The BBC wants us to talk about whether white working class Britain is becoming invisible?

Well, some of my thoughts on the Powell one are on the Powell thread (and also in the BBC and Ofcom's complaints email inbox awaiting reply). I haven't seen any others, but if the Powell one was anything to go by, it seems to have been handled very clumsily. But, like I say, I've only seen that one.

How can it possibly be invisible when Dom is helpfully here to remind us every single minute of every single day?

I also disapprove of the BBC claiming to be asking whether white working class Britain 'is becoming' invisible, when really what these programmes are discussing is how white working class Britain FEELS.

That for me is one of the most confusing things about this. I think they by invisible they mean, to those who have power over them. So the people in the survey feel, for instance, that they are bottom of the pile when it comes to getting access to resources.

I agree, and if the bbc were being responsible they'd have made all these things clear instead of going for 'controversial' and 'edgy' (= publicity-seeking, emotive, unhelpful).

the trailer was really emotional though. made me really want to watch the whole series. then i went to the website and thought the actual programmes looked not that interesting. apart from the working men's club one but i missed that now. in it on iPlayer or something?

I'd rather they explored the idea that while multiculturalism in the UK is in many ways a roaring success (in terms of the range), actual cohesion and integration of these cultures is a bit of a joke, or may not actually work in a way that results in both equality and the retention of genuine diversity.

there's one about the multicultural school on wednesday. ironically i'll miss it cos i'm learning french that night.

I wonder how many of these programmes The Guardian's Joseph Harker has actually WATCHED.

Nice inadvertent segue, incidentally, on Friday evening - the working men's club doc on BBC2, straight into Al Murray's Happy Hour on ITV1 with an audience of hundreds of white folks proclaiming that they don't want to be France or Germany.

xpost kinda disagree, cohesion between cultures was fine until politics & media decided to start stirring it up around 98/99 ( migration from Kosovo seemed to be the catalyst for the media panic?)

or, if not fine, OK and going in the right direction

But re. resources it really isn't true! Example: in the borough where I live, applicants for council housing automatically have higher priority if resident in the borough for 10+ years, which naturally advantages residents who self-identify as WWC. In my contact with people waiting YES there was a great deal of resentment for those seen as less entitled but I had to consider the source each time, and each time the person hating on their fellow poor person could maybe, just maybe, have made better life choices instead of trying to deflect that reality by pointing out someone else as less deserving.

Perhaps the proper issue to unpick is the increasing shell game played on the public regarding the deserving and undeserving poor; we are encouraged to focus on a notional working class which self-identifies as such whatever the reality of employment status. It is a situation in which everyone feels insecure and not responsible for prevailing conditions; simpler thinkers look for someone to blame.

cohesion between cultures was fine until politics & media decided to start stirring it up around 98/99 or, if not fine, OK and going in the right direction

how so tho?

It would have been magic if the Powell programme had pointed such things out re: resources! But instead it pointed out how people felt and the reasons why they might feel that without exploring whether the reasons were well-founded or not ie: without giving any decent basis for deciding whether WWC Britain is really becoming invisible or not. So, of course the series is encouraging 'debate' but not informed debate...

I didn't see the program. Did it talk at all about the destruction of manufacturing, or the change in employment structure in the UK since the 1970s?

Moved from the enoch thread.

As far as the filmmaker was concerned, he may have been 'moved' by the situation, but at least the film did not insist that the viewer was to feel the same way. No, I couldn't place the last song either, but the conclusion I came to was that the WMC's were dying out because they were. A lad, given the choice between going down the WMC with his lass or going down the town to a 'glitzy' pub and drinking 2 beers less would choose the latter. On a dull tuesday, he'd maybe go down with his dad to where the beer was cheaper, etc. The WMC 'committe' may well have the problems they stated, but making the changes necessary to update the image would be unthinkable. So, Keith gets to sing his repertoire, and time gets filled, more or less. (Oh, and I do come from this sort of background, that's not a 'I know what I'm takkin about like' statement, but it's more than second-guessing. We laughed, we felt sad, got disgusted, and reflected, like anyone else watching that didn't 'get bored' by watching working class people.

