Telegraph sticks up for the white working class.

[poster342002]

But again, it happens because there's not a powerful working-class movement. That's why New Labour happened, that's why lots of things happened. Not because anybody "forgot" anybody or because of liberals or anything.

I agree. I do, however, sense a continual walk down the wrong path towards greater compartmentalisation of the working class along racial/religious grounds rather than any real steps towards unity. And that cannot be a good thing for any part of the class.

 

[poster342002]

in Northern Ireland, our "community representatives" were abit more ahem, "militant".

Not a template I'd want to see duplicated!

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Well, the thing is that people can't just wish a working-class movement into being. And if it doesn't recover, or rebuild itself, or what you will, then first, people are going to be interested in different things, second, people are going to disbelieve in the possbility of its reappearance, which will render solidarity politics apparently pointless.

 

[poster342002]

Well, the thing is that people can't just wish a working-class movement into being. And if it doesn't recover, or rebuild itself, or what you will, then first, people are going to be interested in different things, second, people are going to disbelieve in the possbility of its reappearance, which will render solidarity politics apparently pointless.

Agree with that too. The sad truth, though, is that I think it's probably beyond repair now and this retrenchment is going to get a lot worse before it gets better - if it ever does. I get the feeling of sticking fingers into a leakier and leakier dam.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Maybe, but as I've said before, sometime history is like that, sometimes for a long tiem.

As I've also said before, as we're short of promosing options it might be a good idea to give more leeway and engage in less denunciation of people who take varying paths. Of course, that said, in times of gloom that's the last thing that normally happens.

 

[TopCat]

When I said I agreed with every word, I have to admit to skim reading the piece.

It won't be much surprise to people that I hardly agree with "Where the white working class were once admired for their patriotism, respectability, and sense of community, now those values have been turned against them."

I think they are referring to what my 89 year old nan calls the "Decent working class". You scrubbed the front step every day despite not having enough food to feed your kids. That sort of thing.

 

[Azrael]

There is of course a much healthier, socialist critique of multiculturalism, with which I disagree but which makes some good points. But it doesn't engage in dubious rhetoric or scream about liberals.

There's also a good conservative critique of multiculturalism (and I'm not referring to the dregs of Powlite racialism), namely that people are united by culture, so having many cultures (as opposed to many races) is a recipe for division and the loss of meaningful national fraternity. The USA's "melting pot" ideal can be criticised for many things, but racialism isn't one of them.

What's rarely mentioned is the more progressive direction this could go in: namely, that the majority culture could change radically. Multiculturalism could be seen as an admission of defeat: an acceptance that the majority can't adapt itself to incorporate new immigrants, and can only tolerate their inherently different cultures.

Ironically this mindset shows itself in the article that claims to be rejecting it: the way the author writes about a "white working class" defined by its separateness and united by homogenous ideals is the language of the multiculturalist if ever I saw it.

 

[smokedout]

It shows somwethin is a bit weird in our society when I find myself agreeing word for word with an article in the torygraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m.../15/do1502.xml

What do you think?

and youre a member of class war, fuck its worse than i thought

thats the kind of racist, anti-working class bullshit the telegraphs been publishing for years, not a million miles away from enoch powell

i think you might need to re-evaluate your politics

(btw in every staistical analysis ive seen, and ive seen a lot, young black boys and young bangladeshi boys are usually the highest underachieving groups in education) ... i 'll look for a link tomorrow if i can still be bothered indulging this right wing claptrap

 

[Dhimmi]

You'd like to think this was actually about the poor white working class but there's a strange metallic aftertaste to it which suggests it's more about the rich not wanting "darkies" on their grounds. Whites make much better servants, and and least you can understand them, no irritating accents etc.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Ironically this mindset shows itself in the article that claims to be rejecting it: the way the author writes about a "white working class" defined by its separateness and united by homogenous ideals is the language of the multiculturalist if ever I saw it.

Incidentally it's a white working class which Leo McKinstry is not part of and does not want to be part of. It is only invoked as a way of attacking multiculturalism.

 

[TopCat]

and youre a member of class war, fuck its worse than i thought

thats the kind of racist, anti-working class bullshit the telegraphs been publishing for years, not a million miles away from enoch powell

i think you might need to re-evaluate your politics

(btw in every staistical analysis ive seen, and ive seen a lot, young black boys and young bangladeshi boys are usually the highest underachieving groups in education) ... i 'll look for a link tomorrow if i can still be bothered indulging this right wing claptrap

I ain't a member of class war as well you know.

