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On Tue, 20 Jun 2000 12:08:18 +0100 Tony Jarvis <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> people from
> the 'poorer' estates who were probably 'poor' because they spent a
> significant proportion of their money on beer, fags etc, or just couldn't be
> bothered to seek a life outside the benefit system.
Ah, the undeserving, ignorant, apathetic 'poor' argument again. I
really enjoy this one. It's b*ll*cks.
Probably not worth suggesting there might be some merit in reading
more widely on poverty, social exclusion and social conflict at this
point, but it is extremely unhelpful to identify the 'immigrant
intolerant' as the poor who have spent their money on beer and fags or
who can't be arsed to do any work.
Can I suggest a trip from Keele down to some of the miners' estates of
North Staffordshire and whilst there to test the 'can't be bothered to
get off benefits and racialist' hypothesis. Like North Staffs, Kent's
mining and engineering industries have been taken away from the workers
- the workers haven't chosen benefits as a way of life from a
particular wide range of lifestyle options. In a rapidly shifting
labour market and a contested relationship between England / Britain
and Europe, it is perhaps not surprising that we can witness something
of a crisis of ex-industrial personal and national identities. We
could do a bit more to understand, rather than under-class.
Further, my personal experience of Kent (and elsewhere) is that those
who are uncomfortable with immigrants are actucally from a broader
social spectrum than this, but that the indigenous(?) (not)working
class population might be more ready to express its discomfort in more
abusive terms. The casual xenophobia of certain incarnations of
Englishness is nothing new, and may be evidenced in various places (I
suggest reading George Orwell's Lion and Unicorn Essay as a good
starting point). That this is manifest in border spaces (such as Dover)
is perhaps only to be expected since these are always contested places.
Add localised socio-economic deprivation in an area constantly held up
by regional figures to be rich to the equation and the opportunity for
a blame culture becomes apparant.
There is a tendency to blame the 'other' the 'different' - the
'foreigners' or the 'poor'are but examples of this.
Some of the 'poor' may spend their money on drink and fags, and frankly
I don't blame anyone if that is their choice, when we seem so incapable
or unwilling to challange the more embedded social and cultural
inequities which result from semi-regulated capitalism where 'foreign'
beer can cross the channel virtually unhindered, but 'foreign' people
are vilified - and not just by the white working-classes of Dover's
housing estates.
The poor are poor because of the uneven-ness of development under
capitalism; they are socially excluded because they cannot access those
mechanisms that allow the rest of us to feel smugly included. The
problems of the 'poor' neither explain - nor excuse - racialist
intolerance of immigration.
But it might suggest where more sensible academics and politicians (and
those who are both?) should start looking for an understanding.
Right, I've got that off my chest I'm off for my lunch - pie, chips
and a pint if I had the time. I don't smoke, but I might just watch
the football tonight.
Chris Thomas
Division of Geography
Staffordshire University
Mellor Building
College Road
Stoke-on-Trent
Staffs ST4 2DE
tel 01782 294018 / 294038
fax 01782 747167
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