We need to talk about Grenfell Tower

“either they don’t know, don’t show or don’t care about what’s goin’ on in the ‘hood”

That was Doughboy’s poignant monologue from Boyz N the Hood. It’s fairly apt for anyone or any community that has felt their existence has been ignored by their government and wider society. But I cannot recall a time when it resonated more than with the Grenfell Tower fire, the actions and neglect that caused it and the subsequent handling of the incident.

Every resident of Grenfell Tower has lost everything and the death toll is expected to rise. The crude reality is that the scores of people that haven’t been accounted for have already perished and are in the building. When you look at the probable numbers of residents that were in the building at the time of the fire, and the number of survivors that have identified, it’s a given that the balance are bodies that are still in the building.

The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea Council (RBKC) and the government will be well aware of this and I imagine have directed that bodies shouldn’t be removed en masse given their desire to stifle already negative media and public reaction to the fire. Not advising the media and public of this is a likely ploy to quell anger, while downplaying the extent of the tragedy in the hope that media scrutiny will lessen, and to give false hope to the victims’ friends and families.

Instead, a periodically rising death toll every few days, with bodies being removed from the building on a similar basis, doesn’t show the scale of what’s happened. It’s a strategy void of empathy and one that puts PR before compassion and ethics. However, it’s a likely one that some firefighters have concurred is happening, albeit not being confirmed officially.

The official and immediate cause of the fire is yet to be identified and it could be months before it is. Although if the Grenfell Tower fire was an accident, the attitudes, neglect and actions that led to it certainly weren't.

I’m pretty familiar with North Kensington and Grenfell Tower has been a fixture of the Ladbroke Grove skyline all my life. Now, the burnt out shell of a building is juxtaposed against the luxury apartments, coffee shop chains and middle class residences as a last stand of the old North Kensington that succumbed to the flames of neoliberalism and neglect.

As gentrification spread throughout the area as an aggressive neoliberal cancer, Grenfell Tower was nevertheless a reminder of the area’s previously working class, ethnically diverse identity. Perhaps too strong a reminder for RBKC as they sought to dilute the old identity, making it more palatable for the middle class residents they were trying to court and those who already lived there.

So much so, that when the block was refurbished, cladding fitted to the building was sought to make it more aesthetically pleasing to the wealthier neighbours in the vicinity. The same cladding that was deemed responsible for the fire spreading so quickly.

It’s been claimed that using fire-resistant cladding would have cost £2 more per panel at an additional cost of £5000. However, the contractors responsible for the refurbishment opted not to spend the extra cash. Why? Because a social housing block, home to low income, working class residents wasn’t deemed worthwhile.

To RBKC, the price of these residents’ lives is cheap. They didn’t deserve adequate social housing. Their residence was seen as an eyesore in any event. And with that, it’s safe to say that the fire, the deaths, the loss of everything for the residents, is down to ideologically driven neglect, disdain and disregard by RBKC and the wider political class.

RBKC is a Conservative controlled council with a smattering of Labour seats, represented by dedicated councillors who will always find themselves outnumbered on the Council, in the working class pockets of the borough. Ideologically, the borough is conservative through and through, something that’s permeated the Council’s management and senior officers too, and could be considered as being in the vanguard of local authorities when it comes to delivering Conservative national policy. That means social housing and deprived communities, some of the most vulnerable people in society, couldn’t be less of a priority.

Throughout contemporary history, RBKC has considered North Kensington as an unwanted annex to the borough and the Grenfell Tower fire somewhat manifests their stance toward the area. As Ra’s al Ghul sought to let Gotham burn to rid it of what he and the League of Shadows deemed as undesirable, RBKC and the government have literally facilitated the same conclusion for Grenfell Tower and its residents in their stance on social housing and the provision of quality housing for the most deprived in society. And if there was any doubt of this, their respective responses to Grenfell Tower have refuted otherwise.

Theresa May visited Grenfell Tower but she didn’t visit victims who have lost everything. She doesn’t care about them. If they were mostly white, middle class victims only a stone’s throw away from Grenfell Tower in the luxury apartments or multi million pound houses nearby, she’d be consoling, shaking hands and hearing stories before a sincere and impassioned public announcement of immediate action. Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn, a man that the media and the right have claimed isn’t prime ministerial, had the compassion to visit victims, speak to them and console them. Even the Queen and Prince William attended, genuinely moved by what they’d seen.

