The first thing we must do is identify Rachel Jeantel for those who weren't following the Trayvon Martin controversy closely. Rachel is a BBW from the `hood, and was on the phone with Trayvon Martin at the time of the confrontation with George Zimmerman at the end of which Trayvon was dead. She was thus the prosecution's star witness at Mr. Zimmerman's trial.
If you search "Rachel Jeantel" on YouTube, you can find Ms. Jeantel's testimony in its entirety. But will you be able to understand what she's saying? Counsel for the defence made much of the fact that he was having difficulty doing so. His many requests for repetition or clarification of what she said were seen by some as an attempt to denigrate [No puns, please. Ed.] her intelligence/education/integrity.
In other words, the defence was accused of racism, of trying to discredit Ms. Jeantel and her testimony based on who she was and how she spoke. Among those hollering "racism" was John McWhorter, a professor of linguistics and editor of the ultra-liberal New Republic. Interviewed on "All In" by the very PC Chris Hayes, Prof. McWhorter asserted that Ms Jeantel was merely speaking "Black English", and very articulately too. If her answers weren't clear to the judge and the jury, it was because they were "crackers", the whole lot of them.
But is there such a thing as "Black English"? If so, is it a generally acceptable part of "the linguistic bounty that is America" (to quote Hayes)? Prof. McWhorter declined to debate the issue on Fox News, but Jehmu Green and Brian Benjamin, both persons of colour, had at it. Here's what they had to say.
Mr. Benjamin said there's no such thing as "Black English". Ms. Green adopted Jesse Jackson's characterization of the "language" as a "garbage dialect". Whatever "Black English" may be, she said, "it's not a language that's going to get you to graduate from high school, to go to college, to find a job, or to keep a job."
As you watch the video, you can't help but be impressed by both debaters' command of proper English. (I was tempted to write "the Queen's English", but hey, it's America.) They don't speak "Black English", at least not on TV.
Nor is "Black English" the mangled language misused by Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll in the old (and very politically incorrect) radio and TV sitcom, Amos 'n' Andy. Messrs. Gosden and Correll were white actors who wrote and spoke in the artificial "dialect" of the minstrel show tradition -- a caricature of the way American blacks really spoke, even back in the day.
Back in the 60s, "linguistics experts" like Prof. McWhorter coined another label for the "language" they now call "Black English". They called it "Ebonics", and defined it as African-American Vernacular English, "a distinctive lect of English spoken by many African-Americans". There's a book about it -- Ebonics, the True Language of Black Folks -- but that doesn't make it a language.
What is "Ebonics" then? The Urban Dictionary calls it "a poor excuse for a failure to grasp the basics of english [sic]. When in doubt, throw an "izzle" sound in the middle of any word of just string random thoughts together and insinuate that they actually mean something. When backed into a corner, you can always claim that it has something to do with a sort of symbolism or is a defining trait that makes your race great, versus own up to the fact that it is essentially laziness at it's [sic]finest.
Ms. Jeantel wasn't speaking "Ebonics", nor was she speaking "Black English". What Ms. Jeantel speaks is the idiom of the `hood, the language spoken by poor blacks -- and white and Latinos -- who grow up in certain parts of American cities. It is not the language used by the likes of Ms. Green and Mr. Benjamin, or Prof. McWhorter. It is that of folks who are poor and uneducated and happy to remain the latter if not the former. It doesn't mean they're bad folks or dumb folks, only that they are what they are -- members of a distinct and growing American underclass.
Showing posts with label underclass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label underclass. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Sunday, June 2, 2013
What's wrong with Sweden? Could it be "the I-word"?
In the latter half of the 20th century, Sweden was, by most accounts, a prosperous and successful country. Its nanny state society and social harmony were admired, even envied by most other nations. With the exception of the owner of Ikea, almost no-one was really rich, and no-one was really poor. All the blonde, blue-eyed people lived harmoniously in a land of plenty.
But was that good enough for the social democrats and secular humanists who dominated Sweden's politics and public discourse? Certainly not. How can you be a do-gooder if there are no poor and downtrodden people to uplift? What Sweden lacked was an underclass, of the type America has in spades. [Careful there... Ed.]
Having no native-born underclass of its own, the Swedes did the next-best thing, and imported one. Sweden was one of the first European countries to put out the welcome mat for immigrants from the Third World. Underlying their open-door policy is a broad humanitarian desire to do good, combined with the belief that the right kind of social policies – education, welfare, job training – can transform newcomers into Swedes faster than you can say "Sven Svensen".
