Brown, Working Class

Indian Arms Workers Train in Britain- War Industry at Letchworth, Hertfordshire, England, UK, 1941

Wikimedia Commons

Racism; I was always aware of it, there was never a time when it didn’t happen. I don’t remember a specific fall from innocence or an isolated verbal assault, just the fact that it was always there.

“Your auntie spends loads of money going on holiday so she can go the same colour as you.”

My well-meaning, (white) mother used to say to me when I was little. I felt that she was missing the point somewhat but I couldn’t quite articulate this. I didn’t really feel it would cut it as a counter slur in the playground. I couldn’t say to the other kids - yeah, you’re calling me these names but my Auntie, who you’ve never met, pays loads of money to get a kick-ass ‘tan’ like mine! (She [my Mum] also told me to thump anyone who called me any names, which was quite an effective method, but didn't really offer a long-term solution!)

Years later, a horrible little shit at school told me that my skin was like coffee with loads and loads of milk poured in and I remember thinking - yeah, and that’s supposed to be an insult? It meant that I was a coffee-cream; my favourite chocolate in the box!

“Blackie” was their missile of choice, when I was a kid, and, misguided as this sounds, it had a rather innocuous ring to it, in comparison to the much harsher sounding ‘Paki’.

So, anyway, I knew that I wasn’t living in some all-encompassing, tolerant and lovely Utopia  but what I did assume, again misguidedly, was that things would improve when I was an adult.

And they kind of did, for me. In that I wasn’t subjected to daily abuse. But, as we see every wearisome day, things did not improve on a wider, global level.

I kind of assumed that the world would have moved on by the time I had kids and that people in general would be less racist. How naive of me. I now believe that history moves in a wheel rather than a progressive, upward slant. Every now and then the wheel dips into a shitty puddle. The far-right are on the move again and even a cursory glance at social media; yes, even at what (some of) my own virtual ‘friends’ post or share, shows that racism hasn’t abated.

When it came to class, as a perennial outsider, I never really felt truly ‘working class’, not because our economic circumstances indicated anything else, but because, as usual, it felt like a club I hadn’t been invited to. I look back into the nebulous past and see ‘working class’ as being a group of kids with their backs turned.

“No, you can’t join our gang.” They’re saying. “You don’t call your grandmother, ‘Nan’ and some of your cooking smells funny.”

In addition to this, one of the things I got bullied for, at secondary school, was my supposedly ‘posh’ accent! I don’t think I had much of an accent and perhaps that was the problem; Dad was Sri Lankan, Mum was from Wales and, I hypothesised, my accent was some kind of neutral in-between, I didn’t talk like a local. (Or maybe I got bullied for using words like ‘hypothesised’) This feeling of being outside of the working class seems particularly pertinent at the moment, when people are attributing Brexit and the election of (spits) Trump, to the fact that politicians have too long ignored the concerns of the ‘white, working class’. But, as some commentators are keen to point out https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/17/trump-brexit-minorities-working-class; the working class is made up of all ethnicities. We/they have been there for years; working in the factories, driving the busses, nursing, cleaning, building, engineering etc, etc.

These days I feel more working class than I ever have; despite living in an area that a friend once referred to, scathingly, as a ‘bourgeois enclave’.

The people at the top will always seek to divide and rule, to harness any potential tensions between the different communities because they realise that, as a mass, the working class makes up the biggest proportion of people and are powerful and dangerous. http://www.peterloomassacre.org/shelley.html

So - 'the working class' - you didn’t invite me but I’ve joined anyway (in fact was always there, skating along beside you). Come, comrades, up the revolution!

What difference does it make?

The language of discrimination always seeks to dehumanise people; from politicians, describing people fleeing war zones as a ‘swarm’, to the impoverished sectors of society being dismissed as ‘Chavs’, words are used to lump people together as a mass and diminish them.

So it’s no surprise that when a film comes along which seeks to redress the balance - to show you the individual behind the incendiary headlines, it is met with resistance.

Palme d’Or winner  I, Daniel Blake, directed by  Ken Loach is such a film.

It tells the story of a man who has suffered a near fatal heart attack but fails to qualify for disability benefit, because,  although his doctor has said that he is not fit to work, he doesn’t meet the right criteria. The film follows him as he comes up against frustrating bureaucracy and a nonsensical system, whereby a person who is not fit for work has to be shown to be looking for work, to qualify for jobseeker’s allowance. He befriends a single mother, Katie (Hayley Squires), who is dealing with similar issues. (There was a point in the near past when single mothers were portrayed as public enemy No.1, in the right-wing press, before they moved their focus onto migrants).

The eponymous character, Daniel Blake, is played with great verve by stand up comic, Dave Johns. Hayley Squires is brilliant too, playing a proud parent who will sacrifice anything for her children.

I, Daniel Blake has a clear, some say polemical message.  But, perhaps with the plethora of ‘benefit scrounger stereotype’ programming that haunts the T.V schedules:

Benefit Street

Can't Pay? We'll Take It Away

On Benefits: : 30 Stone and Claiming (lazy, fat scrounger! - my parenthesis)

We need something to redress the balance and encourage empathy, rather than censure.

At the moment it seems as if the people who are the most vulnerable, have the least money and control over their destinies, are the ones most vilified in our society. A change in the system is needed, not charitable handouts. And the character of Daniel Blake is not looking for handouts.

Is I, Daniel Blake preaching to the converted? Will it predominantly be watched by bleeding-heart liberals like me or does it have more of a reach?

According to Wikepedia,The 1966 play Cathy Come Home, one of Ken Loach’s earliest works had the following Impact:

In the light of public reaction to the film, and following a publicity campaign led by Willam Shearman and Ian Macleod highlighting the plight of the homeless, the charity Crisis was formed the following year in 1967.
It also says:

However, Ken Loach has said that despite the public outcry following the play, it had little practical effect in reducing homelessness other than changing rules so that homeless fathers could stay with their wives and children in hostels.

Could I, Daniel Blake have a similar impact to Cathy Come Home? Could it raise awareness and bring about a change in the system? Opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn has urged Teresa May to watch it. Some film critics are dismissing the film as unrealistic or as left-wing propaganda. Conversely, others are lauding it and saying that it’s impact is Dickensian or Orwellian.

I’d be interested to hear of any callous, self-centred Victorian having a road-to-Damascus conversion after reading Hard Times or Oliver Twist and becoming a philanthropist. (I also can’t help thinking of Oscar Wilde saying that you’d have to have a heart of stone to read of the death of Little Nell [The Old Curiosity Shop] and not laugh!)
However, I do remember my history teacher telling us that books like Jane Eyre and Nicholas Nickleby helped raise awareness of how dreadful the school system was and the need for educational reforms, so perhaps art/literature has always had the capacity to transform.

As for me, I came out of the auditorium in tears, after watching I, Daniel Blake (the ladies toilet at the cinema was crammed with women, discretely dabbing at their eyes). I was embarrassed by my tears - after all, I can afford to buy sanitary towels and don’t have to sacrifice my own dinner so that my children can eat.  I can also afford the £12.50 to see a film at the cinema and if you can too, I’d urge you to go and watch I, Daniel Blake. I also donated to a food bank the next day. This article has ideas for other ways people can help:

https://www.the-pool.com/news-views/opinion/2016/43/lynn-enright-frances-ryan-i-daniel-blake-how-to-help