Similarly to May, RBKC’s presence has been minimal and in no way meaningful. As far as May, the government, RBKC and the establishment, like Doughboy said, “they don’t care about what’s goin’ on in the ‘hood”.

This is our Hurricane Katrina. An inept leader representing the party of the privileged, lessons of risks for the location (or in this case construction) of housing for low income residents being ignored yet exacerbating their fate and a beyond lacklustre response by the government and public agencies. And that nonchalance being fuelled by a disdain and disregard for the most vulnerable people in society who are instead left helpless. The parallels are eerily familiar. Even images of Westway, providing refuge to now homeless victims, have shades of the Louisiana Superdome providing shelter for evacuees. And all the while this is happening in the fifth richest county in the world.

Where the state failed, local people rallied to assume what should be the state’s role. Local resident and club owner, Ben Bolton, altruistically opened his warehouse and club for donations to be housed and organised by volunteers. Within two days, over 60 tonnes of donations had been received and sorted and Ben is delivering goods to families directly and around the clock, based on exactly what they request and need.

Working with Ben, Beth Foster has amazingly organised training and laptops to donate to surviving victims who are now homeless and immediately began fundraising to help victims with cash they can be given directly. Local resident Reece Saint had barely slept in the three days following the fire, volunteering in any way possible to provide any modicum of relief and sanctuary for the victims that were still alive. They are all a microcosm of the heroic, inspiring and incredible generosity seen in the aftermath of the fire and of local people fulfilling a role and responsibility that the state has shirked because they don’t care about the people who need their help.

When you walk through Ladbroke Grove, the feeling of grief and distress now turning to anger is palpable. If victims of the fire and local people didn’t know they were considered second rate residents before, they do now. Kensington Town Hall was subject to protests fueled by indignant anger at the lack of RBKC’s response but that’s also being directed at the government. It’s that indignation that could result in worse as the have-nots realise just how little they have and how their status quo has been exacerbated by the same attitudes that led to the Grenfell Tower fire. I previously questioned if society was so jaded with socio-economic inequality that it no longer had the inclination to revolt. This could be an instance where the answer is a definite no.


If you’d like to donate to the relief efforts, please do not donate to anything related to RBKC or the government. The needs of the victims can change daily but local groups are best placed to identify and advise on what is required. If you’d like to donate directly to the victims of the fire, you can donate here as a trusted recipient of any donations received www.shareagift.com/Pages/18630 Any donations received will also be matched by Google.

Britain is in a housing crisis that's being exacerbated by aggressive gentrification

A few years ago, I moved from one area of London to another. There wasn't anything particularly remarkable about my move and admittedly, I hardly downgraded in my new living arrangement. However, I had moved from where I had spent most of my life to date and was effectively priced out due to gentrification.

The tale of my neighbourhood is one that mirrors the experience of many others like it. Once a largely working class and ethnically diverse community, good transport links and banks’ lenient lending criteria made it ripe as a property hotspot that owner-occupier, buy-to-let and commercial buyers eyed as a solid investment.

Like many inner city areas, it wasn't without some social challenges including a notorious estate, high unemployment and high levels of deprivation. Nevertheless, that made properties cheaper to buy for anyone enterprising enough and able to realise what was happening.

Gradually, the character began to change. Property prices rose to exorbitant levels and newer, middle class residents were happy to pay the asking price. Local amenities reflected their desires while established local businesses struggled. New builds appeared, again attracting similar residents with prices that were clearly telling established locals that this was no longer their community. A socio-economic hostile takeover had now been effected.

Some reading this may argue that considering my earlier description, the neighbourhood needed to undergo a change. I can hear some rhetorically asking ‘surely neighbourhoods with challenging circumstances plus free market principles equals warranted gentrification?’ Granted, the neighbourhood was in need of improvements but not at the expense of its character and pricing out its residents.

Just as in other neighbourhoods, many sensing the opportunity scooped up properties as buy-to-let investments when they were at bargain basement prices. This was largely thanks to the pre-property boom era and Margaret Thatcher’s policy of Right to Buy (a scheme allowing social housing to be bought at a discount by tenants but often abused by third parties using tenants and their discount eligibility as a front). Although these buyers don't have any intention of charging affordable rents to working class locals. One could say they don't have to as they’re in the property market to make a profit. Though that leaves the local authorities to provide affordable social housing and there's a lack of social housing available to do so.

