Chavs are fucking scum

[Goatse]

Chavs are just the scum of the earth. There is this group of chavs in my town who wander around at night picking fights with people - people are actually scared to go outside now. They once beat up an old blind guy for "looking at them funny."

A bunch of them also made a webpage making fun of moshers, implying they're all suicidal emos who don't wash. After a while, my friend made a similar page about chavs. It wasn't nearly as offensive, and also had much better spelling. The result? My friend got beaten up by a bunch of them. Even though my friend isn't exactly strong, they felt the need to sneak up behind him and also had to outnumber him five to one. (Although, they didn't realise they did it infront of a fucking CCTV camera, LOL. Fucking morons, they got suspended because the head teacher happened to be watching the CCTV cameras at that time.) They don't mind mocking, abusing and offending other people or groups, but they can't take any of it themselves.

They think they're so fucking amazing because they're part of a nationwide gang, and just strut around like they own the country. Chavs should just go fucking die.

[Lord Testicles]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 05:28 pm
Chavs should just go fucking die.
Tell me about it, a bunch of friends and myself were attacked a couple of weeks back, they outnumbered us and we were drunk, safe to say it didn&#39;t go too well. <_<

[cheisgreat]

What is the web page that they are making fun of moshers?

I think in every town and city there is the same problem. Boredom is the cause of it. These kids need educated&#33;

[An archist]

I agree, chavs must die

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

http://www.tv-links.co.uk/listings/9/5368 this is an interesting documentary that takes a very euphamistic view of chavs...

[Goatse]

Originally posted by That documentary
Many of our national heroes are chavs

What the FUCK?&#33;

National heroes? Then a picture of David Beckham? He&#39;s a fucking scummy piece of slime that isn&#39;t fit to navigate its way through a dogs&#39; asshole&#33; Jesus Christ&#33; This documentary is retarded if it says David Beckham is a national hero.

EDIT: LOL, I just stopped watching after it said people are only scared of chavs because they look at them and realise how boring their own lives are. How did someone so stupid even manage to get a programme put on TV?

[More Fire for the People]

Oi. Fuck you.

[Lord Testicles]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 05, 2007 01:35 pm

The chav, chav culture and life style originated from within the working class culture of England. Despite this it is widely viewed as a negative by working class people. Many from within the working classes of England view the chav fad as a negative manifestation of working class culture. The chav style has been usurped by even those from other social classes. On the left, many see the chav and the chav lifestyle as turning working class identity into a commodity to be exploited. The homophobia, sexism, xenophobia and hijacking Hip-Hop culture that define the chav are seen as negatives. On the right, the anti-social behaviour and disrespect for social norms by chavs leads to so called "social snobbery". Many from within the Chav "community" are trying to paint criticism of chavdom as "snobbery" or "classisism". Some politically correct social commentators have embraced the chav as a valid social grouping deserving of the same respect as any other protected minority grouping. This has lead many to reject all that is chav, regardless of the political correctness of such social rejection.


The widespread use of the chav stereotype has come under criticism; some argue that it amounts simply to snobbery and classism, and that serious social problems such as Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, teenage pregnancy, delinquency and alcoholism in low-income areas should not be scoffed at. Critics of the term have argued that its proponents are “neo-snobs,” and that its increasing popularity raises questions about how British society deals with social mobility and class. In a February 2005 article in The Times, Julie Burchill argued that use of the word is a form of “social racism,” and that such “sneering” reveals more about the shortcomings of the “chav-haters” than those of their supposed victims. The writer John Harris argued along similar lines in a 2007 article in The Guardian.

Burchill also produced a Sky One television programme on the topic where she sought to link the word with the entire working-class population. The controversy around the term was also the subject of a Channel 4 documentary in July 2005, simply entitled Chavs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavs#Critici...reotyping_chavs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavs#Criticism_of_the_stereotyping_chavs)
What are you trying to get at?

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

there are loads of people on British TV who don&#39;t know what a chav is and then attempt to portray themselves as one because they had a chav hair cut for two weeks in 1985.

Chav&#39;s in my area beat up prostitutes and 90 year old men. Its got little to do with class or classism. That concept is a lie.

I know a chav who&#39;s dad owns a construction company and is totally minted.

anyway, they make up such a small proportion of the population they aren&#39;t significant as people or a social group.

[Fawkes]

I hope they don&#39;t make their way to the U.S.

