Pondering stuff white people like

[alias_sqbr]

Reading the article I mentioned in my last post I was reminded of stuff white people like, specifically this video of the creator talking about his experiences was interesting, the way he went from making a blog for fun to book deal in like a month is intense.

Something he said, which took me a while to realise when I first saw the blog, is that it's not about "white people", it's about upper middle class left wing types and the way they we see ourselves as free-thinking unique snowflakes¹. Really most of the digs are about class not race but since "White people" care more about being seen as non-racist than non-classist² and are very self conscious about white guilt etc that name is more effective. Kind of annoying for white people who aren't White People and don't get the joke, I imagine.

See for example #62 Knowing what’s best for poor people. I am often amazed at how openly "left wing" people despise the poor. They watch Today Tonight! And have badly dyed hair! And use bad grammar! (Unlike poor people from other countries who are adorably authentic and charming. Unless they chop down trees or eat McDonalds or something)

Also there was a link to this black guy who set up a stall so people could have their photo taken with him, I salute his bravery :)

I've often pondered talking more about class but am worried about (a)Coming up against the fairly unselfconscious classism a lot of people have³ and (b) Collapsing in self consciousness as I ponder my own class.

1)And I think a large part of the appeal of the blog for White People is feeling smug at how much more self aware they are compared to all those other White People.
2)Which is very different from being less racist
3)Cue my friends from the country saying "Bah! You have it easy!" :)

Comments

[splintax.livejournal.com]

Drive-by UCCan checking in here:

I am often amazed at how openly "left wing" people despise the poor. They watch Today Tonight! And have badly dyed hair! And use bad grammar!

I think in most cases these people despise the "stupid" rather than the poor. And in most of these cases, the "stupid" are actually just those who are not as well-educated as the person in question.

It's (somewhat) difficult to become well-educated even if you do come from a privileged background - that is, it requires effort to complete high school, and even more effort to continue studying at a tertiary level. This means that some people who are well-educated like to ignore the fact that a privileged upbringing makes it far easier to get there, for several reasons which I won't outline here.

If you do this, then the only difference between you and that less well-educated person is that they were too lazy or dumb to bother getting an education. Looking down on poor people is frowned upon; looking down on lazy and dumb people, not so much.

So I agree with your point - I just think that very few people who "hate the poor" see it as that, and this is my best guess as to why.

[alias_sqbr]

Oh absolutely. Of course a lot of the markers of being "well educated" come directly from classism, the whole idea of a "classical education" is to know the things poor people don't and can't. Being smug about speaking "proper english" is entirely about classism: there's nothing that makes any dialect inherently better than any other (more appropriate in a given context, maybe, but not better).

And yes, this isn't directly correlated to wealth, it gets very complicated. I was brought up by poor well educated parents while my husband was brought up by nouveau-middle-class parents with money but not much education, so on the one had I know a lot more about opera and Great Literature, while he knows a lot more about good clothes and restaurants. And then we're smug about it, and the other calls us out for being classist :D

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and the other thing is that the motivation to "get an education" in the sense with which we mean it (i.e. go to uni and get your bachelors -- or doctorate, heh!) is almost totally formed by class. So it's not "lazy and dumb", it's just "why would I?".

An interesting phenomenon at the moment is the rehabilitation of the trades in mainstream society -- the ongoing shortage of tradies mean that they earn a lot, and there are these quite noticeable trends in journalism and lifestyle programming to create the idea of the "tradie catch" -- you know, the hot, uncomplicated hunk who earns a lot of money and is great with DIY about the house, like those presenters on Backyard Blitz and so forth. I saw a competition for "Australia's Hottest Tradie" on the SMH website a couple of days ago.

(I wonder if this sort of trend will be accompanied by increasing stigmatisation of the white collar working class? Is The Office an example of that maybe?)

[alias_sqbr]

An interesting phenomenon at the moment is the rehabilitation of the trades in mainstream society -- the ongoing shortage of tradies mean that they earn a lot, and there are these quite noticeable trends in journalism and lifestyle programming to create the idea of the "tradie catch" -- you know, the hot, uncomplicated hunk who earns a lot of money and is great with DIY about the house, like those presenters on Backyard Blitz and so forth. I saw a competition for "Australia's Hottest Tradie" on the SMH website a couple of days ago.

Huh. That had managed to totally pass me by. And thus I have nothing to say on it but "That is interesting" :)

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

I found it interesting when my students, who are largely from low-literacy, blue-collar and/or welfare-receiving families assumed I was from a rich family because I had gone to university and was interested in books and SF.

They didn't believe me at first when I told them I had lived in Rockingham (aka 'Boganville') most of my live, gone to a public school with a bad rep and I that came from an ex-navy borderline blue/white-collar family not too dissimlar in wealth to them.

[alias_sqbr]

While in the other direction, after worrying that she wouldn't be classy enough to fit in mum was amused to discover that the well to do mums at PLC tended not to have any deeper appreciation of art/music/history etc than the ones from Willagee :)