The overarching legacy of Right to Buy means that most social housing has been sold off and it hasn't been replaced (the expensive apartments courting ‘young professionals’ as their buyers or tenants couldn't be further from the social housing that should have been built in their place). And as for buying, for many people on modest incomes, even schemes such as shared ownership or Help to Buy (which presents its own problems) can remain elusive due to the traditional routes of raising a deposit via savings, inheritance or parental support being largely exclusive to the middle classes.

When Conservative MP Garvin Barwell suggested that the housing crisis be eased by grandparents leaving an inheritance to grandchildren rather than their own children, it might have been well meaning but it was hugely ignorant and suggestive of how clueless he is of a life beyond his own circle. For many, it’s an option that just doesn't exist; something that isn't a reality for Barwell and his peers.

Consequently, you have a section of society that has nowhere to turn for affordable, decent accommodation and is increasingly denied the routes to accessing it.

This is the crux of the housing crisis we're faced with; with a paucity of affordable housing that successive governments have failed to address, we're now seeing a restricting of access to such housing in traditionally working class neighbourhoods and to those who need it the most. Housing is instead being offered up to the middle classes because they’re the only ones that can afford it. It means they can profit while residents on low or modest incomes are displaced away from their families and their communities or subject to unacceptable living standards.

When I moved from the part of London I'm originally from, I was essentially priced out but I was hardly displaced. I was fortunate that there was still an element of choice in my decision to move but many others are not. A lack of affordable housing limits their choices and increasingly foists an unwanted move upon them that they're in no position to oppose. Indeed, many tenants who can’t move are effectively trapped until the inevitability of eviction.

Speak to teachers working in many inner city communities and they’ll tell you of many of their students’ families being forced to move away from the school. As a result, students are made to leave their friends and the stability offered by schools that youths need and crave. In addition to the bedroom tax and the benefit cap having the same effect, gentrification has meant that private landlords are increasing rents to levels that modest incomes just can't service. And a barely regulated private rental sector and insecure tenancies encourage these landlords’ attitudes.

Most of these families are hardworking people in employment, not the ‘benefit scroungers’ or 'chavs’ that the Daily Mail, Brexiters and Tories would have you think. So now the message is even if you work hard, you still can't be guaranteed of affordable, quality housing. Clearly the Conservative vision of ‘work hard and you can get anything’ doesn't apply to the working class.

For those families who don't move away from their community, the result is overcrowding, and often in local accommodation that many would consider squalor, because it remains the only affordable and local option. I lived in overcrowded accommodation for over a decade and know first hand how it affects children during their formative years.

Beyond the perpetual struggle to find somewhere to do your homework with adequate space, that’s conducive to studying without the noise and activity from the rest of the household, where do younger children especially play? Your interpersonal skills are hampered because you can't invite friends over due to a lack of space and you’re denied the space to just 'be’, which is crucial in your formative years but taken for granted by so many.

You see, the housing crisis isn't just about having somewhere to live. It affects families, children and their social and emotional growth and the stability that we all, especially children, desire in our lives. Adequately addressing it is more about providing the basic standards of living that most expect yet many are denied and gentrification therefore just makes a serious problem even worse.

Just as Brixton has been transformed beyond recognition since the Brixton riots in 1981, Tottenham is experiencing the same fate since its own unrest in 2011. But the 'regeneration’ being pushed by Tottenham Hotspur in building their new stadium is intensifying it.

Walk through Tottenham today and you’ll see shiny new estate agents popping up, poised for what they know is on the verge of happening with the already rapid appreciation of property prices in the area. Many social housing tenants have already been moved by Haringey Council to make way for the stadium’s expansion and many private tenants have been forced to move or evicted because their landlords have hiked their rents to reflect property value in the area.

Tottenham, like Brixton and many others before it, is changing. The vibrancy of the community is being traded for Tottenham Hotspur’s ambitions, which Haringey Council is happy to encourage and provide tokenistic scrutiny and checks and balances to. The lack of provision of affordable housing in the process is more than collateral damage. It's part of the socio-economic engineering that can be seen in our communities.

Under the guise of regeneration and improving communities for everyone, gentrification is providing a vehicle for the 'them and us’ neoliberal narrative. Furthermore, it also serves to push the worsening housing crisis. Families are displaced, health and well-being are affected and affordable housing becomes harder to find. The message from rampant and unchecked gentrification is that the middle classes deserve quality accommodation and a decent standard of living because they can afford it. Yet for others, it’s a basic right that society is happy to deny.

