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kidwithknife -> RE: Invisability of 'whiteness' (12/6/2008 8:10:34 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: RealityLicks
You've really missed the point of this and you're not alone. With all due respect, it's not a question of whether this is your "honest view" or not. It's about whether that honest view is an accurate one. You may truly believe that your class hinders your progress and I wouldn't argue with you but study after study has shown that two equally qualified British men applying for a job - one called perhaps, John Smith and the other Shoaib Hussein, will receive widely differing numbers of interview invitations.
I'd agree that it's a question of whether a view is accurate or not. Note that I'm not arguing that racial discrimination is non-existant. What I'm arguing is that it generally expresses itself first and foremost in its intersection with class.
So, while social mobility in the UK is bad anyway, it's even worse for those from ethnic minorities. Who make up a statistically higher proportion of low-income families. While it's not exclusively this way, it's notable that a sizeable number of the most socially deprived areas are also those with a high percentage of non-white inhabitants.
So if you look at the issue in terms of race, without tackling the issues of class, poverty and lack of social mobility, you don't actually help the majority of non-whites. You help a small number of middle (and a tiny number of upper) class non-whites. Fine, but that's a bandaid.
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Unless by extremely inappropriate dress and deportment you signpost yourself as "difficult", there is no way in which your class can even be discerned at first glance. Can you say the same about race?
Um, if you're talking about job applications as you were up there, start with postcode and the list of educational establishments. Add to that possible accent and the simple lack of common experience with many of the people recruiting. But yes, I'd agree that one difference between class and race discrimination is that the former is largely invisible. That doesn't make it less significant.
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If anything, upper and middle class people in England have a real fascination with working class culture, shown in an interest in things like football, music and other parts of popular culture.
That doesn't necessarily translate into a lack of discrimination though.
There's currently a bit of a fashion for Bollywood among sections of the middle class. I'd guess you'd agree with me that doesn't nullify racism against people of Indian origin. Anymore then the fetisisation of female lesbianism (by the lads' mags etc.) actually strikes a blow against homophobia.
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Why is Ali G a figure of ridicule, while Mockneys like Guy Ritchie have built careers on idolising people such as the Kray twins?
They're odd examples I think. The whole joke being Ali G is that he's actually a nice middle class white kid who insists on talking like a working class black kid. What's going on with the idolisation of the Krays is different. It's a modern version of the identification with bandits that has parallels in almost every culture (UK and Robin Hood, US and Jesse James, India and the Bandit Queen to name just three). On top of that, I really don't think you can argue that the idolisation of gangsters is an idolisation of working class culture.
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There is a growing segment of the middle class which is ethnic in origin but it's hugely significant that the most succesful among them tend to come from cultures which avoided integration on entry to Britain and based their enterprises within their ethnic group or on links to their former country.
Not entirely. There's also a growing segment of professionals (lawyers, doctors etc.) from ethnic origin as well. That's an interesting one though. If, as you say, there are a growing number of middle class non-whites, why does that not seem to have translated into an improvement in the overall economic condition of non-whites? If anything, that would seem to back up my view that the primary issue is that of class, not race.
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On the other hand, if you go to Whitehall, Westminster, Oxbridge, the BBC or the City - all predominantly white - you'll find significant numbers are the sons and daughters of cabbies, fishmongers etc.
What percentages are we talking about? If we just look at Oxbridge (because that's the one I found easiest to track down the statistics for) only 9% of students come from working class backgrounds- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/oxbridge-colleges-fail-to-attract-workingclass-students-576302.html Particuarly when we take into consideration the proportion of the UK population who are working class, I don't think that can validly be called "significant".
If we look at the Oxford statistics for 2007, approximately 15% of the accepted intake were from non-white ethnic backgrounds-http://www.oxfordopportunity.com/adstats.pdf (Table 5) There's obviously a bit of a problem here, because I'm comparing different years and not exactly the same type of data (the wonders of Internet research!). However, even taking that into account, it would seem your view has been heavily skewed by your own assumptions. Even moreso when you take into account the fact that roughly 8% of the UK population are non-white, according to the census.
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Your linked article, far from bolstering your view, actually illustrates that the decline in social mobility is measured against things having been better in the very recent past.
Better, not good. It says social mobility is declining now as opposed to stagnating. Not that it's been increasing until recently. The UK has always had a relatively low level of social mobility, particuarly when compared to the more social-democratic European countries.
I could also point you to the fact that social class makes for, on average, a difference of 9.4 (for men) and 6.3 (for women) years of life expectancy between social classes I and V- http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_population/Life_Expect_Social_class_1972-05/life_expect_social_class.pdf (Tables 1 & 3)
Or the fact that, apart from traveller children, white working class boys are currently the lowest perfoming in school- http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/feb/01/uk.gcses
Now, there's another way of looking at that last statistic, which I want to make clear I don't subscribe to. It argues that white working class boys are underachieving because, at least in part, because they're white. The fact that only 17% of Black Carribean boys achieve five good GCSEs says that isn't the case.
What I think that does substantiate however is my view that it is currently class that is the primary issue.
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What you've shown is the very thing the OP purports to see with new eyes: there is an unearned advantage in being white, one so immanent that it has become invisible to those who benefit from it.
On the other hand, I could equally say that you've shown my argument that concentrating on race leads to objectively ignoring class. In particular with that last statistic about white working class boys in secondary education. And because you seem to have both overestimated the percentage of working class students and underestimated the percentage of non-white students in Oxbridge.
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