Pretty ironic since Marvell Wynne may well have had the most privileged upbringing in the entire league.
That's your choice. Others disagree. That plain and simple, and considering how loud the chant was I'd say the majority disagree with you. It isn't racist, it's been chanted for many years. In fact it was chanted at the USOC game at UMKC last year, he heard it and laughed. I'm not even sure of the origin of it, but I know the player doesn't mind, so I'm cool with it if he is.
Not sure what the duration something has been around has to do with it being offensive or not ... Seriously what are the lyrics, it feels like more than a few of us have no clue what is being spoken about.
I remember it happening at a game when we played them, and Marvell laughing but didn't remember it at the time. I know it wasn't intended w/any racist undertones, but didn't help spread it because the same thought ran through my mind. 99% of the people there would've had no clue.
Yeah, the fact that posters are unwilling to post the lyrics makes their claim that they're inoffensive pretty difficult to believe.
This isn't directed only at Ben, but I'm using his post for a jumping-off point. Did you think that perhaps the laugh wasn't one of humor but rather bemusement? Perhaps instead of thinking that it's funny, Wynne was thinking "Wow... These hicks can't think of anything better to do than this stereotypical, racist chant? Well, at least they're not shouting ape sounds or throwing bananas...."
From what I remember I didn't get that impression from him laughing. It seemed pretty genuine and there was a frivolity and relaxed funny attitude when it was sung that didn't make it seem the same. It was just one of those crazy USOC games where silly songs spring forth all the time when you're so close to the players. It didn't spread last night because it didn't have any context, was pretty random in the flow of the game, and made people a little uncomfortable. Most of us on here know the people who started the song, and know it wasn't intended that way, but like the "Ai Yay Yay, Someone stole my Sombrero" song, the perception ends up being more important. Let's move on. Omar Bravo asked Sean and Hector tonight to try and do more to help get the rest of the stadium going as best we can. I think everyone in the Cauldron wants the whole stadium to be involved. I think a lot of the rest of the stadium wants to be involved. I also want it to be real and with the focus on the game, not just making noise for noise's sake. If we could just get 1/3 of the stadium to routinely applaud good play in midfield, the atmosphere would be 200% better. Bob from the Yardbirds suggested rather than a timed 20th minute thing, that we try and develop a stadium-wide tradition around the build up to our set pieces. It seemed like a good evolution of the original idea to me and accomplishes everyone's goal of being coordinated but not forcing it in a fake way.
To the tune of "Yellow Submarine" Certain Player is runnin' from the cops, runnin' from the cops, runnin' from the cops. (Repeat) I've heard it many different ways. The player's name can be changed, the verb can be changed, the antagonist can be changed. We did a similar chant a few years ago about an opposing goalkeeper with the possible drug problem. I can't remember his name.
yup people think it is racist because a black guy was involved. A really fast black guy. Like running from the cops fast.
I don't really understand the purpose of the chant. What would prompt someone to sing that? A foul? An off the field legal issue? I'm not going to call it racist automatically because it's being chanted at a black dude... because making that assumption is more racist in my mind... considering I haven't heard it sung toward any of the other hundreds of black players we've faced. Anyway, I have enjoyed the "Ole"s since that USOC game... considering that entire game was kickaround. Don't get me wrong, it got old, but I think it may have helped the team actually, giving the midfield some slight subconscious incentive to actually link together some passes instead of trying the long ball forward to no one every. single. time. like they were doing.
The chant got started when he made a tackle as the last man early on in the game. BTW ditto on the Ole's. Gets old when we are rocking them asleep, but it is one of the most appropriate situational chants there is.
I agree that there are much more blatant racist chants, but in my original post I prefaced it with "unless he has had some run in with the police" which it sounds like he has not. If it was sung at a black or white player who had gotten in trouble with the law, I have no problem with the chant. In this case it appears to be chanted at a player solely because he is black (one could argue it is solely becuase he is fast). I don't intend to be accusatory with my posts, I just wanted to let others know who might chant this that it does make at least one person uncomfortable.
One of the best things about he stadium this year is seeing fans across from the cauldron stand up and get excited for a goal scoring oppurtunity. Much better than seeing kids running around on the berm. I do think the players post game focus has been too cauldron specific. Last game I saw a lot of fans stick around in the East stands to applaude the team and I felt like they were getting left out.
If you think the chant is racist your wrong, not being mean you just are. Those of us that chanted it would never do it if it was racist. (but as Jeff rightly pointed out, many people don't know us and therefore that point is lost). The lyrics were given, I've personally seen the Wynne laugh at it and I don't think it's a big deal. And I'm not taking it personally Roush but he laughed because it was funny because after he gave a reaction we laid the chants on even more and he was interacting with our section in a joking way (he was out that game due to injury and listening to his iPod, which we also gave him crap for and he laughed more). I always thought it was a reference to the fact that he was so fast he could outrun the cops, as OJ pointed out. We'll chant it once a year, so as Jeff said let's move on. "You're a **********" over and over is far more offensive to the general public IMO, although being one of those that is on the liberal side of the profanity debate I chanted it just as loudly and advocate the future use if other teams act like CO did with all of the laying around on the field.
We got emails forwarded to us that the team got in complaints about that one... Getting something else started early is probably the only way to override it. It already has traction with a lot of people. I'm also very much on the liberal side of the cursing debate, but to me that one's just a little too dumbed down. It happened because of blatant time wasting, but I just don't want that to be what we go to the first time an opposing player goes down.
Same boat. mo problem with cussing but it was classless on our part....but then CO was classless which caused it. if we want it to stop we'll have to come up with something else fast
We can't stop the "you are a ********y chant." If five people want to start it, and many others join in, it's gonna happen. It's the original viral medium. It's like the "Buuuuuuullshit" chant you hear at every sporting event. The FO should just send those e-mails right in to the trash folder.
We're not stopping it actively. We're just singing something else together and louder. People do what they feel like is fun enough that they want to join in. There's lots of songs that get drowned out every game. It's not the end of the world and no one came down on us in a hard way about it. When it's one out of every 3 words, I'm guessing more people notice. Something like this is 1 word out of 17. Conor Casey's falling down falling down falling down falling down Conor Casey's falling down What a ***** (Colorado's falling down would work too) Sittin on the field of plaayy Watchin the tiiiiime slip awayyy
No offense to those that lead last night but Jeff was missed. You are no longer allowed to miss games and I refuse to go behind the goal to lead. Matt and I were off to the west of the goal and tried to help push what the guys around the drums were doing but it was definitely our worst regular season performance. The people on the far west end of the MS need to get their act together. Except for the first couple of rows there is some serious hand sitting up there. The heat also didn't help.