Can a person be rascist towards those people of the same skin colour who come from the same area of himself? It’s a difficult question to answer. Yet it’s relevant to a story that has been in covered in the media recently
This is the news that social mobility within the UK, the measurement by which you judge how a child progresses through their lives on the social ladder, is poor in comparison within many other countries in the developed world. Add to this a recent piece that discovered that white males in our state schools are often amongst the biggest underachievers in our society it becomes increasingly clear that this group includes people like me. If you have experienced a problem first hand then it’s often the case that you can give a better view about it.
The main theme to the question is to ask why we see so many people like me lagging behind. Conservative instinct points to blaming Government. I believe they must take some of the blame. The current administration has pumped billions more pounds into education which has led to some improvements but not the consistent value for money across the board. They also appear to be misguided by the ways they measure success by pushing through the idea of GCSE marks been the golden standard, whilst moving children through the system who often lack the basic skills of being able to read and write. This is a problem but logic suggests that ideas at the top can always be changed if they offer a better chance of success.
The far wider problem comes in the actual society where people like me come from. When I say society I refer to the places, which include the vast majority of the country, where the wider approach of success has seemingly passed by and therefore led to missed opportunity.
This cultural degradation has many roots, some of which I have experienced and have led to resentment within myself. One is the lack of cultural opportunities to experience events outside their status quo. Fortunately for myself, I had parents who allowed me to witness subjects like classical music and architecture of various periods at a young age. I doubt I appreciated them as a child but looking back there were massively for my benefit and allowed me to reach places that I couldn’t have done by myself. Yet I think I am in the minority in this area. I always remember when I went to places of culture in Stoke like the museum them being pretty much empty. I also remember how you could go and wander five minutes from there and find white males, like me, all over the centre of Stoke doing nothing at best and often causing trouble at worst. I asked then as I do now what makes them different from me? What makes me want to discover about our culture and them to prefer sitting around doing nothing. I certainly had an advantage over them because I had being encouraged to discover these things but surely it doesn’t take much drive to open one’s eyes and want to experience these things. Haven’t the many not gone down that path because they were never shown it or is it because they didn’t want to and therefore rejected that path?
Not that exposure at an early age to the world of arts and culture means that someone can’t fulfil their potential. There are other reasons. One of them is the “it’s not what you know but who you know” system we live under that affects so many industries. It’s a real bitch of a job trying to get anywhere in the law or politics if you don’t have the contacts. Bitterness often stems from this state of affairs and it does take staying power when you see others given a foot up ahead of you simply because they know someone you don’t. People getting on who are neither hard working nor particularly talented on the back of contacts is often an injustice. All this is seen from someone like me with stable parents. Parents, who knew nobody who could help with my fledging career, but help as best they can. Many similar white males don’t even have that. Nobody to encourage their dreams or interests or to give them that help at home when it’s most needed during childhood. We are talking about kids going homes where parents are too stoned or drunk to communicate on a simple level let alone do things like help with homework. Homes where nobody works, nobody has achieved anything, places without a sense of pride. That’s complete isolation of opportunity and backed up with little financial resources is incredibly difficult to go through a period of ten years plus in education trying to forge a career and better standard of life.
What makes this worse is not just the basics described above been wrong but the day to day routine being one which lacks any kind of intellectual stimulation. I think back to my time at school and try to remember when I was encouraged to think about the wider issues in the world. I honestly can’t remember a time when I was. That’s 11 years of schooling when individual thought about the world isn’t tempted into the open. Yet, that’s how we learn and become stronger, from listening to others and putting our own arguments across and reacting to how they are challenged. The bottom line is that you won’t acquire these skills when you never have the opportunity to. If you aren’t given the opportunity to think in a formal setting then why will you ever apply it to your everyday setting for the rest of your life?
This all relates to the title of this piece. I intended to call it White Scum. This was to describe a resentment I felt towards white people who seemed to have nothing in their lives and achieved little. I think you could label this group as chavs. It’s common to think of them as the human rubbish in our society. You can find websites called chav scum and to believe the images in the press that this group is out of control. But with every “who” there is a “why.” That’s why I added the question mark to the title. The kind of ridicule would never be accepted if we labelled people as black scum or paki scum but because these people are white and uneducated it seems in the mainstream to be fine.
This is the news that social mobility within the UK, the measurement by which you judge how a child progresses through their lives on the social ladder, is poor in comparison within many other countries in the developed world. Add to this a recent piece that discovered that white males in our state schools are often amongst the biggest underachievers in our society it becomes increasingly clear that this group includes people like me. If you have experienced a problem first hand then it’s often the case that you can give a better view about it.
The main theme to the question is to ask why we see so many people like me lagging behind. Conservative instinct points to blaming Government. I believe they must take some of the blame. The current administration has pumped billions more pounds into education which has led to some improvements but not the consistent value for money across the board. They also appear to be misguided by the ways they measure success by pushing through the idea of GCSE marks been the golden standard, whilst moving children through the system who often lack the basic skills of being able to read and write. This is a problem but logic suggests that ideas at the top can always be changed if they offer a better chance of success.
