[Politics] White working class failure

[zefarelly]

Vancouver was so rich, however, in the early 80s, that the white working class (redneck) element seemed quite content. I wonder if this has changed?

In the same way Thatcher made the poor/working classes 'feel' rich/middle classed in the 80's ? . . . . . some of them still believe it because they own their council house and have material bling associated with success.

 

[Barnet Seagull]

As others have stated. This isn't about race it's about environment. Unfortunately there is no equality when it comes to opportunity and education, regardless of race. Unless the poorest families are helped out of poverty, nothing will change.

 

[Stato]

Having seen more success in the area during sustained decades of free market economic dominance, progressive politics has turned towards cultural and societal issues and away from economic models. This still puts people in groups, but defined more by things like their gender, race, religion and sexuality than by their economic power. The new boxes are just as generalist and unspecific as the economic boxes were, but to the individual, they seem to provide definitions that they are more comfortable identifying with. However, when you fight for the rights of people based upon definitions that are not economic, those who are disadvantaged mainly because of their economic background are not helped.

The immigrant experience here and in the USA has often been written about in terms of a group finding themselves largely excluded from the wider society's definition of success and so creating a parallel route to a self defined version of success. I think that less attention is paid to the fact that the same thing has always occurred in all communities that are economically disadvantaged. Sections of our population don't see education as a potential route to success, or don't define the places that formal education can lead to as being 'success'. There is some distrust of education, a preference for 'common sense' gut reaction over taught knowledge and a feeling that studying and understanding something in no way makes your opinion about it more worthwhile than that of someone who has not studied the subject at all, but is willing to offer their snap judgement. This leads to a feeling that those who appear to know more are somehow acting like they are superior and looking down upon 'ordinary people' and a subsequent fear among some of someone in your family becoming like them should they become educated.

The cynical view would suggest that fighting battles that are not economic allows the section of the middle classes who have left leaning values to maintain economic superiority whilst also assuaging their consciences. This has certainly been the message put forward to the working classes by those who wish to maintain the current system. The sad truth is that politics is always in some way about self interest and that for whatever reason, those who would introduce policies designed to improve the situation of working class communities are largely not seen by those communities as motivated to act in their interests. Since the collapse of manufacturing industry there seems to be a general view that the concept of class went with it. If all modern politics is doing is trying to improve access to opportunities for a number of defined groups, those in the group that rejects its definition are the ones that are likely to be helped the least.

 

[beorhthelm]

As others have stated. This isn't about race it's about environment. Unfortunately there is no equality when it comes to opportunity and education, regardless of race. Unless the poorest families are helped out of poverty, nothing will change.

does that mean the comprehensive school system, which covers most the population, has failed to provide equal education across the country?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

In the same way Thatcher made the poor/working classes 'feel' rich/middle classed in the 80's ? . . . . . some of them still believe it because they own their council house and have material bling associated with success.

Sort of. But Vancouver's white working class were relatively minted from day 1 compared with working class Brits. One of my best pals from my time there, who I still speak with several times a week, is originally from one of the interior parts of greater Vancouver lower mainland (Port Coquitlam or Maple Ridge) and managed to get to uni (first from his family) and now earns a fortune in California. The choices were very much easier for him even though his background is very working class in BC terms. My own experience there was one of being treated like an equal by everyone, rich or poor, the professors and the cleaners. Very different from the UK of the time, and much fewer 'barriers'.

Anyway, it seems that the white working class are not queueing up to emote about their disadvantage, spurred on by this BBC story. I have had another look at it. The source is The Education Select Committee chaired by Robert Halfon, tory MP for Harlow. Some on Twitter have picked up on quotes from the committee about 5 generations of unemployed white people.....and question how common it is for a family to have been unemployed since the end of world war one.....It will be interesting to see whether it gets ignored or dismissed by HMG and the wider population. My suspicion is it will all be forgotten by tomorrow. Perhaps for the best.

 

[maltaseagull]

This comes as no surprise to me:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57558746

White working class have been at the bottom of the achievement pile for many years. Especially boys.