-- Mark G, Monday, 10 March 2008 12:20 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

...or would be perfectly happy watching Phoenix Nights.

How many times do you get people in the media state "there is no working class anymore" ?

cohesion between cultures was fine until politics & media decided to start stirring it up around 98/99 or, if not fine, OK and going in the right direction

how so tho?

it's not mentioned in the newspaper/telly every day.

Usually middle class people in the media, too (xp).

"There is no working class anymore" - are they talking about the inside of the Guardian HQ?

let's say it's true that a sense of things worsening has been caused by political and media stirring. but what inspired that itself? blair popularity still at peak level? diana dead and it's all the fault of those 'bloody arabs/frogs'?

i might agree with this (not the diana thing ha) but think it happened a bit later. war on terror and 'polish invasion' seem strangely synchronised in that i didn't become aware of either as things until late 2001.

Fuck 'em! They're white, which means that, effectively, they rule the world (okay, so I'm not entirely serious about that)

I'm reminded of Chris Rock's point that no white person would ever swap places with him, even though he's rich; because being white confers far more of an advantage in life.

I, for one, am quite happy to swap a little white disenchantment for say having racial abuse hurled at me on the street on a fairly regular basis or for having to grow up being absolutely terrified of the police because young, previously perfectly healthy, black men had a habit of mysteriously dying in police cells from "heart attacks"

The discussion should be about class not race - the working class get screwed over regardless of race.

The discussion should be about class not race - the working class get screwed over regardless of race.

yeah but surely white working class deserve more of a voice innit.

Can't stand that phrase "I, for one." I mean, what else could it be? "I, for two"?

Well, as opposed to the unspoken "and I think I speak for every right minded person when I say" which is the subtext to every 'the man the govt dread because he speaks OUT!' columnist.

The discussion should be about class not race - the working class get screwed over regardless of race.

yes, I agreeish. but people who identify as "working class" are not always without money or power.

it's poor people who are being screwed, regardless of "class", "race" or any other identification.

Back before the turn of the century it is relevant to remember that the British public generally felt more enfranchised; ISTR first-time buyer housing being a matter of getting together 10k and having an income of +25k - not beyond the remit of working people of many class backgrounds. I think housing angst really has a lot to do with this issue; also a greater range of people identify as poor now.

... whereas nobody describes themselves as "rich", oddly enough.

I want to live like common people

xpost no, its always "comfortable"

The white working class seem to like to blame their problems on immigrants, which is a useful smokescreen for the actual people to blame.

LIZARDS!

also a greater range of people identify as poor now

too bad they don't/can't afford to post here

i'd swap with chris rock, if he's offering. i suspect he isn't, and it was part of his act.

Also I think you would find it difficult to continue his career in the manner to which we have become accustomed.

I'm reminded of Chris Rock's point that no white person would ever swap places with him, even though he's rich; because being white confers far more of an advantage in life.

I see no actual offer here.

i'd swap with chris rock, if he's offering. i suspect he isn't, and it was part of his act.

i see no actual statement here that there was such an offer.

Me neither.

Back before the turn of the century it is relevant to remember that the British public generally felt more enfranchised; ISTR first-time buyer housing being a matter of getting together 10k and having an income of +25k - not beyond the remit of working people of many class backgrounds

£25k =£481 per week.
Even in 2002,
61% of full time male workers earned less than £481 per week
77% of full time female workers earned less than £481 per week

Those averages include the London anomaly ie male London ave income
£10k higher than the UK mean & £13.5k higher than Yorkshire+the Humber

(apologies if anyone checks and I've got my maths rong; source at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=7698&More=Y )

( my point being that £25k was and is well beyond the remit of the majority of working people in the UK )

the 'average wage' of this country is distorted upwards through use of mean instead of median.

Also I think you would find it difficult to continue his career in the manner to which we have become accustomed.

