lizbee's entry is gone? So in response to your comment, my long-arse comment.
'Yob' is slightly different, because it isn't quite so pointedly classist, and it very specifically describes a type of behaviour, rather than being as vague and yet horribly specific (i.e., people say it's vague because they don't want to acknowledge that it mostly means 'walking or loitering while being working-class') as 'chav'. Like, my brother (I am upper-middle, very much so) could be a 'yob'.
Also, in response to america has its equivalents, one of the things that makes 'chav' so poisonous is how much it is tied to the truly incomprehensible to outsiders English class system. In America, as far as I've been able to observe, you are much more matter-of-fact about class, and class is much more based just on wealth (I have mostly observed this from Americans saying things that make me go, "WAIT, what the FUCK?" before realising that they're just using words differently - Obama's 'tax cuts for the middle class' is an excellent example, because that would cause RIOTS over here, whereas in the States it seems to have just been a straightforward "I will give tax cuts to this specific income group" statement.) whereas here, the people who are calling other people chavs and the people who are being called chavs? They will never change places in their lifetime. Ever. Oh, they might get respectively richer or poorer, but they will stay the same class. If someone tries to feign being middle-class but is actually working-class, they will be class traitors and if vice versa, they will be pathetic wannabes.
Long comment is long, because issue is complicated and also interesting.
yeah, yob is more behavioural, with the understanding that the behaviour makes a person "seem" lower class, pikey has old-timey racist overtones to go with the classism, chav is more classist with just that whif of racism attached. i don't know how prevalent a concept that is in the UK, but here there is a lot of derision for "wiggers" (or other "race traitors"), which middle class people love because they get to hate on many of the cultural indicators of black americans while not having to sully their hands with "actual" racism, since they're talking about white people, not black people! i get a similar vibe from the usage of chav, and making fun of bling and tracksuits and listening to "urban" music and being on the dole and such.
to be more precise, i should have said something like "vague equivalents" -- ie, they serve a similar purpose of reinforcing white middle class values, culture and style, but of course that would be in the context of the american middle class and not the british. which is also why our classist insults are not nearly as nasty, because our class system is indeed much more dependent upon how much money you make, as opposed to what section of the populace you were born in (but not entirely independent of such concerns, as the many american stories, movies, and tv shows of ignorant poor people striking it rich, and then behaving hilariously lower class will attest to).
meanwhile obama and every other politician ever can talk about tax cuts for the middle class because here in american EVERYONE considers themselves middle class, whether they earn $18,000 a year or half a million. it's because we don't have a conception of "working class", just lower, middle, upper. no one wants to be lower-class (ie living in abject poverty), and no one wants to be upper class (ie elitist) so it's middle class for everyone. and there is definitely an upper crust elite here in the states, with the rockefellers, vanderbilts, and other WASP families who have held a lot of political power and financial power in this country since before it declared independence, but americans like to believe in the myth that everyone is middle class and ignore the fact that people from the same families keep ending up as presidents, senators, supreme court judges, ceo's of large important corporations, etc.
I NEVER THOUGHT OF THE RACISM ANGLE. Yes, man, exactly! It's the same cultural indicators!
It cuts both ways, as well. Normally I would never say that about racism because it obviously doesn't, but I think this is one case where a particular behavioural pattern is judged more harshly in white kids than in black kids, possibly because of unconsciously racist thought patterns where the standard for white kids is higher? Hmmm, I don't know.
I do know that the white working-class in this country is underperforming educationally more and more each year, particularly the boys, and shit like 'chav' doesn't help. At the moment, society is failing them, more than it's failing any other group, and it makes me really fucking angry.
I NEVER THOUGHT OF THE RACISM ANGLE. Yes, man, exactly! It's the same cultural indicators!
ah, racism. underpinning western society and culture since forever.
It cuts both ways, as well. Normally I would never say that about racism because it obviously doesn't, but I think this is one case where a particular behavioural pattern is judged more harshly in white kids than in black kids, possibly because of unconsciously racist thought patterns where the standard for white kids is higher?
i think it is just a more complex cut, and actually even more offensive for it. "jimmy, i expected MORE of you. i mean, you're white." ugh.
I do know that the white working-class in this country is underperforming educationally more and more each year, particularly the boys, and shit like 'chav' doesn't help.
i was lucky, because even though i came from a lower-class home, i looked like i was just an awkward kid who wore wildlife t-shirts and glasses. okay, cheap glasses and the same clothes all the time, but still. my sisters didn't have these indicators and were consistently tracked into average classes, not even given the option of "hey, there are advanced classes in these subjects. what kinds of things are you interested in? what would you like to study? if you do this and this then you'll be able to get into these classes." fuck, even *i* almost didn't get to take the SATs because no one gave a shit about making sure kids were signed up for them, and i didn't have the money for it. (yes, they make you pay for a test you need to take in order to get into any university or technical college), and i graduated third in my class. thankfully one of my teachers found out the day before the test and got the high school to pay for me somehow.
