salute tottenham

IdleRich

IdleRich
Well it goes back to what John said earlier I think

"The Met don't put up all their press releases for public consumption, such is their commitment to transparency.
It is quite clear from the literature about the death of Colin Roach (in Stoke Newington Police station in 1983) and the death of Smiley Culture earlier this year that the Met have a long history of briefing the press off the record about deaths in custody."
The rumour that he fired came from somewhere and it tends to work for the police - although I appreciate that you're saying that the rumour about the firing only existed in a kind of meta way - "the police are saying that he fired first".

"You are presented with one rumour, that the police were fired on. This turns out to be false, so you choose to weight another rumour. But it's all speculation."
What's the other rumour? Or is it the afore-mentioned rumour about the rumour?

"How? Isn't it just, like, the obvious? No one from the police ever said that Duggan fired at them, as far as you know--that's just an assumption that everyone is making based on rumour."
But the police haven't said anything. Why invent potential excuse scenarios for them?

"Has anyone from the media considered that the relentless 24/7 coverage might not be helping, I wonder."
I think it's feeding the flames - but I've been surprised how many people involved seem to be against being photographed even though they're all covered up. I thought that in our post-Big Brother society they would all want to be on telly. Haven't they seen Dog Day Afternoon?
 

you

Well-known member
Has anyone from the media considered that the relentless 24/7 coverage might not be helping, I wonder.

- Isn't this how the media thing operate nowadays, a la brookerian analysis? Fanning flames for extra material, making news themselves ( like fuel panic buying etc ) in order to report it....
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
No police in sight. Possibly not unrelatedly my friends just saw a van saying Manchester Metropolitan Police on the side in Stoke Newington.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Chavs-frontcover.jpg

I hate this kind of stuff, for the reason that it assumes an identity between those identified as 'chavs' by popular media/the public with 'the working class' (whatever that even means these days).

Most 'chavs' (if we assume that to mean ignorant, frequently inebriated, needlessly aggressive people) are not working class, if we understand 'working class' to mean people who work for a living doing something you don't have to study for at university. Similarly, the vast majority of working-class people are not 'chavs'. There's no shortage of middle-class 'chavs', or at any rate, obnoxious shallow pricks with a penchance for violence who've come from comfortably-off backgrounds.

This all just comes out of middle-class guilt and self-hatred. I'm reminded of Julie Burchill's ludicrous fantasies about her own 'chavdom'. Because obviously writing a self-important opinion column for a broadsheet newspaper is a typically 'chavish' occupation....
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I hate this kind of stuff, for the reason that it assumes an identity between those identified as 'chavs' by popular media/the public with 'the working class' (whatever that even means these days).

Most 'chavs' (if we assume that to mean ignorant, frequently inebriated, needlessly aggressive people) are not working class, if we understand 'working class' to mean people who work for a living doing something you don't have to study at university. Similarly, the vast majority of working-class people are not 'chavs'. There's no shortage of middle-class 'chavs', or at any rate, obnoxious shallow pricks with a penchance for violence who've come from comfortably-off backgrounds.

This all just comes out of middle-class guilt and self-hatred.

Chav is definitely a word used to signify class hatred, no two ways about it. People who are 'common'. Aggressive middle class people never get called chavs, ever, simply not true. They may get called lots of other things, but not chavs - this is blatantly just untrue! you're redefining how the word is actually used in an everyday context to fit your argument - people do not go around calling pissed up English public school rugby lads 'chavs', however they act.

It's a very good book. The 'middle class self hatred' line is a bit meaningless, i think - feeling empathy with people who didn't have it as good as you is a very different thing from self-hatred. Most of those who self-hate spew their hate onto others, and so are far more likely to be the people calling others 'chavs'.
 
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DannyL

Wild Horses
I hate this kind of stuff, for the reason that it assumes an identity between those identified as 'chavs' by popular media/the public with 'the working class' (whatever that even means these days).

...

This all just comes out of middle-class guilt and self-hatred. I'm reminded of Julie Burchill's ludicrous fantasies about her own 'chavdom'. Because obviously writing a self-important opinion column for a broadsheet newspaper is a typically 'chavish' occupation....

I disagree. I think the "chavs" narrative is clearly tied into media representations of the working class over the last, say, ten years or so, and grows out of dialogue about an "underclass" - a group which is not actually working = less deserving, benefit reliant and so on.

