Snobs and their snobbery

I am so pissed off. I have come home in a really foul mood.

That fact alone is bugging me, because it is small-minded shite that has caused it.

Anonymous, small-minded shite at that!


There was a thread on the message boards today, entitled 'Did anything good ever come from a council estate?'.

The poser of this question (hmmm...somehow that word fits) a 'middle-class' female, informs us later in the thread, of her own parents reliance on council housing when they arrived on this fair island, and says that it was only a stepping stone and that her parents worked hard to get more.

So far, you may not think this too much of an issue. I'm ok with that. I salute success and hard work. They strike me as good folks on that principle alone.

But, when you consider the stated fact that her own beginnings were in essence, a hit and miss affair, against the originally implied blanket condemnation of council estates and their inhabitants, are you not left stunned by the audacity of this person? By the sheer small-minded snobbery of it?

Let me pick it apart for you, Dear Reader, and tell it as I see it. Maybe you won't think I'm too far off the mark with this train of thought.

Firstly, the use of language in the original thread is really nothing short of bigotry; 'scum', 'strange speak', attacks on dress codes and values.

(Go to bbc.co.uk/fivelive to have a gander at the full and unabridged version. I hasten to add, that there is a post from her, apologising. It's hard to really get any truth from that apology when you have some experience of past posts from this person, and the same pattern of 'goad and apologise'. I digress...)

And all from what she perceives as the preferred and superior place to be.

A place her parents hard work put her in. Not her own!

It doesn't occur to people like this, that just because their own values are not necessarily shared, that there could possibly be any real and true values at work in a different dynamic!

Implying that social housing automatically means the people within it fall into one social group, (ie those who play no useful part in society), is just plain bastard wrong!


Just one small fact to note; the people who live in council accomodation usually work the longest hours for the least money, get one holiday a year if they're lucky, do the crappiest jobs. And all while raising famillies as best they can, and trying to have something akin to a decent life.

Just because the averagre Joe manages to somehow continue with the grind for about 50 years, and is happy just to be looked after by a loyal Mrs Average Joe, does not mean there are not deep and meaningful forces at work. Just because conversation is peppered with expletives, does not mean nothing meaningful is being said. Just because a person's role in society might earn them less money or status, does not mean they are less of a person.

It really makes me angry that this thread came from someone who's parents were possibly only able to make her upbringing a 'middle class' one, because there is such a thing as council housing. How fortunate she is, that her parents had a head-start and were the ones who worked hard to give her a different life. It's made it so she can sit in high-horse judgement without having to experience (her loss in many ways) the struggles and joys of a life-weary household.

What if a the bread-winner had died? Or buggered off? Or been a drunk? Or disabled? Or just not bright or confident enough to aim for more? Different life and destiny, at a stroke!

My own mother brought four children up in a council house, and though she worked so hard, every day, at times holding down three crap jobs, there was no way that she could have afforded a mortgage on her council home. She was unskilled and low-paid, and was trying hard to be all the parent we needed.

For my own part, I needed to be housed when my son's father and I broke up, and while it may not suit the agenda of chattering snobs, that's how it happened.; we were together in a house he'd bought, I moved out with a small baby, and needed a place to live.

I have never taken my housing for granted, have always worked to pay my way, have always taught my son to have pride and respect for where he lives. Just like 99% of my neighbours.

I could have, and probably should have, bought this lovely flat that I am lucky enough to live in.

But over the years, I chose to work part-time, because I wanted to be Charlie's mum. To be able to go to sports day, and cook good, fresh food, and be home when he was.

I didn't give a shit for bricks and mortar.

And do you know why?

Because it would not have made me aspire to more!

I have carried the very real values that my mum instilled in all of her children, I've picked a few more of my own along the way and instilled them all, in turn, in my own child.

I have a work ethic so strong, that I have never been unemployed, unless I've somehow had enough money to chill for a bit.
My son has the same sense coursing through his every working day.

We are part of a wonderful family, who are all raisng great kids as it happens, mostly in... guess what????

Council homes!

That's right! Serial offenders!

But those of us who have not bought property, still not one of us does not work, does not love, does not respect, is not aware, socially and politically.

And I can say that with my hand on my heart.

Just like 99% of my neighbours.

So, to summarise - Snobbery is like racism; based on fear, first and foremost. But also skin-deep assumptions, ignorance and unfathomable stupidity.




There, that's better.