And the person suggesting that anti-Aussie chants are "racist" is straw-manning and trying to muddy the waters.
No attempt to muddy anything here Doloras, and you can address me directly if you like.
Lets just say xenophobic instead of racist to appease you, if you're ok with that.
Okay, let's say xenophobic, which is a completely different kettle of fish. Two points:
1) There is a difference between punching up and punching down. The Nix play in an Aussie league which is biased in various ways towards the Aussie teams and which keeps threatening to kick us out. Therefore I don't see an issue. However, if any Aussie who plays for the Nix (eg our captain who was born there) were to take offence, I would at that point agree with ending the chant.
2) Is it xenophobia (or its younger cousin, parochialism) when we do chants mocking Auckland? As a Wellingtonian who lives and has her family in Auckland, I don't feel comfortable joining in such chants but I don't think they're tantamount to racism.
3) In the run-up to the NZ-Peru fixtures, Balbi posted some hilarious memes on his twitter page mocking various Peruvian foods, cultural items, and Paddington Bear. Was that xenophobia or was that good-natured banter?
Good points.
In isolation they are worth answering first:
1) Agree re: a person taking offence. If Dura was to say something, then of course the chant would stop. I assume that we are also just taking it for granted that Sarpreet Singh takes offence to KH's comment? Because we're already outraged now, prior to finding that out, so I gather we have to assume that to be true, for your comment above to be relevant in this comparison.
The Nix in the A-League comments have no factual basis however. When the chant was first sung at a Nix game in 2007, they weren't threatening to kick us out at all, and we didn't perceive at that time that the league was biased towards Aussie teams. In fact when we signed Brown I recall discussions as to how things might actually be to our advantage, as we could have our pick of most of the AWs due to the import rules for Aussie clubs. This feeling has changed now, but at the time of the club's inception, what you state as a justification for the chant did not actually exist.
2) Yes it is, by definition. And it's telling that you don't feel comfortable with it - we can use that as justification for the Auckland chant being inappropriate in the post-modernist world we live in.
3) Yes again, by definition.
And it's awesome that you have raised those two examples, because this comes back to my question from earlier:
Where do we draw the line, why do we draw the line there exactly, and who draws the line?
It's clear from your comments and most others (including me), that comments about Indian people and dairies is a crossing of the line. But now we hear that comments about people from Auckland, Australia or Peru and things that NZers attach them with, are not crossing the line.
Why? Is the dairy-owning thing the clincher? Too mean? How is calling all australians cheaters any less mean than that??? Or is that one ok because it's been chanted all over the world, subbing in something else for Aussies? That might actually be a good reason come to think of it - the chant is generic, thus making it less offensive to whomever is the butt of the joke on the day? That's actually a far better reason than anyone else has offered thus far! Although it doesn't fly for the Auckland and Peru points, particularly when you have stated that you're mildly offended by the Auckland one (sorry if that's not what you mean by uncomfortable).
Amazing what actual discussion can do, rather than outright dismissal... it's certainly got me thinking!