Most 'chavs' (if we assume that to mean ignorant, frequently inebriated, needlessly aggressive people)

But it doesn't mean that does it? It means someone who has the signifiers associated with "chavvy" which are those of dress, accent and behaviour. And the behavior need not be aggressive to qualify as "chavvy" it could just be doing something that's not perceived as classy i.e. eating chips with gravy and mushy peas. Or to go back to dress, wearing a Burberry shirt or big hoop earrings. "Chav' is definitely a term used to damn class signifiers, no doubt about it.

There's no shortage of middle-class 'chavs', or at any rate, obnoxious shallow pricks with a penchance for violence who've come from comfortably-off backgrounds.

Find me a representation of the middle classes, even at their most disorderly, that uses the word "chav". I doubt such a thing exists.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Xpost. My gravy and mushy peas signifier is a bit crap but I've been in the pub. Tea, can't you imagine someone describing my accent as "chavvy"? Regardless of what i"m doing...
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
For any North Americans reading, 'chav' is used in pretty much the same way as 'white trash'. Inextricably linked to perceived class.
 

grizzleb

Well-known member
I hate this kind of stuff, for the reason that it assumes an identity between those identified as 'chavs' by popular media/the public with 'the working class' (whatever that even means these days).

Most 'chavs' (if we assume that to mean ignorant, frequently inebriated, needlessly aggressive people) are not working class, if we understand 'working class' to mean people who work for a living doing something you don't have to study at university. Similarly, the vast majority of working-class people are not 'chavs'. There's no shortage of middle-class 'chavs', or at any rate, obnoxious shallow pricks with a penchance for violence who've come from comfortably-off backgrounds.

This all just comes out of middle-class guilt and self-hatred. I'm reminded of Julie Burchill's ludicrous fantasies about her own 'chavdom'. Because obviously writing a self-important opinion column for a broadsheet newspaper is a typically 'chavish' occupation....
Well, for one thing, you haven't read the book and you're, so to speak, judging it by its cover. Maybe it discusses the subtleties of class.

There is a link between what is called 'chav culture' and poverty. You can't say that most chavs aren't working class - maybe they don't work now but I'd wager their grandparents did. And working in farmfoods for a year I worked alongside people I'd definitely call 'neds' or whatever, they worked, they liked a drink, they watched shite telly and they lived on schemes. They weren't bad people but they probably didn't have much hope or the future, neither did their children.

What you're talking about assumes there is this large group of people who are basically scum and can be excluded from society on that basis. To do so is to basically say that there is a group who are no longer deserving of any intervention on their behalf. I think that the only way we can improve the lot of people in estates and what else is to not view them as simply 'needlessly aggressive, frequently inebriated' but people who exist in malign and insidious social conditions that results in a kind of nihilistic hopelessness and anger. The only way to improve on this is to take efforts to try and improve their conditions.

I think that there has been a concerted effort to break down class identification and redefine the terms of what belonging to a certain class means since the 1980's. I view it as two-pronged. People who would have identified as working class 30 years ago will often now identify as middle-class simply because they have aspirations, they perhaps own their own council house, they want their kids to go to a university. The distruction of the trade-union movement also contributes to this, as less and less people see themselves tied together with workers doing similar jobs and trying to get better conditions for themselves.
On the other hand you have the muddying of the lines of what 'working class' means to start to become the aformentioned 'chav' culture (also called the underclass), and nobody who is aware of the significance of class would want to identified with such a group as it is portrayed.

The benefits for essentially dissolving the working class as a self-identified group seem to me pretty obvious.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Chav is definitely a word used to signify class hatred, no two ways about it. People who are 'common'. Aggressive middle class people never get called chavs, ever, simply not true. They may get called lots of other things, but not chavs - this is blatantly just untrue!

OK, well maybe I'm confusing my own views and experiences with those of The Public. But just thinking back to my own adolescence, there were 'townies' (this was in the '90s, before 'chavs' had been invented, as such) who came from rough estates but there were also those who came from middle-class backgrounds, or at least from families that lived in detached houses and had two cars. And there were plenty of working-class kids who hated the townies, precisely because they lived cheek-by-jowl with them and had to endure their shitty antisocial behaviour.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Xpost. My gravy and mushy peas signifier is a bit crap but I've been in the pub. Tea, can't you imagine someone describing my accent as "chavvy"? Regardless of what i"m doing...

Well yeah, I probably could, but I'd think such a person was an idiot. To me, you just sound like a Londoner. Some people think I sound "posh", as if I grew up in some fucking country house with a butler at my beck and call - whereas I was the kid who had the piss taken out of him at school for having crap ("gay") trainers...

I'll admit I'm out on a limb here because I'm obviously talking about my own interpretation of a word that a lot of people, perhaps most people, use differently, so fair enough.

FWIT I fucking love mushy peas - perhaps I'm a bit of a chav after all.
 
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