_angel_
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How much proof is there to the asylum-seekers-get-priority in housing?
A vote for the BNP is not a protest vote … it’s a vote for fascism
- Thread starter e19896
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How much proof is there to the asylum-seekers-get-priority in housing?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Not a lot. They have often been dumped in sub-standard housing that isn't in a fit state to be let out in places such as where I live in Hastings.
That wasn't really my point. My point was that you shouldn't argue with someone based on what you think are false premises. First up, you point out why the terms of their argument are wrong.
Mation
real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
edit: @ butchers
I don't really know how to say it more clearly. Um...
Do you think that if any potential BNP voters saw jobs and housing for the people in their communities that they would still resent the presence of darkies and other foreign types?
I think not. Therefore, imo, the problem to be addressed is one of jobs and housing, not what darkies are getting and how something needs to be done for the whites. I'm not saying you shouldn't understand the problem or not recognize that some white people feel aggreived as whites; I'm saying that it's not helpful to talk about government having contempt for the white working class given that they have just as much contempt for the working class as a whole, and that the solution is not race-based.
I don't really know how to say it more clearly. Um...
Do you think that if any potential BNP voters saw jobs and housing for the people in their communities that they would still resent the presence of darkies and other foreign types?
I think not. Therefore, imo, the problem to be addressed is one of jobs and housing, not what darkies are getting and how something needs to be done for the whites. I'm not saying you shouldn't understand the problem or not recognize that some white people feel aggreived as whites; I'm saying that it's not helpful to talk about government having contempt for the white working class given that they have just as much contempt for the working class as a whole, and that the solution is not race-based.
_angel_
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That'd be most council housing then!
Well, that was what I thought
anyone trying to say 'immigrants get all the housing' or whatever only have to look around most council estates to see they are predominently white British.
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
doesn't Marx have -if not contempt than at least a sense of the political marginality of - the "lumpen" proletariat? Was he wrong about that, or are you saying the m/c are now treating all workers as lumpens? Are some "lumpens" fair game for criticism?
The educational maintenance allowance,the minimum income guarantee,the minimum wage, doubling spending on health and education.
And the far left has done exactly what for the working class in this time?
Yeah Labour has got lots wrong but to pretend that in someway the far left are any better than Labour is just plain daft.
Why is it do you think that so few working class people get involved with the far left? Why do you think all far left groups struggle to get working class people involved?
Academic posturing is wank.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Yes, it's a misconception that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. And it is a misconception that the BNP seeks to spread by talking about something called the white working class.Well, that was what I thought
There was a thread on here a few days ago by someone considering voting BNP. My guess is that he was quite typical in that he first and foremost identified himself as English. When I asked him explicitly whether only white people could be English, he gave an emphatic 'no'. I don't think the majority of those who will be voting BNP next week actually share their deep-seated racism. All the more reason, I would think, not to talk to them using the same patronising terms as the BNP.
Cid
Proper break this time
Because you are talking about an artificial distinction as if it is a real one... The white w/c are no more demonised than the non-white working class, that demonisation can take different forms but this is as often about religion, region, local fashion etc. The chav thing comes from areas where the w/c is predominantly white, but that does not mean it's the white bit that was important to that categorisation, same as with the gang culture demonisation in London. It was about class, and not the classical class distinction, region played off against region, town w/c against country w/c. To pick up on the race aspect of it is to play right into the hands of the um... right. This is why the left is fragmented, because it divides and fragments itself along class, race and regional lines. Which is ridiculous when the goal is a peaceful transition to an egalitarian society.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I'm not talking about BNP voters though. Potential or otherwise. i think we've got out wires crossed. I've explicity said that any political solution has to from the w/c as a whole - but i've said that there's no reason why this should blind us to specifics or describing them. We all know that the w/c isn't one homogenous block, it does have internal differences and it's just as shortsighted to deny them as it is to deny the commonalities. (Not saying that you've said this). I think it's perfectly ok to use the term white w/c in this descriptive sense, i'm not arguing for a political movement or analysis based around the white w/c.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I'm not being funny - but this has nothing to with my points really. I'm not at all sure what people think i've argued. The smae point i've just made to mation applies here -the w/c isn't one harmonious block with no significant differences. Different component parts have different experiences, expectations, needs etc. It's not the white part that's suffering from racial profiling - is this an artifiical distinction as well? It's not those in secure relatively well paid work that are concerned (as a priority) with benefit allocation and so on.
