Reddit reviews Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class

Careful now I know chavs who are not idiots or racists, no matter how useful stereotyping is, it should be avoided.

Google scholar has a lot of articles, particularly by media studies academics.
In the UK, Milly Dowler is a good example. During the period in which she was missing police found the body of another missing. The media were all hyped up, but once it was discovered the body was not Milly's, they just moved on. The girl they found was Hannah Williams - because she wasn't Milly, wasn't middle class, was from a single aren't household and had body piercings, her case wasn't really observed by the media.
I did my dissertation along the lines of MWWS. I did a short case comparison analysis of Madeleine McCann, and Shannon Matthews. Shannon's disappearance took three weeks to hit the national newspapers, and £50,000 was offered for her return or information (compared to £2.8 million for Madeleine). The media only really started getting interested once it turned out Shannon's mother and her boyfriend were the ones who orchestrated the whole thing.

There is a book called "Chavs: the demonization of the working class", and the first chapter talks about Madeleine and Shannon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chavs-Demonization-Working-Owen-Jones/dp/184467696X

Chav is an ugly term. It encourages people to judge others based on their social position rather than their actions. I don't think it is useful to genuine honest debate. For further interesting discussion see, for example this.

I don't mean to be overly critical, lots of very right-thinking, decent individuals use the word. I just think it supports the sort of lowest-common-denominator thinking that leads to class prejudice.

Speaking of class, the usual framing of the riots in non-class terms is again in full swing. It is either "the poor" (if you listen to well-meaning progressives), "the immigrants" (if you listen to the right) or most interesting, "the chavs" (if you listen to the center).

For instance, this Reddit-topic is a nice illustration. It depicts the "average London rioter" as the Little Britain character Vicky Pollard, the quintessential "chav", that is an delinquent, overweight, low educated, white, sexually promiscuous teenage mom, immediately recognizable by her inarticulate dialect/ethnic slang and tracksuit.

In other words, it is the an over-the-top combination of every possible white working class stereotype, typecast for the enjoyment of the middle class BBC-watcher (the series is, honest to habitus, quite funny). For Dutch comparison, think all the drunk deathbeats in Verhulst's Helaasheid der Dingen, the "hangjongeren" id. New Kids or the social-security scamming Familie Flodder.

This stereotyping and ridiculing of the lower classes is quite pervasive and possibly a way of dealing with the middle class cognitive dissonance of believing in an classless society while being acutely aware that this is not the case (ideas stolen from "Cavs: the demonisation of the working class", recommended reading).

And as long as lower class discontent, eventually ending in riots, can be effectively articulated in non-class terms/linked to cultural minorities (whether '"ethnic culture" or "chav culture"), it will lose a lot of it's political punch...

Please read this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chavs-Demonization-Working-Owen-Jones/dp/184467696X

Yeah, sad to see this getting upvoted. There's a lot of shit going on in the working class, but guffawing at them from our ivory fucking towers does shit-all to help the situation.

I'd reccomend this book on the subject.

leave your 1-star reviews here and here.

Give that a read when you can.

"I don't know a single person who took part." That's a bit daft, this could mean you are all kinds off things as to never interact with such people, not that you are inherently better than them. I don't know a single person who was on strike recently what does that prove bar I may work in the private sector?

I think a few people would benefit from reading this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chavs-Owen-Jones/dp/184467696X

Relevant

Here you go redditors, get this for Christmas - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chavs-Demonization-Working-Owen-Jones/dp/184467696X .

And maybe by next Christmas we will see this for what it is, a crass stereotype, no different from your standard racist or sexist cartoon. Conceived to make us feel better about our own situation, safe in the knowledge that we have a "feral underclass" to kick. Pathetic.