Are ethnic minority Tories a paradox or a representation of progress within the Conservative party?

When most people think of British politicians and the British political class, they think of white, middle-aged, middle-class men with a stronghold of support from Middle England. And broadly speaking, they’d be right. Although within contemporary history, there has been a shift and albeit limitedly, progress has been made in bringing further diversity to politics. Women have become a feature of British politics with a female former British Prime Minister in Margaret Thatcher and a female First Minister of Scotland in Nicola Sturgeon. In 1997 when Labour were elected to power, 101 of their MPs were female which prompted the Daily Mail to coin the somewhat misogynistic label of ‘Blair’s Babes’.

For ethnic minority politicians in the UK, their increase has been less prolific but still visible. Where ethnic minority politicians have been most noticeable has been within the Labour Party, which is hardly surprising given their track record on promoting and legislating equality for all minority groups. That’s in contrast with the Conservative Party’s historically hostile reception towards immigrants and its resistance to equality for any minority group other than the ‘1%’ who comprise many within the party and bankroll them. As a result, and unsurprisingly, minorities have typically aligned themselves with the Labour Party or the left.

Firstly, let’s not pretend that the Labour Party and the broader left is, or always has been, void of prejudice or always promoted equality. The female sewing machinists at Ford’s Dagenham plant were initially not supported by their trade union in their 1968 strike for equal pay. Furthermore, while Labour and the trade unions have a long and proud history of supporting ethnic minorities, many post-war immigrants were met with hostility by many within the trade union movement. Factions echoing the irrational and unfounded fears of some of their members claimed that immigrants were taking the jobs of the indigenous white British. This was despite an acute labour shortage following the war. Such undertones could also be be felt within the Labour Party at a time when broader British society and politics was arguably subject to much institutional racism.

Nevertheless, it was Barbara Castle, a Labour MP and the then Secretary of State for Employment, who intervened in the the Ford machinists’ strike and a Labour government that was responsible for the Equal Pay Act 1970 that the strike action helped to bring about. It was also a Labour government that was responsible for the Race Relations Act 1965 which many Labour backbenchers actually argued didn’t go far enough. Indeed, while it hasn’t been without blemish, the Labour Party and the left has a long and celebrated history of promoting equality for all minorities, which can’t be said for the Conservative Party. Even as recently as 2013, the Conservative Party was split over same-sex marriage with 136 voting against it while only 127 were in favour. Historically, equality hasn’t really been their forte.

During the 1964 general election campaign, Conservative parliamentary candidate Peter Griffiths used the slogan “If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour.” He was subsequently elected. In 1968, Conservative MP Enoch Powell gave his infamous and inflammatory Rivers of Blood speech, harshly criticising immigration from the Commonwealth and race relations legislation. Despite not openly to the extent of Powell’s utterances, the Conservative Party retained undertones of prejudice that merely fanned rather than quelled the flames of institutional racism within British society at the time.

Conservative MP Oliver Letwin’s remarks and attitudes on the black community, recently released in a 1985 memo discussing the Broadwater Farm riots in Tottenham, show that racism within the Conservative Party was enduring. The lack of proportionate censure from today’s Conservative Party suggest that such comments might not go amiss now either, an assertion that Zac Goldsmith’s casual Islamophobia and dog whistling in his smear campaign against Sadiq Khan actually supports. And juxtaposed with the recent suspensions of Ken Livingstone and Naz Shah from the Labour Party, which David Cameron also called for, where was David Cameron’s reproach for Boris Johnson's racist and colonialist rhetoric on Barack Obama or much of Zac Goldsmith’s Islamophobic and divisive mayoral campaign?

The modern Conservative Party has sought to lose the tag of ‘the nasty party’ and reject the racist elements of its history. It can also boast a number of ethnic minority MPs such as frontbenchers Sajid Javid, Priti Patel and and Sam Gyimah. The Tories have undoubtedly progressed from the days when even an ethnic minority backbencher would be unthinkable and that should be lauded regardless of one’s political persuasion.

It’s also important to emphasise that not all Tories, regardless of ethnicity, are racist. Many are committed to equality and positive race relations even if their party’s history may suggest otherwise. Nonetheless, for many ethnic minorities, including me, the party’s still-raw history of racism towards our immigrant grandparents and parents and those of us that were born in the UK, along with its poor track record on race relations and equality in general, make it difficult to support them as a party. After all, some of those sentiments are apparent in today’s Conservative Party. Yet oddly, this isn’t the perception amongst all ethnic minorities.

