The Twitter account of the cretin involved was still public earlier today. He isn't even Irish.
Bring Back Belfast Celtic F.C.
Best thing is to just ignore such people, if you don't likle their tweets stop following them.
Christie tweeted the following a short while ago:
I am in two minds about this story. Take it as read that racist comments are unacceptable but they've hardly gone away especially now with social media. Is it such a huge story that some cretin of a racist posts a pejorative comment on Twitter and it is the headline on the sports news? One or is it two or three nobodies make a racist comment and it's headline news. If there were 15 or 20 people or the fans were making racist comments I think it's a story because it would be reflective of a greater feeling among people.
Or perhaps it's good to highlight it so that people are aware of such things. I am not sure. It just seems an ott reaction for the comment of one or two persons. I remember I was at and England v Ireland rugby match (free ticket I hasten to add) and an Ireland player (I think it was O'Driscoll) was injured and this English supporter kept shouting at him "Get up, you f'in Paddy!! Get up, Paddy!! There's nothing wrong with you, Paddy!!" which I thought was racist at the time but would it be worth headline news? The song "James McClean hates the f'in Queen" does us no favours either for the "best supporters in the world".
Is it a storm in a teacup or something worth highlighting ? I would imagine that James McClean gets far worse and in bucket loads. Does highlighting one or a couple of racist Tweets help in the fight against racism or encourage it. I just don't know.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
Yeah its not like there is even a hint that this isn't an isolated minority incident. I guess what changes it over, say verbal abuse, though is that it goes straight to his timeline and that it has become a headline. Once it becomes a headline it becomes a story. Ultimately though it is 2 absolute cretins tweeting racist abuse. I'm not saying its "just" this as if downplaying it, but the story is that two people have publicly outed themselves as racist idiots.
Controversial view here maybe, but - is "Go play for Jamaica" even racist? I presume Christie has some Caribbean roots given his name and colour. "**** off back to Jamaica" may well be racist, but "Go play for Jamaica" to me just implies he wasn't/isn't good enough, and a lesser team is his level. Obviously the own goal makes him a target unfortunately.
But would it be racist to shout "**** off and play for the North" at Gibson after a bad performance?
The tweet I've seen online is brain-dead and an example of all that's bad with social media. It's abuse, unnecessary and, as noted, apparently not even from an Irish person.
But why is it racist? Is it because Christie is black? That's not what makes something racist; in fact, it undermines real racism to suggest that everything slightly offensive is racist. Arguably, "Go play for Jamaica" is just a variant of what's been shouted in frustration from terraces for decades.
Obviously the lynching comments are utterly indefensible and should be followed up, (but they're still not racist by themselves)
I have to agree that its not too bad and the example of the North is a good example. People scream stuff at white Irish players all the time, Ginger B#$tard being one that is 100% racist and offensive but sure that's allowed of course because the victims of this abuse are not counted. Its all ******
you don't get to decide what is it and is not racist. The "go and play for Jamaica" implies he's not supposed to be here, i.e. that he's not Irish. He has an Irish passport, he plays for Ireland, he's Irish. End of discussion.
The same person also talked about starting a lynch mob to go after Christie.
I was thinking the same thing. Unfortunately a headline like those over the last few days are going to give an impression that we have a number of racist fans and may make other players think twice about playing for us. It really doesn't make sense for footballers to have social media accounts. They may enjoy the praise when they have a good game, but its a guarantee they will get abuse when they inevitably have a bad one
It's abuse with reference to his (alleged?) ethnic roots. How is that not racist?
By the way, I'd see it as equally racist if he was a white guy with, let's say, Latvian roots and he'd be told to go play for Latvia.
A statement can be unintentionally racist, I could use a term that I didn't know was racially charged (e.g. Suarez using "negrito"), but once it has been established as racist, then it's racist. That doesn't make me a racist for saying it, but using it again would.
These people clearly wanted Christie to leave because they don't regard him as Irish. The reference to Jamaica is a clear link to the colour of his skin. These people singled Christie out for this type of abuse because of his race. They are racists. This is not up for debate.
Of course it was racist
I think telling someone born in Coventry to go home to Jamaica is racist. I suspect most if not all of us here when supporting Ireland do not even notice the colour of the skin of our players or whether they are "Anglos" or born in Cork (ok maybe we notice that!). To suggest to someone that they should go to Jamaica is abusing them because of the colour of their skin and is therefore racist. If they were from Jamaica, it would arguably not be racist.
However, I am a bit p'ssed off with Christie that he chose to start reading his tweets in the dressing room after one of the most catastrophic results in Irish footballing history. I expected him to be in tears before reading the tweets not after them but then I am not a professional footballer who has to deal with disappointments week after week. But seriously, what did he expect to see in his Tweets? "Great game, Cyrus" "Unlucky, Cyrus" ?
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
I checked out the two racists fools who made those comments on Twitter. One is a diehard Milwall fan from London.
The other says he is German-English born in India (I think he’s since shut down his account. Maybe he f**ked off back to India)
So neither of them are Irish and feel they have a right to speak on behalf of Irish soccer supporters. Cretins!
Regarding the debate on whether the Jamaica comment was racist, it absolutely was. You need to look at the motivation behind that tweet. It was made with intent to be racist and get to Cyrus. Language can be interpretable but you must look at the intent and the intent here was vitriolic and abusive, designed to be as insulting as possible.
Did Cyrus have the possibility of playing for Jamaica ?
that's not necessarily what he did. What I imagine happened is he just turned on his phone, and the tweet that mentions his account would have appeared in his alerts - same as any text message, whatasapp, etc - and then he searched for his name to see what else was being said.
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