Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com
Meaning, of course, that one-third are from an ethnic minority, almost all of whom arrived there within a generation. No matter where you are and what your ethnic group, does that sound like a workable plan for harmony?
I for one am happy to celebrate St. George's day. Why should those of Irish heritage get all the fun and attention with St. Patrick's Day? The Scots get off a little better as there are some St. Andrew's Day celebrations, like the Scottish walk in Alexandria, VA.
I remember standing at Elephant and Castle waiting for a bus to take me back "North" after visiting the Imperial War Museum.
To say that it was an interesting area would be an understatement,but you gotta admire ANYPLACE that has an Underground stop called Elephant and Castle.
Isn't that where the show "EastEnders" is supposed to be located? If that's what life is really like in Southeast London I could see why.
That's the nice thing about the US. It's not like the US doesn't have classes, but at least we're not obsessed with them. That said, this "urbane attitude" hip-hop subculture makes me sick to my stomach.
Well this is not strictly true: they've resurrected the street markets, they've still got the same seedy "luncheonettes" and I went to the same pantomine that I went to as a child, just recently.
There are too many roving street gangs, robberies do happen in broad daylight, shootouts are all too common and the only bakeries are hang outs for homosexuals. (Who give heteros the steeliest looks when they patronise "their" shops.)
Furthermore, Southwark cathedral still has a good congregation and great services.
Was in London in November... they have really, really gone overboard for this whole Eminem/hip-hop thing. MTV and videos are still onmipresent over there, and the overall effect is sad. Going back to Elvis, British pop culture has had a warped view of American society as seen through the TV filter, and now with TV monitors (and cameras) EVERYWHERE, they are subjected to our Hollywood trash culture on an unheard-of scale.
The graffiti is now much worse than New York's, and much of the youth are little foul-mouthed Eminem clones lashing out and rebelling at perceived slights where none exist. This "chav" thing is their most ridiculous manifestation of America's "gangsta" look.
Every single thing I enjoyed about my trip had to do with Britain's past; there was absolutely nothing charming about their present-day culture.
I find it interesting that these people are making racial remarks at each other. It reminds me of blacks that call each other names. Is this just a societial thing that no matter what race there's always a need to talk about something racial?
They were vulgar, ignorant, rude, violent, and, worst of all, an obstacle to the creation of a multicultural society.
The rise in denigration of the working class is a result of the rise of a new ruling class in Britain, one centered in the media, academia, and government bureaucracy. The working class was a valuable weapon in the war the New Class successfully waged against the old ruling class, centered in land, old money, and aristocracy, but now that the war has been won the old working class ideas and rhetoric formerly used against the old ruling class are a distinct threat to the new ruling class. Now they need a weapon against this new potential threat, and they don't have to look any farther than America to find that battle tested weapon: race. Racial politics give them the excuse to turn on their old allies and justifies their often undemocratic and "classist" attitudes and actions. They certainly don't want to share power with the working class, despite what they use to say, and if they brand them as Nazis they won't have to. They can pretty much sh**can all that old talk of a classless society and the heroic working man's rightful place in it, they can grab power for themselves and justify it on the grounds of anti-racism. Anti-racism in the West today justifies anything.
And in truth, there is a lot of "racism" in the working class, why shouldn't there be? It is they who bear almost all of the burden of the multiculturalism that so soothes the yuppie psyche, just as in America, and unlike their yuppie masters the poor have fewer options when it comes to pulling up stakes and moving to a nicer neighborhood when changes in their present one suddenly drive them to look for "better schools". Living cheek to jowl with the reality of multiculturalism often results in what the ruling class sees as antisocial behavior on the part of the white working class, such as racial jokes, insensitivity and, worst of all, voting Tory (not that the Tories ever do anything for them). It's the last one that really brings out the chav-bashing.
Here Julie Burchill, a former columnist for The Guardian drives the point home:
Of course, we all know who can't be trusted to play the white man with Johnny Foreigner: it's the working class, isn't it? That idle, boozed-up, aggressive white working class who are the only thing standing between this divided hellhole and life as one long Nescafé ad, with the residents of Hampstead giving high-fives to cheery old African gents in the dappled sunlight. That the working class might have a thoroughly legitimate reason for becoming more agitated about immigration than the tolerant middle class, with their health insurance, private schools and comfy cars, is never considered by these usually oh-so-caring types. Instead, anti-racism has become yet another stick for the ruling class to beat the working class with.The white English working class is now the only group of people that the chattering classes are happy to hear mocked and attacked. Whether it's Louis de Bernières decrying the "anti-education, anti-culture attitude of the white working class", Keith Waterhouse's tired old routine about the moronic Sharon and Tracey (but never Winston and Leroy, let alone Seamus and Paddy) or Jon Snow in this paper last week chiding the white working class - more in sorrow than in anger - for not being prepared to work all the hours God sends like those nice Indians/ Kosovans/Algerians, but rather wasting their time "sporting a red cross daubed across their faces watching Sky digital". (I thought the official caring liberal line was that we work the longest hours in Europe, and that it's bad for us and we should all relax more.)
What we now have is a new version of the deserving and undeserving poor - the noble new British working class, who are ethnic, and the thoroughly swinish old working class, who are white. And I honestly can't think of anything worse for race relations in this country than for its indigenous proletariat to be lectured on how lacking they are in comparison to the country's immigrant population, and how grateful they should be to have them here.
I don't remember the last time politicians praised the white working class for one damned thing they've done for this country, be it die in their millions in their masters' wars or risk their lives daily to pull coal out of the earth or face their dismissal with fortitude when their valour was repaid with the dole queue. If you want a full-on race-hate revival, just keep on telling people, as Robin Cook did, that there was no such thing as the British race (why is it on the Census, then?) or implying that, before immigration, this country was some sort of cultural wasteland, which is as silly and ill-sorted an idea as declaring that Africa and India were culturally impoverished before whites poked their noses in.