The new oppressed minority

Rednecks. Trailer trash. White trash. Or...a little more gently...poor whites. There's millions of these "ordinary people" out there. I shop with them at Walmart. And I listen to the stories of their pathetic lives every day on Judge Judy. (Yes, yes. I know a lot of the "litigants" on Judge Judy represent the black underclass, but those aren't the ones we're talking about.)

In Britain they have another word for the young, "disadvantaged" louts you see hanging out at the malls and the welfare office. The word is "chav". Here's a picture of the female of the species.

A chav is a stereotype of certain people -- aggressive teenagers, of working class background -- who repeatedly engage in anti-social behaviour such as street drinking, drug abuse, rowdiness and other forms of juvenile delinquency. Although the term is most often used to describe teenagers, today's teen chavs are tomorrow's adult chavs. "Chavhood" is forever, it seems, and represents a huge social problem in today's Britain... and America... and Canada.

What do we do for... or with... the chavs? That's the theme of a new book by Owen Jones: Chavs: the Demonization of the Working Class. Jones says that looking down on, and putting down poor whites has now become completely acceptable to urban liberals. On the other hand, the poor from other ethnic groups are trated with respect, assumed to be the victims of racism, and showered with welfare and special programs to help them become, errr, not chavs.

This phenomenon has interesting political ramifications. The "elite" view of poor whites is one of the reasons for the populist backlash against the liberal parties of the USA, UK and Canada. These parties used to be the champions of the common man, the defenders of the poor, of families, of "ordinary people". Now the liberals have abadoned the white lower classes in favour of hipper minorities. (Hello refugees!)

Will the liberals get away with neglecting the man and woman on the 113 bus? Probably, because no matter how much the Tea Partiers might wish otherwise, the poor white minority doesn't vote.