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Anti-Chavism: the new racism?

Here’s our trashy racism

I nearly caused a riot at a meeting last week, when someone asked me who I thought was the group that experienced the most racism in our society?

I replied that when it came to be being despised and rejected, then without a doubt it was white working-class girls – otherwise known as ‘chavs’, ‘slags’ or a caricature for BBC’s Little Britain.

The recent ritual murder of Mary Leneghan reveals a too common attitude amongst our young men – that white girls are literally, ‘easy meat’. We have allowed the cloud of political correctness to prevent us from challenging this racism.

ATTITUDE

Oh yes, it is possible for us to be racist. However, the attitude to the white girl on the estate is probably similar to the Indian caste system. These girls are often seen as Untouchables – who you can touch-up. They are shared amongst your friends like toys and cast away when they serve no more purpose – or get pregnant.

These boys – if given a chance– would treat black girls in just the same way, the only difference is that it’s harder to abuse someone who looks like your sister or your mum.

There is also a tremendous amount of naivete amongst these girls – that these boys will seriously be able to take care of them financially. A minority of our sons have learnt that if you behave like a rough gangster and treat a woman exactly how their Dads treated their mothers, then there is a whole generation of girls who will look up to you like a king.

Why waste time asking a girl out for a date? Why waste money taking her to a fancy restaurant, where you wouldn’t know how the difference between a fish knife and a wooden chip stick? This seems such a waste when all you need to do is to shout at her and tell her to drop her knickers. And that’s when you’re showing your caring side.

I don’t care how ‘easy’ a girl might appear, often this is just down to being vulnerable. It’s still no excuse to use a person as a mule. We should know better, we had 400 years of abuse by white slave masters.

MISOGYNY

Working–class white girls are often seen as prostitutes that are ‘for free’. Our community has been slow in challenging this misogyny. The perceived ‘horror’ isn’t that the boys treat the girl badly but, ‘how could he steep so low to go with that white trash’?

One of the reasons why I was troubled by my working–class roots is that there was too much self-loathing. I hated the way the white working–class sucked up to their so-called ‘betters’. They really believed that the Queen and the Church of England had a right to rule over them. .

After Thatcher, things changed. Now the white working class have become the football that everyone is allowed to kick. For me, they’ve become too easy a target and teenage girls have become the easiest. The white working class has in many ways become ‘black’. They are targets not of The Sun but certainly of The Guardian and The Telegraph – both left–wing and right-wing snobs who pour loathing on working-class people because they are now flash and have joined the golf clubs, which was the preserve of the old guard. While the girls are seen to lack ambition, have too much sex and drink too much.

To despise and criticise a group of people because they wear Burberry and baseball hats is really just another way of saying the N word.

To a certain extent, black people have also joined in that kicking, particularly the ones who have escaped to the suburbs. How many black mothers have really pulled up their sons on the way they use women?

The prevailing attitude is “let him go and sow his oats”. It is rare that any black boy would go as far as the crazed gang that killed Maryann Leneghan, but women should be respected – whatever their colour.

Most of this is to do with power. In the hierarchy of life, when you are at the bottom of the heap, white working-class girls are perceived to be just above hell. In Reading, where Maryann lived, black drug dealers are known to come up from London and prey on naive school girls and prostitutes to help sell their drugs.

Some boys believe they are lords of their inner–city estates, and it isn’t surprising that on the outskirts of big towns, they are able to promote this urban myth.

Published: 31 March 2006
Issue: 1211

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