On a point of principle

I am writing this in a boiling fucking rage. My already glowingly rosy cheeks are aflame. They say anger doesn't necessarily make for the best writing, but you know what? I COULD GIVE A FUCK. For the first time in a long time, I commented on Liberal Conspiracy on a Rowenna Davis article, mostly to give her some support in the face of people refusing to engage with what she wrote in any kind of sensible or useful way.

Naturally, this meant that my comment was not prize-winningly clear and accurate in what it stated. See what you think of it here. This meant that a passing fucktard wheeled himself erroneously onto the thread to abuse myself and otherwise and just generally be the kind of posturing asshole that almost makes you hate men, particularly those on the Web. Those kinds of people - sadly far too common on the left as well as the right, as Cif bingo demonstrates - make me almost wish I could email myself through their screens to hand them their asses. I contented myself with shooting his assumptions about me down in flaming pieces:

Much as I’d love to resort to your style and call you a wanker, I’m better than that.

Ah, the quaint local customs of the natives, Yorkshire’s noble savages. Luckily progress, in the form of misionaries from the Church of Vegetaria in Hampstead, is reaching that dark and backward country. Erm, you really have no idea how your post comes across, do you?

Newsflash: if I gave a fuck what the likes of you assume about me, I’d be sobbing in the corner. I suppose you’re almost right on one count; my vegetarianism was religiously-based. On account of being Sikh, not middle-class.

The whole reason I said that banning ads aimed at kids is a good start is precisely because I DON’T think people should have to change the way of eating they’ve had for years, moron.

I don’t live in Hampstead; although judging by your arrogance you probably do. I know you entitled morons think that the whole web is made up of others like you, but shock! It isn’t.

As I clicked 'post comment,' it occurred to me that I was perhaps using my race (or rather, my religion and the implication of my race) as a weapon. Is it fair that non-whiteys like me are tricking these morons into showing themselves up as the prejudiced fuck-cunts they are? I mean, this fellow was trying to catch me out in the crime of being middle-class. However, I caught him out in the process of being an entitled motherfuck.

Then, the thought settled in my mind like a peaceful pigeon. Sites like Pandagon have had discussions on online racism before, and people on there were mentioning the fact that commenters' attitudes to them (not necessarily on Pandagon) changed visibly once they revealed themselves to be non-white. Someone may have remarked on how white dudes, liberal and otherwise, try to perpetuate the 'real world' power structure online by assuming (with typical entitled ignorance) that everyone they engage with is a white (middle-class, but not always) male.

In the light of that, I say we non-whiteys use this to our advantage. If people want to rant their prejudices, use the power of intersectionality against them. Any attempt to discuss racism in the British public sphere that appears on Cif, is usually met with some bollocks along the lines of 'this is what happens when identity politics gets taken too far.' The posters saying this almost always claim to be white working-class males.

Now I find this laughable. Fuck you, you hypocrites. Sunny wrote this marvellously sensible piece a while back, from which I must quote:

The class-warfare that has defined British society since feudal times is classic identity politics.

The problem we have is that public debate have become less about accepting people’s multiple identities and more about demands for their own tribe.

I think this is important. I can't help wondering if, with the tireless work of anti-racist campaigners, people have realised that certain prejudices are more 'acceptable' than others. It's OK to wantonly abuse people if they're middle-class. Their class placing outweighs their gender or ethnicity. Now, how fucking stupid is that?

I'm not calling for some free pass on anyone who sounds 'middle-class', but the fact is that people shouldn't get away with using that kind of knee-jerk stereotyping. Are all people who are middle-class exactly the same? Or, let's rephrase: are all working-class people exactly the same? Are they all benefit-scrounging, early-motherhood-reaching white trash chavs, or overly-fertile Somalis? Obviously not - but then again, the only 'middle-class' people who suggest that are the likes of the tabloids as well as the Telegraph and probably to some extent the Times as well.

Putting aside the fact that a lot of these so-called 'working-class' white males probably aren't (I mean, people on the right and left have made much of the BNP's attempt to court this particular demographic, but Nick Griffin's hardly salt of the earth, is he?), times have changed. The stupid class stereotyping that people fling around says a lot about them. In many ways, they remind me of first-generation Asian immigrants desperately trying to force certain values on their children because 'that's our culture.'

Groupthink - whether it's a group of conservative elderly Asians or the 'white working class' - is dangerous. I can't help suspecting that a lot of it is basically the same desperate attempt to project unity that you see in all oppressed groups. Still, I can't really forgive it. All working class people are individuals, just like everyone else. Same with middle-class people. I am not going to be ashamed of the fact that my parents came here and have worked their asses off for 30-odd years to allow us to lead a better life than we would've had in India.