Unfortunately for them, the Swedes didn't pay attention to the warnings of Charles De Gaulle and Enoch Powell. Why would they? After all, Swedes have never been imperialists, colonialists or racists like those awful British and French. But now their peaceful social democracy is experiencing a reality check!
As a footnote to "Geert Wilders warns USA: Muslims taking over Europe -- you're next!", Walt called attention to last week's riots in Stockholm and other Swedish cities. Who were the rioters? No prizes for guessing they were unemployed "persons of colour" who immigrated from the sandpits of northern Africa and the Middle East.
Why did they do it? In an insightful piece in yesterday's Globe and Mail, Margaret Wente quotes a Social Democratic politician as saying, "This is not a question about immigration, it is a class question." Others blame a lack of jobs, social exclusion, bad schools, poor living conditions, growing inequality, police brutality and racism, and the erosion of the welfare state -- everything but the country's unrealistic immigration policy, about which Sweden's liberal elite is still in denial.
There is an obvious explanation for the recent unrest (Ms Wente continues) but in Sweden, it's almost impossible to discuss. The country has opened its doors to a flood of people from some of the most troubled parts of the world – especially the Muslim-majority countries of Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq. Hundreds of thousands have arrived in the past decade alone. Many will not be able to succeed in Swedish society. They are destined to become permanent wards of the state.
...semi-literate people from the tribal cultures of the Middle East or Africa are not the same as the Western middle-class Chileans who fled Pinochet. The culture clash extends from the importance of religion, the rights of women and the proper way to raise children to the benefits of exercise.... To put it mildly, assimilation is a challenge.
...frank discussions of the country's immigration problems are virtually taboo. Anyone who brings them up is likely to be labelled as a xenophobic racist. When the immigration minister, Tobias Billström, mildly suggested that "we need to discuss the volume" of immigration, his own party nearly disowned him. What accounts for this excruciating excess of political correctness?
The best explanation I have heard comes from Jonathan Friedman, an American anthropologist who is married to a Swedish woman, and lived in Sweden for several years before moving back to California. He blames a "politics of submission by Swedish elites." Continued large-scale immigration...is untenable in a situation of economic decline. But Sweden's elite "refuses to see what is really happening and instead holds on to absurd ideologies of immigration as enrichment." [My emphasis. Walt]
In other words, such outbreaks are bound to happen. And they are bound to create big cracks in Sweden's famous tradition of social cohesion. As Swedes redistribute more and more of their wealth to people whose habits are culturally alien, and who are permanently dependent on the state, the immigration consensus is bound to crack.
Memo to the political "leaders" of the USA and Canada: If you won't learn from the mistakes of the British, the French, be warned by the example of Sweden. If policies of multiculturalism and assimilation don't work there, they won't work anywhere!
But was that good enough for the social democrats and secular humanists who dominated Sweden's politics and public discourse? Certainly not. How can you be a do-gooder if there are no poor and downtrodden people to uplift? What Sweden lacked was an underclass, of the type America has in spades. [Careful there... Ed.]
Having no native-born underclass of its own, the Swedes did the next-best thing, and imported one. Sweden was one of the first European countries to put out the welcome mat for immigrants from the Third World. Underlying their open-door policy is a broad humanitarian desire to do good, combined with the belief that the right kind of social policies – education, welfare, job training – can transform newcomers into Swedes faster than you can say "Sven Svensen".
Unfortunately for them, the Swedes didn't pay attention to the warnings of Charles De Gaulle and Enoch Powell. Why would they? After all, Swedes have never been imperialists, colonialists or racists like those awful British and French. But now their peaceful social democracy is experiencing a reality check!
As a footnote to "Geert Wilders warns USA: Muslims taking over Europe -- you're next!", Walt called attention to last week's riots in Stockholm and other Swedish cities. Who were the rioters? No prizes for guessing they were unemployed "persons of colour" who immigrated from the sandpits of northern Africa and the Middle East.
Why did they do it? In an insightful piece in yesterday's Globe and Mail, Margaret Wente quotes a Social Democratic politician as saying, "This is not a question about immigration, it is a class question." Others blame a lack of jobs, social exclusion, bad schools, poor living conditions, growing inequality, police brutality and racism, and the erosion of the welfare state -- everything but the country's unrealistic immigration policy, about which Sweden's liberal elite is still in denial.