Reading back your first lines, you're actually agreeing with what i've written! I said that the w/c as whole is treated contemptuously (or whatever term we want to use) by labour and within that contempt the white w/c is treated in a slighty different manner, not a worse manner, i.e as you say that contempt comes out in different forms, different expressions. (different but equal
)Do people really think that i'm arguing that the white w/c is uniquely exploited and that we need to politically orgnaise around the white w/c at the expense of the wider w/c? really? Fucking hell
gsv
liminally queer
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
What? Has anyone actually read what i've written on this thread?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
There are parts of the country, in the north of England, that are effectively biracial, and the two races don't mix that much.
However, there are plenty of other places – Hastings is most certainly one – where the poorest estates are predominantly but by no means exclusively white. What does your descriptive sense serve here? Who are the black people in these deprived w/c areas? Honorary whites?
As a description, I find it obscures the truth rather than revealing it. As such, why use it?
Cid
Proper break this time
Well it did seem a bit of an odd point for someone like you to be arguing, yes... 
This is where the confusion is, it's just you appear to be talking about the race aspect as if it is a definite distinction used in government policy. Which it is to an extent, but more on the level of combating 'violence in black youth' and 'gang culture' etc than general policies for the white w/c as distinct from the w/c in general.
This is where the confusion is, it's just you appear to be talking about the race aspect as if it is a definite distinction used in government policy. Which it is to an extent, but more on the level of combating 'violence in black youth' and 'gang culture' etc than general policies for the white w/c as distinct from the w/c in general.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
There are many uses of the term - they're not all the same, some of them used for the express purpose of whipping up racial tensions, some of them used for understanding what's going in on contemporary society -by that i'm thinking of things like the report recently published by the Runymede trust Who Cares for the White Working Class? or Michael Collins book The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class
edit: and terrible terribe bad use in the White season the BBC ran last year.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Well it did seem a bit of an odd point for someone like you to be arguing, yes...
This is where the confusion is, it's just you appear to be talking about the race aspect as if it is a definite distinction used in government policy. Which it is to an extent, but more on the level of combating 'violence in black youth' and 'gang culture' etc than general policies for the white w/c as distinct from the w/c in general.
I may well have over-egged the pudding when i moved from culture to policies, yes.
Mation
real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
I do see that you have said this is a description, not a means to any political solution. However, I still think it is devisive to use the term white working class as it suggests that this itself is an homogenous group within the w/c, which kind of cements devisions along racal lines and (unintentionally) gives credence to the idea that race actually is part of the problem.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I'd just like to correct myself here, as language is important. Just as a person claiming the dole is unemployed, not a 'job seeker', a person who has fled their country is a refugee, not an 'asylum seeker'.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
And the party machines understand all too well that if you can control the way language is used, you can manipulate people.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Yes. Instead of being defined by their circumstances – unemployed or refugee – they are defined by the official hoops the authorities force them to jump through in order to justify their existence when in those circumstances – looking for a job or applying for asylum. Pretty dehumanising really – they're basically saying 'your ass is ours now'.
indeed .. we are really faced with a major choice .. do we want to live in a society like now where a corrupt and over rapacious neo liberalism's only alternative is a dramatic move to some sort of benign green fascism via Obama or Brown or in one where we have control
i know a lot of people who keep saying 'why are there no politicians with morals .. why is there no party representing people like us (w/c)'
.. to which my reply is simply .. stop waiting for the cavalry .. stop waiting for the messiah/meshioch ..
IF you (we) want a better society it is you (US) that have to make it .. time to stand up
You've fallen for BNP propaganda too, then?
The BNP might use what you originally refered to in the above post that i have qouted as a means of propaganda but to say that newshamebore or the other parties do not have contempt for the working class as a whole and that working class people are not discriminated against is dangerous, devisive and insulting nonsense. Or maybe your think we all live in a classless society .....
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I suggest you try reading a bit more carefully before going off on one about something nobody has said.The BNP might use what you originally refered to in the above post that i have qouted as a means of propaganda but to say that newshamebore or the other parties do not have contempt for the working class as a whole and that working class people are not discriminated against is dangerous, devisive and insulting nonsense. Or maybe your think we all live in a classless society .....
Simplisitc rhetorical nonsense. For your idea to work your assuming that Middleclass people would actually treat Working class people as equals in the political process or even as individuals and that simply does not happen anymore. Go and check out the CIF section on the gaurdian website .The ONLY middleclass people i have met ( who incdently put most urbanites to shame despite proclamations to the contrary ) apart from being genuine lovely people have tended to be in their late 40s or 50+.
Anyway seeing as how your a relativist and that in effect your post is blaming people who lack the means to change things for lacking the means to change things your post is sick but utterly predictable. I wonder why...
From the OP and what you used in your post where you then posted this
You've fallen for BNP propaganda too, then?
Your post. I suggest next time you dont act like a smarty pants and trivialise such a serious issue. 10 out of 10 for arrogance.