"On one side, there's black people. On the other, you've got Martin Jol. Martin Jol has got to go. I love black people but I hate Martin Jol. I am tired of Martin Jol. Tired, tired, tired."

'Jolson out' best i could do

"chris rock on martin jol" is an NBC special i'd actually watch.

"Another thing about Martin Jol- He brags about things he's APPOSED TA DO."

How can it possibly be invisible when Dom is helpfully here to remind us every single minute of every single day?

-- Masonic Boom, Monday, 10 March 2008 11:53 (9 hours ago) Link

I don't, and never have, self-identified as "white". Zing denied.

i hate the advert for this series. it almost made me NOT want to watch any of the series as i thought it was going to pander to peoples prejudices about immigration/this country being ruined forever by people of other races/religions etc. i heard some of the radio 4 docu on enoch and was surprised at how sympathetic it was towards the supporters of enoch/enochs views himself, regardless of whether they were founded. i dunno, i think a series about white working class identity is a good thing, but calling it 'white season' and taking the focus they have done, just makes it a bit contentious to me. like its trying to pitch this british 'whiteness' against everything else. i dont feel thats all that helpful right now.

BBC trying to prove they're not a bastion of liberal elitism by constant racist trolling, innit?

Well, it's just common-or-basic white liberal middle class schtick isn't it? "The white working classes are, as we know, all racist. But do they have a point?"

If you look at BBC local radio, or the darker reaches of 5!Live, or the viewers emails on PM, or a whole bunch of other output (HI DERE HAVE YOUR SAY), the BBC panders to this shit all the time.

He was one of the most intelligent, articulate and influential politicians of the post war period

Well i think we can all argue about what 'intelligent' means. He was super educated for sure and I think some people confuse the two. IF he was super intelligent than that makes his words just worse as that suggests he knew exactly what he was getting into rather than the whole "I'm just passing on my constituents concerns, don't shoot the messenger". I didn;t see anything in that programme that suggested to me any real foresight or, even understanding of anything other than "Oh No, Black People!". He was a relic. A nineteenth century politician unable to cope with modernity and looking for a scapegoat. A failed politician at that.

Can we say the same of Boris "P*cc*n*nn**s" Johnson in a couple of months' time?

We can say it now!

Oh, I see you mean if he loses the mayoral election? I'm not holding my breath.

I'm more worried about his winning because of idiots who'll base their votes on what the leader writer of the Standard tells them rather than their own, direct, first hand experience of things.

What else would I be doing on a Tuesday night? And that's the SECOND internet-related football viewing meetup I had yesterday.

i was just surprised that such a group existed that's all! i think it's awesome. :-)

"He was super educated for sure and I think some people confuse the two."

bang OTM

Ken, it's more like the msg boards developed so people who met each other at games could keep in touch and organize stuff. I'm just getting in backwards b/c I haven't been attending for a while. They were all v nice, btw.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23450274-details/article.do?ito=newsnow&

dismal.

Weeeird. One of my friends volunteered to live in whiteface for a documentary a few years back and wound up looking like Elliot Spitzer's nerdy brother.

-- suzy, Wednesday, 12 March

Might have seen this. Is there a bit where he goes to the dog races?

Can't remember, Bod. But if it helps he is a hairdresser and they did show him at work before and during, I think?

All I remember was that he had long black hair, a really weird nose and glasses in whiteface.

That's the fella!

Ahhhh... remembering old TV.

glasses in whiteface??! new thread req'd

How very disappointing and patronising these programmes have turned out to be. Viewers are left with a vision of all white working class as being racist, drunken, lazy, uneducated, lacking parenting skills, benefit scrounging thugs while portraying immigrants as hard working, close knit family unit, persecuted types who can do no wrong. A shameful betrayal of the British white working classes aptly demonstrating the institutionalised anti-British bias now rampant within the Corporation.

Mick Meggo

I dunno you just can't please some people.

Incidentally, anyone see the prog on Frinton? That could have part of the White season.