I'm old enought to remember growing up when it was expected that I 'know my place'. Getting into grammar school was life or death. I was lucky. At university I was the only person I knew there on a grant of any sort (I was on a full grant). I have one old mate from uni days (who is the son of a diplomat, but, like me a bit peculiar). The rest of them were alien. I somehow got a PhD place in Canada and nobody could understand my regional (Brighton) accent, so I had to learn to speek queen's English just to get by. But Canada is relatively classless and it was only 4 years away from the UK that 'saved me' (from never forgetting 'my place'). When I came back to the UK I was able to stare down middle class arrogance (from the young medics doing their MD training). I managed to blag a lectureship and my career has been quite good. But boy do I get abreactions from some of the middle classes. Fear is the main abreaction . My football and music...my 'attitude' rub them up the wrong way. A lot of it is just me but the class 'press' has always been there.

I feel that things are manyfold better now than in the 70s, but today's data speak for themselves. I'd be very happy indeed to see some positive intervention. When I was a kid I knew kids who passed the 11 plus but were sent by their parents to the secondary modern school because 'that sort of thing isn't for us'. Shocking. In fact my first wife was one. Things are better, but having large swathes of the population struggling and feeling neglected while being told they are 'lucky' is the root cause of all sorts of our recent and current problems, I suspect.

Others care to share their experience?

Can't say I am surprised about your music

 

[Peteinblack]

Based both on my own personal background/experience, and my subsequent experience teaching in Higher Education for two decades, I think much of the problem is an anti-intellectual culture among the working class, a mentality encouraged by The Sun, but which goes much wider and deeper. As far as my dad was concerned, any (young) bloke who read books - like I did - or was artistic, or musical, or in way creative, was "a ******* poof", and although that was a long time ago, I suspect that mentality and mindset is wide-spread in many working-class communities.

Similarly, when I was choosing my A-Levels, my dad said "I left school at 15 and got a proper job [labourer at the old Shoreham power station], so why can't you, instead of sitting on your a*** learning fancy big words?" I only went to 6th Form and then university because I had some brilliant teachers who saw potential in me, and gave me the confidence and encouragement I had knocked out of me at home. Going to Uni was my 'teenage rebellion', and the day I left for Uni was literally the last time I saw my parents - I wasn't welcome at home after that. It's as if they were ashamed of me!

Now, the (few) working class kids I teach in a university tell pretty much the same story today - anti-academic hostility from their parents, and similar sneering from their ex-friends; in some of these working-class communities, going away to college is deemed a kind of betrayal.

And so many young women in these working-class communities are still, in the 21st Century, expected (by their mothers) to leave school as soon as possible, marry a child-hood sweetheart, and start producing grandchildren; preferably 3 or 4 before their 25th birthday - "What do you want to go to College for, dear, and fill your pretty head with a lot of mumbo-jumbo?" My wife had to endure this nonsense in the insular, small-town Welsh community she was raised in, before - to her mum's horror and dismay - she left to go to college; it was the only way of escaping.

It's usually the teachers who get blamed, by politicians and the media, for 'letting down' working-class pupils, but if their parents and peers are sneering at education and learning, and are proud of never having read a book in their lives, most of these kids are doomed from the outset.

As a life-long Lefty, I am the first to recognise that in so may ways (particularly crap wages and poor working conditions), the working-class are treated like dirt - but in some ways, they are also their own worst enemies, albeit without realising it.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Having seen more success in the area during sustained decades of free market economic dominance, progressive politics has turned towards cultural and societal issues and away from economic models. This still puts people in groups, but defined more by things like their gender, race, religion and sexuality than by their economic power. The new boxes are just as generalist and unspecific as the economic boxes were, but to the individual, they seem to provide definitions that they are more comfortable identifying with. However, when you fight for the rights of people based upon definitions that are not economic, those who are disadvantaged mainly because of their economic background are not helped.

The immigrant experience here and in the USA has often been written about in terms of a group finding themselves largely excluded from the wider society's definition of success and so creating a parallel route to a self defined version of success. I think that less attention is paid to the fact that the same thing has always occurred in all communities that are economically disadvantaged. Sections of our population don't see education as a potential route to success, or don't define the places that formal education can lead to as being 'success'. There is some distrust of education, a preference for 'common sense' gut reaction over taught knowledge and a feeling that studying and understanding something in no way makes your opinion about it more worthwhile than that of someone who has not studied the subject at all, but is willing to offer their snap judgement. This leads to a feeling that those who appear to know more are somehow acting like they are superior and looking down upon 'ordinary people' and a subsequent fear among some of someone in your family becoming like them should they become educated.