For many immigrants, there is an experience and a narrative of arriving in a new country with very little but a can-do attitude and working hard to make a better life for yourself and your family. That narrative is fulfilled to varying extents but there are many diaspora communities who have shown admirable and impressive graft and business acumen that has resulted in successive generations steadily climbing the often greasy pole of social mobility.

Ugandan Indians refugees arriving in the UK

Take the Gujarati community, many of whom were forced to leave East Africa to rebuild their lives in Britain. Many become proprietors of newsagents and convenience stores in the UK, working long hours with a stakhanovite work ethic while family would often comprise their staff. Though subsequent generations have moved away from small business retailers and into roles such as finance, medicine and dentistry. They aren’t the only ethnic minority group with a similarly story either. Regardless of race, it’s the very narrative that is celebrated and encouraged by the Conservative Party - work hard, create jobs, don’t rely on the state and you’ll be successful.

Many second and third generation ethnic minorities from immigrant families share less of the experiences of the generations before them. Racism is less overt than it once was and class has superseded race as a social determinant of how we identify ourselves and with whom we identify with. Take a British doctor of Gujarati descent. His parents may have faced racism upon coming to Britain in the 1960s where they may have worked in an unskilled sector. As working class ethnic minorities, they would have been typical Labour supporters. Whereas his experiences are acutely different to that of his parents with less required graft and subtle and less barriers to social mobility, he will likely see himself as middle class with a life that is more aligned to the Tories.

Capitalism and social mobility often has a way of making an ethnic minority metaphorically lighten the hue of their skin tone in how they perceive themselves. That’s reflected in how they might vote too. I’ve seen ethnic minorities deem a decent job and a good socio-economic status to equate to needing to vote Conservative because it’s who they feel the type of person they now identify with should vote. They no longer feel aligned to the tales of the parents but instead that of Middle England and the political class. Perhaps such perception is valid. After all, I can’t dictate how someone identifies themselves. What I can be sure of, is that Middle England certainly don’t identify with them and they’re barking up the wrong tree if they think differently. No amount of money and well-spoken delivery will change that either.

Ignorance too has played a role in the growth of ethnic minority support for the Tories. During the previous general election campaign, a middle class Asian female Tory voter that I know foolishly claimed that they were voting Conservative because “Labour had ruined the economy” and proceeded to attribute the global financial crisis to Labour. Was that the same Labour Party that hadn’t been in power for five whole years? The Conservative Party’s ploy of blaming everything under the sun on the previous Labour government must have had some effect as some voters were clearly stupid enough to recycle the same trite argument for the coalition government’s failures. Said individual also works in finance which compounds her ignorance. Even sadder is that as a woman and an ethnic minority, she would have personally benefited throughout her life from legislation introduced under previous Labour governments.

It’s lamentable that some ethnic minorities have such short memories when it comes to the Conservative Party, their values and how they treated our grandparents and parents when they arrived in the UK. A generation later and with a bit of money and a decent job, some ethnic minorities are voting Conservative but can’t even articulate why other than an underlying belief that Conservative policies might make them a bit more cash while trodding on the less fortunate in society - the same people their parents may once have been only a few generations ago.

The Conservative Party might be deemed the party of business and enterprise which ties into the immigrant narrative for many. But we need to ask ourselves, are they the party of ethnic minorities? Alas, while those features needn’t and shouldn't be mutually exclusive, for some factions within the Conservative Party they probably are and would-be ethnic minority Conservative voters need to remember that.

I need to emphasis that I’m not suggesting ethnic minorities can’t or shouldn’t vote for the Conservatives if that’s where their values lie. Democracy affords us the opportunity to support and vote for whoever we desire and that can’t ever be criticised or restricted. Moreover, it isn’t right to hold today’s Tories to the ills of their history and it would be unfair to imply that as a party they haven’t made any progress in representing the ethnic minority electorate. Though we need to ask ourselves how far and how meaningful that progress has been. We also need to consider how representative ethnic minority Tory MPs are of the broader ethnic minority experience and the party’s failure to robustly tackle the institutionally racism that is still present in today’s Conservative Party. Consequently, while ethnic minority Tory voters represent some progress for the party, there is still something quite paradoxical about them. Fortunately for the Conservative Party, they don’t seem to see it for themselves.