There is an obvious explanation for the recent unrest (Ms Wente continues) but in Sweden, it's almost impossible to discuss. The country has opened its doors to a flood of people from some of the most troubled parts of the world – especially the Muslim-majority countries of Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq. Hundreds of thousands have arrived in the past decade alone. Many will not be able to succeed in Swedish society. They are destined to become permanent wards of the state.
...semi-literate people from the tribal cultures of the Middle East or Africa are not the same as the Western middle-class Chileans who fled Pinochet. The culture clash extends from the importance of religion, the rights of women and the proper way to raise children to the benefits of exercise.... To put it mildly, assimilation is a challenge.
...frank discussions of the country's immigration problems are virtually taboo. Anyone who brings them up is likely to be labelled as a xenophobic racist. When the immigration minister, Tobias Billström, mildly suggested that "we need to discuss the volume" of immigration, his own party nearly disowned him. What accounts for this excruciating excess of political correctness?
The best explanation I have heard comes from Jonathan Friedman, an American anthropologist who is married to a Swedish woman, and lived in Sweden for several years before moving back to California. He blames a "politics of submission by Swedish elites." Continued large-scale immigration...is untenable in a situation of economic decline. But Sweden's elite "refuses to see what is really happening and instead holds on to absurd ideologies of immigration as enrichment." [My emphasis. Walt]
In other words, such outbreaks are bound to happen. And they are bound to create big cracks in Sweden's famous tradition of social cohesion. As Swedes redistribute more and more of their wealth to people whose habits are culturally alien, and who are permanently dependent on the state, the immigration consensus is bound to crack.
Memo to the political "leaders" of the USA and Canada: If you won't learn from the mistakes of the British, the French, be warned by the example of Sweden. If policies of multiculturalism and assimilation don't work there, they won't work anywhere!
Monday, December 5, 2011
Mother of 6 trades $96,000 house for minivan
In some parts of America, you can get a pretty good house for under $100,000. A lady in Detroit had one -- 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, located in Russell Woods (former hometown of Diana Ross & the Supremes), valued at $96,000. She traded it for a 2006 Chevy Uplander -- seats 6-8, PS & PB, only 85,000 miles, valued at around $6800.The former home-owner told the Detroit News "I had a lot of good offers, some from out of state. It turned out I took one of the first offers I got because I felt like it helped us both. They needed the house more than anyone I spoke with. They kept telling me it was a blessing to them. I really feel like I made a good decision."
Why did she do this? Well, the lady is disabled, and felt she could no longer rely on Detroit's troubled bus service. So, you see, a minivan made much better sense than the Corvette she was offered.
The new motorist's name is Lawanda Flake. Really.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Florida Angel says someone must pay for her 15 kids
I didn't mean to suggest that Agent 17 has been negligent in his duty to keep us apprised of outrageous happenings in the Sunshine State. Just two days ago he sent us this gem.
Where, asks 17, does this culture of entitlement come from? Walt's quick answer would be that it's been inculcated in us by the liberal humanitarians. Whatever the problem is, they keep telling us, we can look to the nanny state for the solution. Individual responsibility and accountability are notions which belong to the past, just like laissez-faire economics.
In 21st century Western society, everyone is entitled to the necessities of life and much, much more. And who should provide these things? Well, the government, of course. And who is supposed to pay for that? Everyone else!
As for Angel, may we suggest that appropriate accommodation would be a very, very large shoe.
Where, asks 17, does this culture of entitlement come from? Walt's quick answer would be that it's been inculcated in us by the liberal humanitarians. Whatever the problem is, they keep telling us, we can look to the nanny state for the solution. Individual responsibility and accountability are notions which belong to the past, just like laissez-faire economics.
In 21st century Western society, everyone is entitled to the necessities of life and much, much more. And who should provide these things? Well, the government, of course. And who is supposed to pay for that? Everyone else!
As for Angel, may we suggest that appropriate accommodation would be a very, very large shoe.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Arrest made in multiracial Yonge Street stomp
Agent 3 sends along another update on the Toronto stomping which has become a big video hit on the Internet. Toronto police have moved with surprising alacrity [quickly, too! Ed.] to arrest one of the perps, a 15-year-old girl from Brampton, whose identity is protected under Canada's Be Kind to Young Criminals Act.
Agent 3, who grew up in Brampton, refers to the city as "the Jane-Finch Extension". He says readers will know what he means. He has now moved to "a lighter part of Canada".