The cynical view would suggest that fighting battles that are not economic allows the section of the middle classes who have left leaning values to maintain economic superiority whilst also assuaging their consciences. This has certainly been the message put forward to the working classes by those who wish to maintain the current system. The sad truth is that politics is always in some way about self interest and that for whatever reason, those who would introduce policies designed to improve the situation of working class communities are largely not seen by those communities as motivated to act in their interests. Since the collapse of manufacturing industry there seems to be a general view that the concept of class went with it. If all modern politics is doing is trying to improve access to opportunities for a number of defined groups, those in the group that rejects its definition are the ones that are likely to be helped the least.

Very interesting. So, if you can persuade a sizeable part of the elctorate that it is not in their self interest to vote for the party that is offering policies that are actually best mapped to their self interest, you may be able to get they turkeys to vote for Christmas? Yes, that's what I have always thought. Rather sad, really.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Anyway, it seems that the white working class are not queueing up to emote about their disadvantage.

Give me a chance. When I have a moment to spare, from working obviously, I’ll “emote” about the working class struggle.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Give me a chance. When I have a moment to spare, from working obviously, I’ll “emote” about the working class struggle.

Too hard at work to protest about your struggle. I admire that

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

So many TLDR's, so little interest

Why would you ever bother posting that level of LookAtMe! nonsense?

 

[Chicken Run]

Based both on my own personal background/experience, and my subsequent experience teaching in Higher Education for two decades, I think much of the problem is an anti-intellectual culture among the working class, a mentality encouraged by The Sun, but which goes much wider and deeper. As far as my dad was concerned, any (young) bloke who read books - like I did - or was artistic, or musical, or in way creative, was "a ******* poof", and although that was a long time ago, I suspect that mentality and mindset is wide-spread in many working-class communities.

Similarly, when I was choosing my A-Levels, my dad said "I left school at 15 and got a proper job [labourer at the old Shoreham power station], so why can't you, instead of sitting on your a*** learning fancy big words?" I only went to 6th Form and then university because I had some brilliant teachers who saw potential in me, and gave me the confidence and encouragement I had knocked out of me at home. Going to Uni was my 'teenage rebellion', and the day I left for Uni was literally the last time I saw my parents - I wasn't welcome at home after that. It's as if they were ashamed of me!

Now, the (few) working class kids I teach in a university tell pretty much the same story today - anti-academic hostility from their parents, and similar sneering from their ex-friends; in some of these working-class communities, going away to college is deemed a kind of betrayal.

And so many young women in these working-class communities are still, in the 21st Century, expected (by their mothers) to leave school as soon as possible, marry a child-hood sweetheart, and start producing grandchildren; preferably 3 or 4 before their 25th birthday - "What do you want to go to College for, dear, and fill your pretty head with a lot of mumbo-jumbo?" My wife had to endure this nonsense in the insular, small-town Welsh community she was raised in, before - to her mum's horror and dismay - she left to go to college; it was the only way of escaping.

It's usually the teachers who get blamed, by politicians and the media, for 'letting down' working-class pupils, but if their parents and peers are sneering at education and learning, and are proud of never having read a book in their lives, most of these kids are doomed from the outset.

As a life-long Lefty, I am the first to recognise that in so may ways (particularly crap wages and poor working conditions), the working-class are treated like dirt - but in some ways, they are also their own worst enemies, albeit without realising it.

Horrible story that, well done for breaking the mould.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

So many TLDR's, so little interest

Why would you ever bother posting that level of LookAtMe! nonsense?

You didn’t have to read it or then comment on it if it was nonsense ….


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[1066familyman]

Too hard at work to protest about your struggle. I admire that

Proper working class folk are too busy doing proper jobs that bring genuine value to society. Not sat in offices pretending to 'work' while they converse with the chattering classes on 'tinternet.

I listen to enough of Radio 4 to know a chattering class 'intellectual' when I hear one.

 

[AZ Gull]

So many TLDR's, so little interest

Why would you ever bother posting that level of LookAtMe! nonsense?

Man with 62,000 posts accuses others of posting look at me nonsense?