Read my latter post and do post up your educational links please.

 

[The Black Hand]

and youre a member of class war, fuck its worse than i thought

thats the kind of racist, anti-working class bullshit the telegraphs been publishing for years, not a million miles away from enoch powell

i think you might need to re-evaluate your politics

(btw in every staistical analysis ive seen, and ive seen a lot, young black boys and young bangladeshi boys are usually the highest underachieving groups in education) ... i 'll look for a link tomorrow if i can still be bothered indulging this right wing claptrap

This article from yesterdays torygraf is interesting somewhat too - the 'white working class' is beloved by the Ex- Tory leader now...

As it goes I think this amateur sociology is the periodic rediscovery of poverty, and I am getting the feeling that they are pretending to care because they have realised that in part the people who have backed or been neutral, or have supported the conservative system, are increasingly dying out. Therefore, they have to recreate the socialisation that provided them with the troops to continue 'to fight' for them (or indirectly support). The 'white working class' is not something I am unduly bothered about either, I don't get excited about their 'plight' above any other section... In fact I think that it is a reductionist category, I am not sure it has any use as it seems to be used (eg. in Torygraf article above) interchangeably with the 'underclass' idea, and that definately is right wing.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

You know I mentioned above about McKinstry's book on Geoffrey Boycott?

The only bit I don't like is his chapter on Boycott's conviction, in France, for assaulting his girlfriend. McKinstry won't have any of this and basically treats them as silly little foreigners (if you think I'm parodying, read the book) despite the fact that Boycott was convicted on three separate occasions.

Odd, therefore, that he should write as follows.

In their sheer nastiness, the alleged killers of Lawrence could have stepped out of central casting for this morality tale about proletarian racists. The only problem was that no court would convict them, despite two trials.

 

[likesfish]

starts off fair enough then gos off on a a nasty racist angle.
they got away with it not because the cops were racist and stupid which was the genral view at the time.
but the lead cop was corrupt and was acitivly hindering the investigation
see met police not racist and incompetant
just corrupt and in the pay of criminals

 

[Jonti]

Some things are best parodied

This kind of repellent snobbery and prejudice was captured in an extraordinary outburst from Brixtish layabout Jonti. Claiming that white working-class Britons are "either too lazy or too expensive to compete" in the new era of multi-racialism, he chortles gratefully that "tax-paying immigrants past and present keep indolent Brixtish scroungers like me in marijuana and surfing the 'net. And that's a Good Thing, as far as I'm concerned."

 

[Kaka Tim]

Personally I think that a lot of this stuff is deeply dangerous: rhetoric about how "white-working class people" are being "forgotten" for the benefit of ethnic minorities. It certainly speaks to an audience and it relfects what many people feel, but it's thoroughly unpleasant.

However this peception - that the indiginous white working class are being ignored at the expense of of ethnic minoritys and/or 'asylum seekers' is increasingly prevelant on large, mainly white, social housing estates. It is resulting in endemic victimisaion, harrassment and physical assults on new people coming into the area and a rise in sympathy for the BNP.

I cant back this up with empircal data - but Ive been working in housing and community development for about 5 years and it is everything Ive seen points to fact that this is a growing problem accross the country.

These communites feel isolated, neglected and that they are getting a bum deal. They also routinely vilified, sterortyped and scapegoated by the media and politicians as lumpen chavs. The decline of a strong working class movement and notions of working class solidarity, coupled with an institutionalised emphasis on looking at social probelms, and devising large areas social policy in terms of ethnicty rather than class is feeding the situation where the social kicks get passed down to the line to some luckless famliy from Zimbabwe or Sudan who end up being firebombed out of their house the day they move in.

i think that the telegraph article is a patronising attempt to recruit the white working class to an agenda of paraochial xenophobia - but the current framework of 'multi-culturalism' - especially in how it impacts on public policy - is out moded, simplistic and devisive.

 

[Groucho]

This xenophobic diatribe is anti-working class white or otherwise. The Torygraph is not speaking up for workers but for racism. It is not supporting workers rights, it is opposing immigrants. If workers, whatever their skin colour, start fighting for their rights perhaps by striking for higher wages where will the Torygraph line up then?

All this bullshit about white workers having separate interests from non-white workers, or suggesting that white workers suffer disproportionately is bollocks. It is bosses who are using whatever means at their disposal to cut wages, not immigrant workers. It is in the interests of all workers to unite and to organise together for decent wages. It is in the interests of bosses to divide workers and have them fighting each other. Which side do you think the Torygraph is on? Duh!