Meanwhile, CBC Radio's Toronto flagship station -- "Sounding like Toronto looks" -- jealous as hell of its TV cousin ["Looking like Toronto looks"? Ed.] has broadcast the audio portion of the now-infamous video.
Why they would do this is a mystery, given that the sound alone makes it clear that the stompee was white and the stompers were, errr, not white. Another example of the racial harmony and we's-all-brothers mentality for which Toronto is renowned.
Agent 3, who grew up in Brampton, refers to the city as "the Jane-Finch Extension". He says readers will know what he means. He has now moved to "a lighter part of Canada".
Meanwhile, CBC Radio's Toronto flagship station -- "Sounding like Toronto looks" -- jealous as hell of its TV cousin ["Looking like Toronto looks"? Ed.] has broadcast the audio portion of the now-infamous video.
Why they would do this is a mystery, given that the sound alone makes it clear that the stompee was white and the stompers were, errr, not white. Another example of the racial harmony and we's-all-brothers mentality for which Toronto is renowned.
Update: Stompee wasn't pregnant after all
Agent 3 has been following the story of the assault by a gang of racially mixed trash on a woman who appeared to be pregnant. This happened in Toronto on Friday night, and a video of the MMA event is all over the Net, including Walt's previous post.
Initial reports were that the woman who got stomped was pregnant, and she certainly appeared so in the video. However, Toronto's Finest [Who dat? Ed.] have investigated, and have ascertained that the victim was not pregnant, after all.
Guess she was a confirmed beer drinker, or maybe just plain fat. Perhaps she's been snacking on Chips Ahoy Middles.
The Old Bill is still looking for the perps. Maybe they can track down the "Anonymous" gangsta who commented on Walt's previous post.
Initial reports were that the woman who got stomped was pregnant, and she certainly appeared so in the video. However, Toronto's Finest [Who dat? Ed.] have investigated, and have ascertained that the victim was not pregnant, after all.
Guess she was a confirmed beer drinker, or maybe just plain fat. Perhaps she's been snacking on Chips Ahoy Middles.
The Old Bill is still looking for the perps. Maybe they can track down the "Anonymous" gangsta who commented on Walt's previous post.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Mom-to-be gets stomped in the multicult capital
Everyone knows that Philadelphia is no longer the City of Brotherly Love. No, that title [perhaps updated to "The City of Sibling Love"? Ed.] now belongs to Toronto, the font of political correctness and the exemplar of multiracial peace and harmony.
Well, not always...
Today's Toronto Star features a story headed "Police investigate video of young pregnant woman being beaten". The headline in a less lamestream medium reads
Preggo Dope Fiend Gets Jumped By Hood Chicks In Toronto For Talkin Mess!
What that means, in plain English, is that a pissing contest [Don't be so literal! He means a slanging match! Ed.] broke out between a young and obviously pregnant woman and some other females on a darkened stretch of Yonge Street, the Little Apple's main drag.
The video -- labelled "Warning: Graphic Content" -- shows pedestrians walking past the group as the shouting increases. Although it looks as if the pregnant woman could have escaped, she doesn't do so. She starts to walk away, but comes back for more.
After a few more choice words are exchanged, a male voice yells "Hit her!" At this point, the pregnant woman lashes out at another female with her jacket and knocks a bottle to the ground, where it shatters.
The other females then strike back, hitting the pregnant woman about the face and knocking her to the ground. While lying helpless on the sidewalk, she is kicked around the head and in the stomach and back for about 30 seconds, during which she covers her head with her hands and wails with pain.
While she is being beaten, the person holding the camera does not try to intervene to stop the beating. In fact, the person moves in to record the action from close range. At the end of the beating, a young woman spits on the victim.
The video has already disappeared from YouTube and the original site, but since we know you'll be wanting to see it -- WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT! -- Ed. has embedded a link, below.
Before you watch, how about a little self-criticism. Will all those who think the actors in this little piece are, errr, persons of colour, please raise your hands. Hmm. Just as I thought. Well, have a look.
Fooled ya, eh! You see? It's not just members of the black underclass who carry on like dat! Trash comes in every colour -- black, white and striped.
PS from Ed.: Just in case the embed link gets disabled, I've made a backup. If you can't see the video, let us know, and I'll upload my copy.
Well, not always...
Today's Toronto Star features a story headed "Police investigate video of young pregnant woman being beaten". The headline in a less lamestream medium reads
Preggo Dope Fiend Gets Jumped By Hood Chicks In Toronto For Talkin Mess!