 

[Hugo Rune]

Based both on my own personal background/experience, and my subsequent experience teaching in Higher Education for two decades, I think much of the problem is an anti-intellectual culture among the working class, a mentality encouraged by The Sun, but which goes much wider and deeper. As far as my dad was concerned, any (young) bloke who read books - like I did - or was artistic, or musical, or in way creative, was "a ******* poof", and although that was a long time ago, I suspect that mentality and mindset is wide-spread in many working-class communities.

Similarly, when I was choosing my A-Levels, my dad said "I left school at 15 and got a proper job [labourer at the old Shoreham power station], so why can't you, instead of sitting on your a*** learning fancy big words?" I only went to 6th Form and then university because I had some brilliant teachers who saw potential in me, and gave me the confidence and encouragement I had knocked out of me at home. Going to Uni was my 'teenage rebellion', and the day I left for Uni was literally the last time I saw my parents - I wasn't welcome at home after that. It's as if they were ashamed of me!

Now, the (few) working class kids I teach in a university tell pretty much the same story today - anti-academic hostility from their parents, and similar sneering from their ex-friends; in some of these working-class communities, going away to college is deemed a kind of betrayal.

And so many young women in these working-class communities are still, in the 21st Century, expected (by their mothers) to leave school as soon as possible, marry a child-hood sweetheart, and start producing grandchildren; preferably 3 or 4 before their 25th birthday - "What do you want to go to College for, dear, and fill your pretty head with a lot of mumbo-jumbo?" My wife had to endure this nonsense in the insular, small-town Welsh community she was raised in, before - to her mum's horror and dismay - she left to go to college; it was the only way of escaping.

It's usually the teachers who get blamed, by politicians and the media, for 'letting down' working-class pupils, but if their parents and peers are sneering at education and learning, and are proud of never having read a book in their lives, most of these kids are doomed from the outset.

As a life-long Lefty, I am the first to recognise that in so may ways (particularly crap wages and poor working conditions), the working-class are treated like dirt - but in some ways, they are also their own worst enemies, albeit without realising it.

Brilliant post.

I hope the government takes more notice of this than the ‘white privilege’ argument which has only popped up in the last few years.

 

[1066familyman]

Brilliant post.

I hope the government takes more notice of this than the ‘white privilege’ argument which has only popped up in the last few years.

What's brilliant about the post?

That the working classes apparent aversion to their own high educational attainment is what's holding them back?

Hardly an original thought. The working classes, have been blamed for their own lack of 'success' for donkey's years. Nothing much changes.

 

[DumLum]

I don't believe in white privilege. I do believe in middle class privilege. The middle class voice is the loudest on here and most media. They told the white working class they were stupid thick racists if they voted for brexit. Now they are telling them they are stupid thick racists with regard to taking the knee. That's obviously going to work then.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Having grown up on a council 'sink' estate from a single parent family in the 60s and 70s, I think I have a fair Idea of the opportunities for the 'working class' of whichever colour at that time.

I was lucky in that my single parent very strongly encouraged me to take advantage of the education I could get (at the hands of my 'betters') and consequently passed my 11 plus and joined [MENTION=1200]Harry Wilson's tackle[/MENTION] at the bastion that was HCGSB (albeit a couple of years younger and better looking !). I was one of two kids from our area who went there and you can imagine the shit you got from the local kids. But at least to balance it out I got to line up in the 'Free school meals' queue (approx 20 out of 600).

I came top of the 'L' stream the first couple of years and had brilliant teachers. Unfortunately, it was then pointed out that I needed to get a wage into the house at the first opportunity, so A levels were out. I never reached those higher echelons again in my academic career. I started work when I finished my GCEs a couple of months short of my 16th birthday.

I worked from then up until I retired 10 years ago, was lucky with the breaks I had and took full advantage of them. As a result, my kids have been in a position to take full advantage of our education system and the world is theirs.

However, I'm not sure anything has significantly improved for a kid from a 'sink' estate and a single parent family in the last 50 odd years (regardless of colour) and I can't imagine who benefits from that particular status quo

 

[beorhthelm]

What's brilliant about the post?

That the working classes apparent aversion to their own high educational attainment is what's holding them back?

Hardly an original thought. The working classes, have been blamed for their own lack of 'success' for donkey's years. Nothing much changes.

may be due to lack of education? it doesnt have to be an original thought, if its a valid and consequential factor, we should address it. because if this is a major impediment to advancement, spending or campaigns targeting only classroom activity are going to fail.