Anyone who tries to tell me that I'm 'middle-class'; what the fuck are you talking about? Seriously, what do people even mean when they say things like that? Our class distinctions are highly outdated now - 'working-class' usually seems to mean 'poor.' I want to know what is behind the flinging about of this accusation, because really, for the most part I and other non-white people (even if we're considered as 'middle-class') are not holding the white working classes back. It's mostly the white middle classes that are doing that, thank you. Who writes for the tabloids and right-wing 'quality papers' that routinely demonise white-working class people? Gosh, there are so many non-white BBC senior execs, you can't move for them! Let's not even start on those City banks, those elite Oxford and Cambridge and public-school associations that heave with non-white faces...

I'm tired now, so I'm going to stop this particular rant here (the effort of not screaming while my mother criticised me at length during a walk just before this post - I believe it was for about 20 minutes running or so - was majorly knackering). Sam Leith had an article a while back which was slightly irritating - in an inevitably knee-jerk way - but once I got over the gut instinct, I really couldn't help agreeing with a lot of it.

People self-identify class not on the basis of where they are in life now, but of how they grew up: where they lived, where they went to school, what their parents did for a living and, clumsily, how much money they had.

... why is it that the aspect of their lives in which so many people vest so much of their pride and shame - and which, on the ugly side, makes them freely congratulate themselves on sneering at strangers - is the aspect that has nothing whatsoever to do with them?

Yet right and left alike pique themselves on this imbecile prejudice. Readers of right-wing papers sneer at "chavs" and "the underclass", while on ostensibly liberal internet forums, the term "middle-class" is routinely used not as if it were a description, but an accusation.

He's got a point, and you know it!

In other, non-ranting news, I am doing my utmost best to put into practice a technique that the counsellor told me, of 'feeding back' to my mother when she victim-blames. Unfortunately, just as I thought I might've got the hang of it, my mother has moved to attacks on me instead. These are somewhat harder to deal with, as you might expect.

However, I realised two things about my mother: part of what makes her (and my other family members') attacks so effective are two things. Firstly, that she doesn't actually do them in an unreasonable or overly harsh tone of voice. I clocked this like a lightning bolt whilst describing one incident to The Libertarian on the phone. Suddenly, I thought 'Hang on - she never actually sounds like this when she's speaking to me. She sounds almost... normal. I parody her, but she's far more subtle than I've been giving her credit for.' Secondly, they come out of nowhere.

Textbook example: The other day, while waiting for a friend to arrive at the station near my house so that we could go collect her, I sat and watched the end of an old Bollywood film. One character was fat, but it looked odd, as if he had maybe padded out his middle instead of real weight. Without really thinking, I began aloud: 'Wow, he's really fat, but -'

'... but it doesn't look real'. Before I could finish, my mum suddenly proclaimed: 'You are really fat!' She sort of prod-pushed my arm and smacked my thigh, going 'Look! Look at you, you're all thhul thhul! I'm worried about you, you know. You're young, you should be slim.' I don't remember exactly what she said after that, because I was too busy reeeeling. 'You need to start watching what you eat,' she said. 'I know you go to the gym, but maybe you're not doing the right exercises? You need to do something to make your stomach smaller.' I asked her what I ate that was so bad that I needed to cut it out, and she said 'Well, I don't know, but...' I had to resist the urge to ask her if it wouldn't be prescient to just stop eating altogether.

The day after, I got up in the evening after a nap, with a headache. My sister's divorce was being discussed in the kitchen. I kept myself pretty much out of the way, coming in and out of the kitchen. Then, some devil impulse made me drift towards my mum who was standing in a corner and turn my back, so that I was leaning against her. She put her arms around me - and grabbed my stomach. 'See?' she said. I disengaged myself immediately and left the room.

Today, she went on at me about the need to have the life skill of dressing up for parties so that people who I would hate anyway, don't think that I'm stupid and prevent their sons from marrying me. She compared me unfavourably with my cousin YET AGAIN, saying that I need to learn to get all saji-baji the way she does for weddings. Spending the whole week/day shopping for said event/deciding what to wear/getting ready as if for a catwalk show is, according to my parents 'a life skill.' My mum eased the blow, though, by saying that my brother and I were 'simple' and 'naive'. Basically, it's not my fault I'm inept and unkempt - it's just my nature! Hooray! My father told me that I needed to 'be a good cook' and 'cook for lots of people.' Somehow, I didn't knife him.

UPDATE: GO FORTH AND COMMENT ON THE LIBCON THREAD! Despite my explaining that my vegetarianism is a result of growing up Sikh, the guy is too thick to process it. I ended by saying:

That’s ‘different,’ love.

I still don’t see the relevance of your religion, I’m not sure why you mention your gender and I’m not in the least bit embarassed

Wow – in that case, I can help you no further. Specsavers might be able to, though.

P.S.: Read this, it's BRILLIANT! Malky Muscular satirizes the whole Nick Cohen & Clive James Vs Western feminists foolishness. MM, I love you. Also, this post 'What Would We Do Without White Privilege?' over at Womanist Musings is THE WIN.