start turning your heads towards Cronulla, like all good redneck schools of thought, this one is coming from the south. The deep south.

As someone who hails from Melbourne and has been subjected to levels of abuse that have been increasing in frequency and intensity throughout the year, I feel like something must be said, lest our acceptance of one type of abuse blazes a trail for others.

It may sound flippant, but Magpie bashing is getting waaaay out of hand.

Anti-Collingwood fever has gripped Victoria and is spreading through osmosis across the rest of the country. Turn on your radio, your tv, open your Facebook page or newspaper, and you’ll find it, as bold as brass, brazen as you like.

So what’s wrong with a little bit of banter between supporters at the pointy end of the season? Absolutely nothing as long as it’s all in fun. This on the other hand seems to getting just a little bit out of control.

Take this little gem, from the wall of the Facebook Group “STOP MEDICAL RESEARCH ON ANIMALS USE COLLINGWOOD SUPPORTERS” and I quote “F**K SWAN ANDD F**K COLLINGWOOD!! YOU NEED MORE THAN COLORED IN ARMS AND A F*GG*TY NAME LIKE ‘DANE’ TO WIN A BROWNLOW!!…”

Or this one, “Can’t wait to hear them squeal like pigs when they lose on saturday.”

While a little less blue, less caps locky, and slightly more grammatically advanced, the second comment does seem to mirror the pervasive feeling among the greater community.

It’s aggressive: “I h8 Collingwood!” It’s passive aggressive: “I don’t care as long as the Collingwood filth don’t win!!” It’s even instructional “Suck sh*t pie fans!!!” But it’s there and it’s growing.

As Chris Judd so nobly pointed out when he was awarded his second Brownlow medal on Monday night, football is a sideshow to the things that matter in life. However, when you barrack for a team with one-eyed passion, it becomes a little more than that. It’s been said before that football is a religion and the more you think about it, the harder it is to argue against.

There are many Gods/religions (teams) to choose from. They all have varying levels of success and popularity. Following some of them requires unflinching levels of belief and blind faith. And for some people, especially those who are a few teeth short of a mouthful, their passion towards their side borders on other side of extremist fanaticism. Maybe some of them have been promised things by their WOGs (Wives Or Girlfriends) if their side wins the Holy Grail? Or maybe it’s just that their team is a surrogate family for the family around them that dresses in another religion’s clash strip.

If we are to accept that football is indeed a religion, then surely we must also accept that it is inappropriate to vilify someone on the grounds of their religion.  Collingwood supporters can’t help the way they dress, act, spit when they talk, rant, pray and decorate their houses – their religion demands it of them. When you are born into a Collongwood household, or become a Born Again Pie at some stage throughout your life, you are embracing a lifestyle of agony and ecstasy.

Is this any less significant than someone who chooses to adopt a new god or sexual preference. Imagine growing up in a household of Essendon supporters when deep down inside you know in your heart that you’re a Hawk? The mental anguish would be life altering.

So instead of abusing the next person you see wearing black and white, try offering them sympathy instead of your spittle. You could even do it in a patronizing way if that makes easier for you. If that feels like too much of a stretch, simply cross the road.

Generating hatred gets us nowhere. Whether your target is black, white or black and white.

Comments

  1. Rather than quote Millwall, as I did on an earlier thread I will simply repeat the car sticker that Collingwood sent to its members a few years ago. This words of the sticker are my message to all Collingwood haters. “We don’t care what you think.”

  2. I don’t care what you think of the mistakes I make writing too quickly either, but the penultimate sentance should actually read “The words of the sticker are my message to all Collingwood haters.”

  3. I’m a little confused Chris.

    I’m sure that charming title ‘The Filth’ is how the Magpies refer to us Carlton folk (cf. various Floreat Pica reports).

    I can’t ever remember it being used the other way very much. Maybe I need to get out more?

  4. Sorry JB. I’ve been copping so many pieist taunts over the last few weeks, that was the only one I could use without replacing letters with ampersands and an asterix. Still, it further illustrates the point. Kind of. In a way. I’ll have a chat with my sub-editor and see if I can set him straight.
    Chris T

  5. Perhaps not this weekend John.

    The carnage may, I said may as I am not convinced of the apocalypse just yet, be like the blind stumbling around the streets being tongue lashed by Triffids. (Tooffless and roofless)

    Best not watch the telly on Saturday arvo. It could be like the night light show.