Yes, I wrote the 'it cuts both ways' and then followed my thought-pattern through to make it actually only cut one way, as racism normally does, but didn't go back and edit. This is why my essays are sometimes a little confused. :D
White working-class boys are now underperforming every other group educationally in the UK, and we think publicly mocking them is going to help? AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH.
and we think publicly mocking them is going to help?
isn't this the basis of most conservative political thought? "you did something that the straight white male middle class has found unacceptable for some reason! now we will PUNISH YOU, without addressing the underlying issues. this will teach you a lesson somehow, even though that's not how education or indeed logic works."
anyway, was going to close up with a round of YES, society needs to not be making fun of people for being poor and uneducated, it needs to try and actually do something about it.
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prof_pangaea) wrote2008-11-04 01:32 am
no subject
'Yob' is slightly different, because it isn't quite so pointedly classist, and it very specifically describes a type of behaviour, rather than being as vague and yet horribly specific (i.e., people say it's vague because they don't want to acknowledge that it mostly means 'walking or loitering while being working-class') as 'chav'. Like, my brother (I am upper-middle, very much so) could be a 'yob'.
Also, in response to america has its equivalents, one of the things that makes 'chav' so poisonous is how much it is tied to the truly incomprehensible to outsiders English class system. In America, as far as I've been able to observe, you are much more matter-of-fact about class, and class is much more based just on wealth (I have mostly observed this from Americans saying things that make me go, "WAIT, what the FUCK?" before realising that they're just using words differently - Obama's 'tax cuts for the middle class' is an excellent example, because that would cause RIOTS over here, whereas in the States it seems to have just been a straightforward "I will give tax cuts to this specific income group" statement.) whereas here, the people who are calling other people chavs and the people who are being called chavs? They will never change places in their lifetime. Ever. Oh, they might get respectively richer or poorer, but they will stay the same class. If someone tries to feign being middle-class but is actually working-class, they will be class traitors and if vice versa, they will be pathetic wannabes.
Long comment is long, because issue is complicated and also interesting.
no subject
to be more precise, i should have said something like "vague equivalents" -- ie, they serve a similar purpose of reinforcing white middle class values, culture and style, but of course that would be in the context of the american middle class and not the british. which is also why our classist insults are not nearly as nasty, because our class system is indeed much more dependent upon how much money you make, as opposed to what section of the populace you were born in (but not entirely independent of such concerns, as the many american stories, movies, and tv shows of ignorant poor people striking it rich, and then behaving hilariously lower class will attest to).
meanwhile obama and every other politician ever can talk about tax cuts for the middle class because here in american EVERYONE considers themselves middle class, whether they earn $18,000 a year or half a million. it's because we don't have a conception of "working class", just lower, middle, upper. no one wants to be lower-class (ie living in abject poverty), and no one wants to be upper class (ie elitist) so it's middle class for everyone. and there is definitely an upper crust elite here in the states, with the rockefellers, vanderbilts, and other WASP families who have held a lot of political power and financial power in this country since before it declared independence, but americans like to believe in the myth that everyone is middle class and ignore the fact that people from the same families keep ending up as presidents, senators, supreme court judges, ceo's of large important corporations, etc.
no subject
It cuts both ways, as well. Normally I would never say that about racism because it obviously doesn't, but I think this is one case where a particular behavioural pattern is judged more harshly in white kids than in black kids, possibly because of unconsciously racist thought patterns where the standard for white kids is higher? Hmmm, I don't know.
I do know that the white working-class in this country is underperforming educationally more and more each year, particularly the boys, and shit like 'chav' doesn't help. At the moment, society is failing them, more than it's failing any other group, and it makes me really fucking angry.
no subject
ah, racism. underpinning western society and culture since forever.
It cuts both ways, as well. Normally I would never say that about racism because it obviously doesn't, but I think this is one case where a particular behavioural pattern is judged more harshly in white kids than in black kids, possibly because of unconsciously racist thought patterns where the standard for white kids is higher?
i think it is just a more complex cut, and actually even more offensive for it. "jimmy, i expected MORE of you. i mean, you're white." ugh.
I do know that the white working-class in this country is underperforming educationally more and more each year, particularly the boys, and shit like 'chav' doesn't help.
i was lucky, because even though i came from a lower-class home, i looked like i was just an awkward kid who wore wildlife t-shirts and glasses. okay, cheap glasses and the same clothes all the time, but still. my sisters didn't have these indicators and were consistently tracked into average classes, not even given the option of "hey, there are advanced classes in these subjects. what kinds of things are you interested in? what would you like to study? if you do this and this then you'll be able to get into these classes." fuck, even *i* almost didn't get to take the SATs because no one gave a shit about making sure kids were signed up for them, and i didn't have the money for it. (yes, they make you pay for a test you need to take in order to get into any university or technical college), and i graduated third in my class. thankfully one of my teachers found out the day before the test and got the high school to pay for me somehow.
no subject
White working-class boys are now underperforming every other group educationally in the UK, and we think publicly mocking them is going to help? AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH.
no subject
isn't this the basis of most conservative political thought? "you did something that the straight white male middle class has found unacceptable for some reason! now we will PUNISH YOU, without addressing the underlying issues. this will teach you a lesson somehow, even though that's not how education or indeed logic works."
no subject
anyway, was going to close up with a round of YES, society needs to not be making fun of people for being poor and uneducated, it needs to try and actually do something about it.