Is society so jaded with the status quo of socio-economic inequality that it no longer has the inclination to revolt?

While it may only be fiction, the Batman trilogy of films depicts a dystopia that isn’t that removed from what could occur in modern society. Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises showed Gotham so riddled by crime due to a society polarised between the haves and have-nots, that it became characterised by moral turpitude. So much so that Ra’s al Ghul, and latterly Bane, were able to exploit the resentment that existed within Gotham and on both occasions initiate uprisings (albeit ill-fated thanks to the caped crusader) against Gotham’s wealthy elite and the authorities.

Returning to reality, the message is simple – give people enough to feed their anger, and sooner or later they will revolt. However, in modern society, where socio-economic inequality is moving in the direction of that seen in Gotham, people don’t appear motivated to stand up against an unfair and worsening situation.

Needless to say, governments and the elite cannot be exclusively blamed for the woes of the less fortunate. However, disparate living standards have become a feature of modern society. The haves and the have-nots are often separated by little more than a few miles in some cities but their respective realities couldn’t be starker in contrast. For many of the latter, a more desirable standard of living is almost flaunted before them within adjacent communities as pockets of deprivation and affluence are scattered alongside each other. Almost aggressive gentrification is changing the landscape of communities traditionally comprised by lower socio-economic groups. Furthermore, it’s compounded by government policies like the benefit cap in the UK. Similarly, the absence of a rent cap or robust rent control in many cities merely expedites this social transformation.

Yet despite a widening gap in socio-economic status, a warranted and indignant vitriol has not been forthcoming. Indeed, it has barely scratched the surface in articulating a mass discontent. Has society become so jaded and downtrodden that the less fortunate have accepted their place at the bottom of the social totem pole with limited, if any, scope to elevate themselves? Meanwhile, the richest and most privileged in society continue to solidify this position. Indeed, governments and their respective policies preserve this with no regard for those whose social position remains stagnant or worse still declines as a consequence.

Western society has long been structured to maintain a status quo that protects the position and privilege of the most advantaged. The medieval feudal system has effectively been replaced by patronage and nepotism for the elite and those who are able to ‘buy’ political favour from the government of the day. In the same way, education policies (arguably some of the most effective tools when engineering the composition and class structure of a society), such as the introduction of secondary modern schools in the UK, have restricted the aspirations and potential opportunities of a section of society that were deemed less ‘academic’ and more likely to come from lower socio-economic groups.

Similarly, social unrest such as that seen in riots in Brixton and latterly Tottenham (the latter spreading throughout the UK) has subsequently been capitalised upon in further progressing the position of those that are more fortunate. Middle classes swarm to buy properties in these respective areas, only to change the character and composition of communities while said property prices rapidly rise. Thus they price longstanding inhabitants and their families out of the area. Consequently, family and community links are broken and eroded as another tool of impeding the social mobility of the less fortunate. Although governments have no qualms with this and essentially encourage it with economic incentives, policies and rhetoric.

The aforementioned examples don’t begin to show the extent of the inequality within society. It’s apparent for all to see and there’s a clear history of it occurring. Therefore why is there effectively a silent majority who accept this? A recent report by Credit Suisse revealed that 1% of people own 48% of global wealth. It’s a staggering statistic but one that supports the Occupy movement’s ‘we are the 99%’ slogan and reinforces the current socio-economic inequality that society is subject to.

In the UK, not since the Poll Tax riots has there been unrest on a scale that showed how angry people were with social injustice. The MPs expenses scandal in the UK saw few MPs convicted for their actions which if not illegal were certainly not in the spirit of public life. But rather than directed and meaningful anger, people largely responded with further apathy for politics. Likewise, in the wake of the financial crisis, responses have been meek. The subprime mortgage crisis saw people lose their homes. And the financial sector, the group most responsible for the financial crisis, was bailed out at the expense of taxpayers around the world because they were crudely deemed ‘too big to fail’. The most notable but short lived response to this was the Occupy movement. And that failed to have any tangible and achievable objectives that would enable it to galvanise further support and effect change.

The Occupy movement, once showing promise that never materialised, provided a vehicle for anger to be articulated and change to be forcefully effected. Though instead it has seemingly fizzled out with little to show for its impact. It’s regrettable that it never became a movement that effected change, forcing governments to relent from what has been a tradition of favouring only the most privileged in society. Against a backdrop of increasing socio-economic inequality, the Occupy movement failed to effect change. It therefore begs the question what will motivate society to breaking point in meaningfully protesting against current circumstances?