What that means, in plain English, is that a pissing contest [Don't be so literal! He means a slanging match! Ed.] broke out between a young and obviously pregnant woman and some other females on a darkened stretch of Yonge Street, the Little Apple's main drag.
The video -- labelled "Warning: Graphic Content" -- shows pedestrians walking past the group as the shouting increases. Although it looks as if the pregnant woman could have escaped, she doesn't do so. She starts to walk away, but comes back for more.
After a few more choice words are exchanged, a male voice yells "Hit her!" At this point, the pregnant woman lashes out at another female with her jacket and knocks a bottle to the ground, where it shatters.
The other females then strike back, hitting the pregnant woman about the face and knocking her to the ground. While lying helpless on the sidewalk, she is kicked around the head and in the stomach and back for about 30 seconds, during which she covers her head with her hands and wails with pain.
While she is being beaten, the person holding the camera does not try to intervene to stop the beating. In fact, the person moves in to record the action from close range. At the end of the beating, a young woman spits on the victim.
The video has already disappeared from YouTube and the original site, but since we know you'll be wanting to see it -- WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT! -- Ed. has embedded a link, below.
Before you watch, how about a little self-criticism. Will all those who think the actors in this little piece are, errr, persons of colour, please raise your hands. Hmm. Just as I thought. Well, have a look.
Fooled ya, eh! You see? It's not just members of the black underclass who carry on like dat! Trash comes in every colour -- black, white and striped.
PS from Ed.: Just in case the embed link gets disabled, I've made a backup. If you can't see the video, let us know, and I'll upload my copy.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
"I didn't see this coming!": Marx
On July 18th, I wrote about "The new oppressed minority", and introduced to you the British neologism "chavs", standing (possibly) for "Council Housed And Violent". I was looking for an example and came up with just one picture. Since this weekend, though, you've been able to see hundreds of pictures and videos of chavs in action, in the riots that have spread from a largely black area of London to several English cities.
Who are the chavs -- the hooded hooligans we see burning, looting and pillaging their own neighbourhoods? Where do they come from? Why are they doing this? In "More about chavs", I tried to show how Britain's welfare statism -- relentless even during the government of Margaret Thatcher -- has produced a large and growing underclass of uneducated, unemployed and generally useless young people, parasites sucking on the tits of the British taxpayers. It is that scummy underclass -- on this side of the water we would call them "white trash" -- who are revolting. And no, I'm not making a cheap joke.
Karl Marx saw class warfare as inevitable. He predicted a revolution of the proletariat -- meaning workers and peasants -- who would rise against the upper classes, the landlords, capitalists and gentry who (he claimed) held the lower classes in poverty and servitude.
Marx had the general idea, but he never imagined that the upper classes would create and nurture the drunken mob which roams the streets of British cities even as I write.
For the hoodlums you see kicking in windows and robbing the wounded are not workers, peasants or students. They are NEETs -- another new word for you -- Not in Employment, Education or Training. In other words, they are idlers and layabouts, who would be starving and homeless but for the largesse of the nanny state which provides them with public housing ("council houses"), free healthcare, and "allowances" for being unemployed or unemployable.
Marx would doubtless approve of all these socialistic -- OK, communist! -- programmes. However, it was the British electorate which voted for one government after another -- not excepting that of Margaret Thatcher -- which instituted these "measures for the assistance of the less fortunate and disadvantaged". "Progressive" thinking, "progressive" thinkers and "progressive" politicians have sowed the wind. And now Britain reaps the whirlwind.
But before we say it can't happen in America, let us remember the so-called race riots of the `60s and `70s: Detroit, Harlem, and of course Watts. While there were racial overtones to those riots, they were just as much about class as about race. In the USA, "progressive" civil rights, welfare and criminal justice policies have spawned a huge underclass which just happens to be comprised largely of brown and black people. Those are the ones who take to the streets and steal TVs to get even for "police brutality" and other real or imaginary injustices.
Marx, it seems, was colour-blind. Perhaps it was because most of the citizens of his native Prussia and of Britain, where he did most of his thinking and writing, were white. The UK had not yet been inundated by wave after wave of South Asian, Caribbean and African immigrants.
And in the 19th century, when Marx wrote, Britain had not yet tried putting his theories into practice. It's a pity Marx didn't live to see how his vision of Utopia played out. What happened to the Great Britain of the Victorian era? "Progressive" policies turned it into the mongrelized anti-society that is collapsing tonight.