The far wider problem comes in the actual society where people like me come from. When I say society I refer to the places, which include the vast majority of the country, where the wider approach of success has seemingly passed by and therefore led to missed opportunity.
This cultural degradation has many roots, some of which I have experienced and have led to resentment within myself. One is the lack of cultural opportunities to experience events outside their status quo. Fortunately for myself, I had parents who allowed me to witness subjects like classical music and architecture of various periods at a young age. I doubt I appreciated them as a child but looking back there were massively for my benefit and allowed me to reach places that I couldn’t have done by myself. Yet I think I am in the minority in this area. I always remember when I went to places of culture in Stoke like the museum them being pretty much empty. I also remember how you could go and wander five minutes from there and find white males, like me, all over the centre of Stoke doing nothing at best and often causing trouble at worst. I asked then as I do now what makes them different from me? What makes me want to discover about our culture and them to prefer sitting around doing nothing. I certainly had an advantage over them because I had being encouraged to discover these things but surely it doesn’t take much drive to open one’s eyes and want to experience these things. Haven’t the many not gone down that path because they were never shown it or is it because they didn’t want to and therefore rejected that path?
Not that exposure at an early age to the world of arts and culture means that someone can’t fulfil their potential. There are other reasons. One of them is the “it’s not what you know but who you know” system we live under that affects so many industries. It’s a real bitch of a job trying to get anywhere in the law or politics if you don’t have the contacts. Bitterness often stems from this state of affairs and it does take staying power when you see others given a foot up ahead of you simply because they know someone you don’t. People getting on who are neither hard working nor particularly talented on the back of contacts is often an injustice. All this is seen from someone like me with stable parents. Parents, who knew nobody who could help with my fledging career, but help as best they can. Many similar white males don’t even have that. Nobody to encourage their dreams or interests or to give them that help at home when it’s most needed during childhood. We are talking about kids going homes where parents are too stoned or drunk to communicate on a simple level let alone do things like help with homework. Homes where nobody works, nobody has achieved anything, places without a sense of pride. That’s complete isolation of opportunity and backed up with little financial resources is incredibly difficult to go through a period of ten years plus in education trying to forge a career and better standard of life.
What makes this worse is not just the basics described above been wrong but the day to day routine being one which lacks any kind of intellectual stimulation. I think back to my time at school and try to remember when I was encouraged to think about the wider issues in the world. I honestly can’t remember a time when I was. That’s 11 years of schooling when individual thought about the world isn’t tempted into the open. Yet, that’s how we learn and become stronger, from listening to others and putting our own arguments across and reacting to how they are challenged. The bottom line is that you won’t acquire these skills when you never have the opportunity to. If you aren’t given the opportunity to think in a formal setting then why will you ever apply it to your everyday setting for the rest of your life?
This all relates to the title of this piece. I intended to call it White Scum. This was to describe a resentment I felt towards white people who seemed to have nothing in their lives and achieved little. I think you could label this group as chavs. It’s common to think of them as the human rubbish in our society. You can find websites called chav scum and to believe the images in the press that this group is out of control. But with every “who” there is a “why.” That’s why I added the question mark to the title. The kind of ridicule would never be accepted if we labelled people as black scum or paki scum but because these people are white and uneducated it seems in the mainstream to be fine.
This is why, I realised I was looking at the issue from the wrong angle. I resented white males like myself, who I see every time I go into places like Stoke, when I should have aimed that resentment towards the system that has created them. A system, which allows people to be on the same university course as me, not through academic achievement, but because their private school has rung up to reserve them a place. My dislike should be aimed at that status quo and the people who have created it. It has severely disadvantaged people like me and has left many others in a position where they are ridiculed as thick and stupid with no chance of social mobility. Go to any city centre to see the evidence of this nationwide failure.
1 comment:
I think you’re entirely overlooking working class pride. People who are proud of having done a hard day’s work, even if this isn’t in a high-powered law firm but on a building site. People who are proud to keep their homes clean and tidy, including the council houses filled with second hand furniture and hand-me-downs. People who genuinely just want to be parents, and provide enough for their child and are always there for them. What you’re seeing is these people hanging out with their friends, in the city, just sitting about and having a laugh. There’s no shame in it, or in a system that’s created them.
Let’s face facts. The people you’re talking about don’t NEED to be looking at architecture or museums. Someone with a deep appreciation for mediaeval artwork, 3 A’s at A-level and an in-depth knowledge of the works of Beethoven is going to be bored shitless working in a factory, on a farm, or driving a lorry. And we need these people. It’s very easy for many people immersed in a professional environment to forget the builders, farmers, and factory workers who keep our country functioning just as much as the politicians, the lawyers or the doctors.
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