It’s difficult to ascertain why exactly people don’t feel inclined to rebel against the existing state of affairs. Ignorance is a major factor. When American investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley converted to bank holding companies, they were granted a status typically reserved for retail banks such as those found on high streets with regular customers depositing and withdrawing money. And accompanying that status, they had access to loans at lower rates and bolstered security from the Federal Reserve (who approved their newly acquired status). Meanwhile, industries, businesses and individuals continued to experience harsh financial austerity without any such protection or assistance afforded to them. Hardly a move in the spirit of integrity, this wasn’t highly publicised at all. Had it been, it may have provided a further source of anger as a tipping point for unrest in response to the actions of the financial section and respective governments in cahoots with each other. After all, surely everyone has a breaking point where they’re no longer willing be bent over a barrel by the state and the elite?

There also needs to be a unifying figure to mobilise efforts with the chutzpah to challenge the way things are. It’s unlikely to be forthcoming from a mainstream political figure. A glaring absence from the Occupy movement was a leader figure that was able to articulate and capture the sentiments of the wider public, hence the movement being unable to gather any momentum.

Ultimately, people have become jaded and accepted the status quo. Indignation has seemingly disappeared from society in recent years and worryingly so. There seems to be no motivation to reflect on the unfairness of growing polarised wealth nor an effort to reverse it. Nonetheless, as things edge towards further inequality, it may only be a matter of time before the dystopia of Gotham becomes less farfetched than it may currently seem.

Black, working class but in no way inferior

For anyone who doesn’t know me beyond my blog, I’m black. And I’m also from a working class background (although that might have been more apparent from some of my previous posts). Both my race and class are attributes I am proud of and I consider them to have contributed to shaping many of my experiences and perspectives in life. I see neither my race nor my class as an excuse for failure and I like to think my own life refutes that notion too. I am well-educated, broadly content with the person I am and (despite my many, many gripes about it) have a reasonably good job. Indeed, aside from a few blots, I am accepting of the hand life has dealt me.

There are others, some of whom have had different experiences from me, who consider being black and working class a double whammy in life. For many, being black is already deemed to be on a hiding to nothing and a guarantee for discrimination at various points in your life. Similarly, being working class is considered to result in being socially ostracised by the middle classes and a constant reminder not to get ideas above your station when it comes to ambition. At various points in my life, I have experienced all the above. Therefore I’m not quick to criticise those who maintain that opinion.

I fully acknowledge that my race and my class have made things harder for me than say a white, middle class male living in suburbia. It’s made opportunities less accessible and less apparent, often due to ignorance. Subconsciously, at times it’s also made me doubt my own ability to succeed to the same heights as my peers who come from a different background.

I grew up in a multicultural, working class community. My first school broadly reflected this in the intake. Needless to say, most of us came from working class families. Most of us were black too but at that age we didn’t give it much thought. When I went an inner city comprehensive at 11, it was more socially and ethnically diverse but I was probably still amongst the majority along racial and class lines. It was a rough school but not the worst and had some good teachers. Nonetheless, there were some incidents that the Daily Mail would have described as “broken Britain in our schools”.

During my time in the sixth form, I attended university open days and conferences with other schools and colleges, many with a middle class, largely white intake. It was then that I started to realise that I might not be amongst the majority once I went onto higher education and into the wider world. Some of the students I interacted with seemed more articulate, more confident and quite frankly more intelligent that my peers and I. And some of them would appear to be thinking the same thing. I would sometimes feel a sense of subtle inferiority having to interact with these students and the contrast between us seemed perceptible (although in retrospect, it was probably less than I thought it was). My race and class had started to make me feel like I might not belong in some circles.

Then I went to university and the status quo I had known was gone. I studied History, a subject traditionally (but by no means exclusively) studied by white, middle class students. For the first time in my life, I was in a minority within my setting.

I was surrounded by middle class students whose experiences and perspectives were so different from mine. Most on my course were white but beyond my fellow history students, middle class white and South Asian students had taken the place I once assumed within the majority. Their lifestyles were also very different from the experiences of my peers within my social circle and I. We worked part time jobs out of necessity; if they worked at all, it was just to supplement the money their parents gave them. For most of us, we were the first in our families to attend university; for them it had been the norm for generations. And many of them had come from private, grammar or selective schools whereas we were coming from an inner city comprehensive. I had no resentment towards them because of the life they had. After all, I had never known any different. But it was certainly an eye opener.

