On a day when Manchester City are appealing on X (formerly twitter) for information after some fans allegedly sang offensive chants about Sir Bobby Charlton, who died on Saturday morning, a so-called City supporter called 47 posts this: “97 scousers are dead.” Then s/he posts again: “Wont stop me pissing on the 97 dirty scousers.” It’s important to understand that we don’t know the identity of 47 but we do know that someone bearing that identity is full of hate. For what it’s worth, at the request of the Hillsborough Survivors Support Alliance (HSA) who are, understandably, appalled, I have reported the posts to X, a fat lot of good that will achieve. At times like these, even though the source of the hate is likely to be an anonymous troll, you do, or rather I do, despair. What should happen next, won’t.
What should happen next is that 47 should be quickly be identified, banned from X and arrested for hate speech. What will happen, in Elon Musk’s Grave New World, is nothing. Musk has axed most of the people who watched over accounts to deter filth like this and, from what I can gather, it’s still easy to create fake accounts. 47 likely won’t even be banned from X, never mind be prosecuted.
How could you hate that much? Perhaps, 47 is a disciple of hate-monger Kelvin MacKenzie, the Sun editor who created the myth, the outright lie, that Liverpool fans were somehow responsible for what happened at Hillsborough in 1989. That myth, that lie, has long been discredited but to some low lifes among the hard of thinking, it has still been peddled in the name of sickness and baiting the bereaved.
“Ah yes,” some might say. “What about Liverpool fans and their hilarious ditty about “Who’s that dying on the runway”? No one ever mentions that, do they?” Well, actually, they do. You just did it. But two wrongs, whataboutery – call it what you will – isn’t a smart reposte, is it? Let’s call all of this shit out for what it is: hate speech. And I hate hate speech, all hate speech.
I’ve made mistakes, said and written things I shouldn’t have, well into middle age, as it happens. And shared ‘jokes’ that were highly inappropriate, to say the least. If this makes me poacher turned gamekeeper, then so be it. Because I don’t see a place for anyone celebrating the death of the Busby babes in the Munich Air disaster of 1958 or the Hillsborough disaster of 1989. The passage of time doesn’t mean they don’t matter so much. But for 47, and numerous others, tragedy and disaster is fair game.
It’s the hate I don’t understand. Maybe I took a long time to grow up – some say I never did – but I’d like to think I’ve learned more about what you should say and, more importantly, what you shouldn’t.
47, whoever s/he is happens to be a gutless coward,. hiding their identity and, so they think, any responsibility for being so hateful. Big fail. S/he won’t read this but I’m hoping that someone, somehow, will get through to her/him that this isn’t big and it isn’t clever.
Sir Bobby Charlton was arguably the greatest English footballer of them all and a gentleman with it. He never really got over the pain of Munich and we could do without some clowns trying to have a laugh about it. The same logic applies to the survivors of Hillsborough and their loved ones.
Most of us are better than this and we treat the haters with the contempt they deserve and maybe the pity, too. Imagine genuinely thinking saying horrible things about tragedy is acceptable and funny. And you do wonder how they will feel when tragedy comes to visit them. Like the rest of us feel? Don’t bet on it,.