    Then again Saints are beatified because they perform miracles to the benefit of humanity. We may be saved.

    We could all pray to Mary MacKillop. She was a good Aussie sheila. (Oops, more political incorrectness)

  6. Perhaps I should have said ‘Good Aussie Shearer’

  7. Sydney Malakellis says

    To great the great Oscar Wilde upon his disdain for organised religion: “COLLINGWOOD SUCK! NYAH NYAH NYAH!!! SUUCK ON DAT YA DOOSHEBAG!!!! LULZ”

  8. Or Winston Churchill “I may be drunk, but when I wake up tomorrow I will be sober. You, on the other hand, will still barrack for Collingwood.”

  9. To refer to Churchill again in his exchange with a female Laborite.

    F: If I was you’re wife I’d poison you.

    C: If I was your husband, I’d take it.

    Let’s hope that Pie haters do what Churchill should have and honour that committment.

  10. Hmmmphhh! We don’t want your pity!
    Hate us! We don’t care!
    I’m getting used to copping this shizz.
    I used to hate it, only now I snob it off, it adds fuel to my fire!
    GO THE MAGGIES!!!!!!!!!!

    Danni

  11. Chris Taylor says

    Way to be Danni. Way to be.

    Have a great lunch tomorrow guys. Wish I could be there.

  12. I’ll admit, I’ve succumbed to the odd Collingwood jibe over the years, but it’s usually in good humour and in reponse to a Colliwobbler friend who’s just laid into my Cattas.

    Now, though, I’m throwing all my allegiance behind Collingwood as I’m too disgusted to be part of the other cohort.

    FB groups/events such as:
    “THE DAY COLLINGWOOD CHOKE”
    “MASS EVACUATION OF THE COUNTRY IF COLLINGWOOD WIN THE GRAND FINAL”
    and
    “It’s not St Kilda vs Collingwood, it’s Australia vs Collingwood”
    are just taking things WAAAAY too far.

    We’ve reached the point when it isn’t even funny anymore.

    I say, stand strong, Pies fans – you’ll have the last laugh when Maxwell and Malthouse hold that cup aloft on Saturday.

    GO THE MIGHTY PIES!!!

  13. Gotta admit I did like “STOP MEDICAL RESEARCH ON ANIMALS USE COLLINGWOOD SUPPORTERS” but have refrained from joining the more violently worded groups etcccc.
    I can admit to knowing some good sorts of people who happen to barrack for Collingwood.

  14. I’m a Brownlow Medalist LOL jk i’m Dane Swan.

    Haha that one’s alright, but Facebook is beginning to get flooded with these sort of groups.

  15. Magpie fans drown out Saints skipper
    Will Brodie and Scott Spits
    September 24, 2010 – 1:37PM

    Chanting Collingwood fans have drowned out an interview with St Kilda captain Nick Riewoldt at the end of the grand final parade today in Melbourne.

    A massive crowd gathered in central Melbourne for the annual grand final eve event, but it was clear that it the majority of them were Magpie fans when the Collingwood chant went up during the Saints skipper’s brief interview on the steps of Treasury Place.
    Riewoldt appeared angered by the slight.

    Riewoldt started his interview by noting that there were a “few more boos this year”. But shortly later he could barely be heard.
    “Nice sign of respect there,” he responded.

    Fans often make a racket during such speeches, but few have ever been as loud as the rowdy Magpie fans, who rendered Riewoldt’s words inaudible.

    – hhehehehhehehehheeeh!!!!!! :) ;) :D

  16. Haha Danni, you’re such a babe

  17. What about the Kama bit Danni? (#15)

    Irreverent behaviour infront of such a diety as the halo’d half forward is sure to have hit the airwaves.

    It has probably already gone off to Dips in Tibet and is is being processed by the Chinese ‘pseudo Jellied Llama’ for action tomorrow.

    Watch out for Aurora like flickering in the sky tonight.

    The reverse pulse from the top of the world may even be strong enough to set off a Colliwobble (just when we had all thought we had got through the week unscathed some idiot has to mention that word) of such a high level on the Richter Scale to have the whole town shacking by tomorrow.

  18. LOL, Danni, YOU started the chant, didn’t you?

    We all know your opinion on the Blond Princess :P

  19. But they make it so easy to hate them with their overblown superiority complex. :)

    At least Saints fans have a (tenous) grip on reality and if not a sense of humour.

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