I didn’t walk around thinking other students were better than me but there was a sense that they were better equipped for a life of academia than I was. Academically, I’d gone from being a big fish in a small pond. Yet it took me a moment to acknowledge that they were no more intelligent than me just because their diction and background might have suggested otherwise.

Oddly, being black and working class offered me a credibility for which I only had to be myself to achieve. Yet I always knew that credibility would do little to help advance my career post university.

I did well at university and graduated with a good degree. However, I missed out on a number of opportunities that would have put me in good stead for my working life. This was largely down to ignorance. I didn’t have anyone advising me of the best internships, graduate schemes, placements or useful modules to study to break into a particular field. Ultimately, that ignorance was typical of my background. My parents, both of whom had relentlessly pushed me when it came to education, could offer no advice as this was a world alien to them. Despite their encouragement, they couldn’t comment on a world they had not experienced. That lack of guidance, lack of confidence, and of course being black (meaning institutional racism was likely to work against me at some point), meant I was playing catch-up in life before I had even started.

I use the analogy of a race to describe what I experienced. I’ve trained, just as hard if not harder than the other athletes. And as far as ability goes, I’m certainly up there. But everyone else has a head start on me and their coaches have given them tips that I wouldn’t know because I’ve been self-trained. They’ve also had access to the best training facilities whereas I have to make do with the basic facilities at my disposal. So despite all my efforts and hard training, I’m already disadvantaged before the race even starts. That doesn’t mean I can’t win the race or at least have a good performance although it does mean I need to run harder than anyone else in the field if I want to keep up. Years later, I actually still feel this way and it speaks volumes about the social fabric of Britain.

It’s easy to rue over lost opportunities that have meant I’m not where I might possibly have been in my life. More lamentable is the fact that for a while, I subconsciously kept my aspirations in check which undoubtedly restrained my progress. I didn’t see others from my background in certain positions therefore I didn’t envisage it for myself either. However, eventually I realised I was just as good as anyone else. It wasn’t too late but everyone else had already started the race and I had to catch up.

When I started working, it was a similar story. I was working in a traditionally white, middle class setting. Furthermore, by this point, a burgeoning middle class, most of whom would once have considered themselves working class, had emerged. This ‘new’ middle class was arguably a legacy of contemporary British politics. Socially mobile and socially aspirational, they identified more with middle class values and consequently increased the gulf between the working and middle class. On race and class grounds, I was, and still am, in the minority within my field but I’ve come to realise my background isn’t necessarily a disadvantage.

One thing I’ve had over my peers in higher education, and latterly my colleagues, is a broader life experience. Admittedly, it’s meant at times things have been harder for me but those experiences have shaped who I am. Furthermore, said experiences have not been at the expense of relinquishing or diluting my identity or background.

My work ethic and tenacity is at least in part attributed to my working class background. The acknowledgement that being black I need to work harder to dispel any notion that I cannot be as good as the next person, is also an advantage. I don’t doubt that’s different for many ethnic minorities. But the progress and broader acceptance other communities such as those from the South Asian diaspora have already achieved, arguably makes their path easier.

I don’t expect or seek any sympathy for the path I’ve had to take in contrast to others and I don’t feel it’s warranted either. Nonetheless, it should be acknowledged that by virtue of my race and my class, that path is subject to difficulties that others will never encounter.

For someone from my background not experiencing exposure to a world other than their own, they are unlikely to experience any sentiments of inferiority if they never encounter anyone to evoke it. Yet the reluctance to seek those experiences can suggest such inferiority exists before it even comes to the surface. There’s clearly something deep rooted about this that needs to be addressed in society beyond just a peppy can-do outlook.

I can’t pontificate about it “being easy with the right attitude” because it isn’t. However, what’s important is not suffering from an inferiority complex that panders to the notion that anyone should settle for less based on their class or race. Society attempts insofar as possible to predetermine that inferiority and perpetuates the apparent limitations and restrictions through long established social structures. No one should bemoan their background and I’m certainly not suggesting that. Conversely, no one should feel their background prefigures challenges that others would automatically bypass. Alas, the status quo is a sad reality while others remain ignorant to just how fortunate they are.