Who are the chavs -- the hooded hooligans we see burning, looting and pillaging their own neighbourhoods? Where do they come from? Why are they doing this? In "More about chavs", I tried to show how Britain's welfare statism -- relentless even during the government of Margaret Thatcher -- has produced a large and growing underclass of uneducated, unemployed and generally useless young people, parasites sucking on the tits of the British taxpayers. It is that scummy underclass -- on this side of the water we would call them "white trash" -- who are revolting. And no, I'm not making a cheap joke.
Karl Marx saw class warfare as inevitable. He predicted a revolution of the proletariat -- meaning workers and peasants -- who would rise against the upper classes, the landlords, capitalists and gentry who (he claimed) held the lower classes in poverty and servitude.
Marx had the general idea, but he never imagined that the upper classes would create and nurture the drunken mob which roams the streets of British cities even as I write.
For the hoodlums you see kicking in windows and robbing the wounded are not workers, peasants or students. They are NEETs -- another new word for you -- Not in Employment, Education or Training. In other words, they are idlers and layabouts, who would be starving and homeless but for the largesse of the nanny state which provides them with public housing ("council houses"), free healthcare, and "allowances" for being unemployed or unemployable.
Marx would doubtless approve of all these socialistic -- OK, communist! -- programmes. However, it was the British electorate which voted for one government after another -- not excepting that of Margaret Thatcher -- which instituted these "measures for the assistance of the less fortunate and disadvantaged". "Progressive" thinking, "progressive" thinkers and "progressive" politicians have sowed the wind. And now Britain reaps the whirlwind.
But before we say it can't happen in America, let us remember the so-called race riots of the `60s and `70s: Detroit, Harlem, and of course Watts. While there were racial overtones to those riots, they were just as much about class as about race. In the USA, "progressive" civil rights, welfare and criminal justice policies have spawned a huge underclass which just happens to be comprised largely of brown and black people. Those are the ones who take to the streets and steal TVs to get even for "police brutality" and other real or imaginary injustices.
Marx, it seems, was colour-blind. Perhaps it was because most of the citizens of his native Prussia and of Britain, where he did most of his thinking and writing, were white. The UK had not yet been inundated by wave after wave of South Asian, Caribbean and African immigrants.
And in the 19th century, when Marx wrote, Britain had not yet tried putting his theories into practice. It's a pity Marx didn't live to see how his vision of Utopia played out. What happened to the Great Britain of the Victorian era? "Progressive" policies turned it into the mongrelized anti-society that is collapsing tonight.
Monday, July 18, 2011
More about chavs
According to Wikipedia, the word "chav" (see previous post) probably has its origins in the Romani word "chavi", meaning "child" or "chavo" meaning "boy", or "chavvy", meaning "youth". The word may have entered the English language through the Geordie dialect word "charva", meaning a rough child.
Many urban legends have sprung up around the etymology of the word. These include the backronym "Council Housed And Violent" or "Council House Associated Vermin". Though widely known and believed, these are definitely recent after-the-event inventions as attempts to explain the word.
The widespread use of the "chav" stereotype has come in for some criticism as amounting to no more than simple snobbery and elitism. Critics of the term have argued that its users are "neo-snobs", and that its increasing popularity raises questions about how British society deals with social mobility and class.
In a February 2005 article in The Times, Julie Burchill argued that use of the word is a form of "social racism", and that such "sneering" reveals more about the shortcomings of the "chav-haters" than those of their supposed victims. The writer John Harris argued along similar lines in a 2007 article in The Guardian. And that is the premise of Owen Jones's book, referred to in my last post.
Do we have chavs in North America? Your comments are invited.
Many urban legends have sprung up around the etymology of the word. These include the backronym "Council Housed And Violent" or "Council House Associated Vermin". Though widely known and believed, these are definitely recent after-the-event inventions as attempts to explain the word.
The widespread use of the "chav" stereotype has come in for some criticism as amounting to no more than simple snobbery and elitism. Critics of the term have argued that its users are "neo-snobs", and that its increasing popularity raises questions about how British society deals with social mobility and class.
In a February 2005 article in The Times, Julie Burchill argued that use of the word is a form of "social racism", and that such "sneering" reveals more about the shortcomings of the "chav-haters" than those of their supposed victims. The writer John Harris argued along similar lines in a 2007 article in The Guardian. And that is the premise of Owen Jones's book, referred to in my last post.
Do we have chavs in North America? Your comments are invited.
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.
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