I have just come back into the office from the car and did that very rare thing: sat in the car for 10 minutes unable to switch off, compelled by the content.
The discussion was on the 'White Season' - talking about whether the voice of the white working class was ignored. There was an almost unanimous 'yes' - with an older asian female caller sugesting that positive discrimination was entirely wrong and had caused real problems. I had to sit and nod my head vigorously.
Professor Carl Chinn, who I (sort of) know - a Birmingham historian with one of the broadest Birmingham accents known to man gave a superb, clear and articulate discussion on the fact that the white working classes were certainly being overshadowed.
The discussion was not racist, not in any way shape or form - all classes and cultures contributed. This was radio at it's best - and I sent Carl's daughter; Tara (a superb female artist) a text message "your dad is my hero!" Bless her, she replied to tell me he was her hero too...
It's an incredible discussion in itself. It's something I want to probe - and I'm going to speak to Carl to see what sort of debate we can provoke in the podcast. What is Britain? Why is there class? What is 'Britishness' that we appear to be hearing as a buzz word these days.
I absolutely love discussions that are really thought provoking. I'd love your views, mail or audio that can be sent to this mail address: podcastpaul@gmail.com Please contribute whether you're British, non - British, whatever your view.
Hope to hear from you very soon.
Paul
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4 comments:
it's all about marginalisation, isn't it...
by the way, like much that you've developed the format.
Thanks Dean - couldn't agree more on the marginalisation comment too.
The more I look into the British class system, the more of an enigma it seems to me. How sad that we grade ourselves - and others do that for us too.
I caught some of that discussion as well.
Also on the radio this last week was a discussion about the proposed pledge of allegance to country and queen for the UK which is supposed to be in order to get people to feel proud of the UK and to have an allegance to their country - is it meaningful or is it just another bit of meaningless propoganda.
Hard to know what to think - I do think it's a bit different in the UK to here in Aus - there are less of us for a start - and we don't have quite the same class consciousness (not totally class-less but not as pronounced as England from my experience).
I've done some public consultation work for state government here - when they're thinking of new policies or direction they get us to talk to the public to see what they think - and I can say that white working and middle class folks are under represented in who comes along to the sessions - I sometimes get the feeling that thy feel awkward if they complain or have a negative opinion about anything - especially in front of any kind of minority people - the culture of political correctness makes people afraid to say anything - even if there's nothing remotely racist or 'classist' about what they want to say.
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