Frinton 'mocked' in BBC programme

Anyway it was a curious throwback to the rather more enjoyable documentaries like The Lido. But without the humanity. Which I think was the directors fault as much as Frintons.

I thought the Frinton programme was pretty predictable and didn't tell me anything I couldn't have already guessed, except when they started talking about having been misled about settling in Frinton and they had all somehow ended up here I was looking out for Rover the balloon and Orange Alert.

This doesn't mean that they should have been made fun of, which I didn't see much evidence of the film actually doing.

As for Griffin on Newsnight; surely it's best to let people come on such programmes and shoot themselves in the head rather than banning and canting and pretending it's not happening or properly investigating why people should feel inclined to empathise with or vote for them.

Italians aren't white? What on earth does "white" mean, then?

There's a story about Charles Mingus being interviewed and saying, "I don't employ white people in my band", and the interviewer saying, "But what about Charlie Mariano?" and Mingus saying, "He's not white, he's Italian"

As for Griffin on Newsnight; surely it's best to let people come on such programmes and shoot themselves in the head rather than...

So that explains why Jade Goody is popping up on the BBC so often these days?

Yes, the publicly-funded BBC who don't play black music on their mainstream radio stations (Radio Duffy) but regularly give space on their airwaves to known racists.

"The programme argued that Enoch Powell's views were very complex..."

Well the programme was wrong then.

Complex views: hated black people, didn't want people to think he hated black people.

Complex views: British Empire, setting sun, Colonel Redfern.

Hitler wrote his books in German, so you know that dude was intelligent.

Next week's Radio 2 Record Of The Week: reissue of "Free Rudolf Hess" by Jeremy Clarkson.

"45 years in captivit-iii, just for being a Naa-ziii..."

Clarkson is a very complex thinker.

Clarkson went to Oxford, you know. Saw them thrashed 4-0 by Port Vale.

"The programme argued that Jade Goody's views were very complex so to dismiss her as racist is to simplify this point."

"Most of our contributors have a more complex appreciation of Goody's arguments about British identity and her place in the narrative of Britain's immigration history and do not simply brand her a racist. She was one of the most intelligent, articulate and influential celebrities of the post Iraq war period, whose thoughts and arguments on areas as diverse as identity, immigration and even economic policy, still resonate."

"Broadly speaking this programme analyses the argument Goody articulated in her 'Shilpa Poppadum' speech and comes to the conclusion that some of her arguments about the rise of segregation and communal hostility were prescient. But it also highlights the political ambition that lay behind the speech, her lack of judgement, her inflammatory language and it concludes that by racialising the argument over immigration she did himself, the country, and the immigrant community a great disservice."

Clarkson went to Oxford, you know

Very nice preserves, I hear.

Speed edit ahoy:

"The programme argued that Jade Goody's views were racist. Most of our contributors have racist thoughts. Broadly speaking this programme highlights lack of language and it concludes that she did him."

Bye bye pretty girls :(

BBC provides more proof. Send 'em back (to Blighty), I say.

I'm moving to poland.

to steal their jobs and marry their wives, obv

mainly the wives part.

I'm also imagining a pint doesn't cost £3 in Poland

Not yet anyway...

... it's planned for 2050, at the earliest

That prompted headlines in the British press like: "Would the last person to leave Poland please turn out the lights?"

OK, Daily Express! You know who you are!

A portion of Bitburger is Zl.8 Or £1.70.

I don't know what a portion is but that sounds quite reasonable.

Oh, wait, it's half a litre.

a whopping 66 1/2 ml less! You one of these Binge Drinkers Giving This Country A Bad Name, Ned? ;-)

I'm confused. I need a drink.

A binge drink or just a normal one?

Chocolate drink binge
http://images.ciao.com/iuk/images/products/normal/191/product-6645191.jpg

Or even chocolate binge drink, I told you i was confused.

Chocopops

Is this like OK'S KERRY KATONA saying that she's going to LEAVE THIS COUNTRY and then when you read the piece what she's saying is she's so fed up that she might move to London in 2020 and take husband Frank Butcher with her?