[An archist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 03:11 pm
I hope they don&#39;t make their way to the U.S.
If they do, shoot &#39;em, they&#39;re a plague

[midnight marauder]

There&#39;s a strange, chiefly middle class, social phenomenon of loathing people from the working class who adopt upper class values and trends.

Chavs dress in upper class clothing (albeit counterfeit), where flashy jewelry (albeit fake) place an emphasis on material possessions (as best they can afford it), and make it their primary goal to have fun and "live the high life" (as best as they can).

Isn&#39;t that the type of lifestyle that the media has been shoving down our throats for well over a decade?

Is it that the proles are acting like the wealthy celebrities the middle class looks up to? Or that they live their lives in accordance with the wealthy values and lifestyles that the middle class holds and aspires to but doesn&#39;t act upon?

That they&#39;re an easy scapegoat for a culture that refuses to look critically at the real reasons behind antisocial youth, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, and the other usual suspects?

Or do people just need someone to hate?

They&#39;re not hurting you. They&#39;re a diverse group of people linked by a common subculture. There are good chavs, and there&#39;s bad chavs as well, but to crossapply the habits of those who beat the elderly and prostitutes or whatever to everyone wearing a burberry hat and some white trainers is to allow yourself to abide by the same illogical "rationale" that&#39;s been fueling racism and other forms of prejudice for years.

If you believe that chavs are scum that deserve to die, you need to seriously reassess your attitudes toward the world around you.

The middle class and the media: neoclassist elitists in disguise. :ph34r:

[Political_Chucky]

I&#39;m sorry for being the ignorant one, but whats a chav?

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 03:11 pm
I hope they don&#39;t make their way to the U.S.
They seem like complete scum. I hope they don&#39;t make their way here either. Those bastards would be staring down the barrel of a gun if they tried their hooligan attacks on me.

[Niemand]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 06, 2007 04:26 am
It&#39;s a British phenomena.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavs

It&#39;s not just a British thing.

Chav:
http://69.93.14.237/images/chav.jpg


Chav translated into the American dialect is "wigger"

wigger:

http://media.urbandictionary.com/image/large/wigger-15513.jpg

[Comrade J]

That guy isn&#39;t really a chav though, chavs tend to wear tracksuits and lots of shit fake gold. Also they listen to awful music, usually some guy MC-ing really fast over a shit, badly mixed dance track.

http://blog.project76.tv/chavwatchchavs.jpg

[Hiero]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 04:37 pm
http://media.urbandictionary.com/image/large/wigger-15513.jpg
That isn&#39;t a chav, that&#39;s Chimx&#33; :D

edit: only people in the CC may see the resemblance.

[BOZG]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 06, 2007 05:45 am
That guy isn&#39;t really a chav though, chavs tend to wear tracksuits and lots of shit fake gold. Also they listen to awful music, usually some guy MC-ing really fast over a shit, badly mixed dance track.
There are comparisons internationally though. They&#39;re always a subculture of the working class maybe with slightly different interests in clothing or music but generally created by the same social and economic problems. Their closest counterparts are probably Skangers in Ireland.

[BOZG]

Originally posted by midnight [email protected] 06, 2007 02:08 am
There&#39;s a strange, chiefly middle class, social phenomenon of loathing people from the working class who adopt upper class values and trends.

Chavs dress in upper class clothing (albeit counterfeit), where flashy jewelry (albeit fake) place an emphasis on material possessions (as best they can afford it), and make it their primary goal to have fun and "live the high life" (as best as they can).

Isn&#39;t that the type of lifestyle that the media has been shoving down our throats for well over a decade?

Is it that the proles are acting like the wealthy celebrities the middle class looks up to? Or that they live their lives in accordance with the wealthy values and lifestyles that the middle class holds and aspires to but doesn&#39;t act upon?

That they&#39;re an easy scapegoat for a culture that refuses to look critically at the real reasons behind antisocial youth, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, and the other usual suspects?

Or do people just need someone to hate?

They&#39;re not hurting you. They&#39;re a diverse group of people linked by a common subculture. There are good chavs, and there&#39;s bad chavs as well, but to crossapply the habits of those who beat the elderly and prostitutes or whatever to everyone wearing a burberry hat and some white trainers is to allow yourself to abide by the same illogical "rationale" that&#39;s been fueling racism and other forms of prejudice for years.

If you believe that chavs are scum that deserve to die, you need to seriously reassess your attitudes toward the world around you.

The middle class and the media: neoclassist elitists in disguise. :ph34r:
Great post&#33;

[An archist]

Originally posted by midnight marauder
There&#39;s a strange, chiefly middle class, social phenomenon of loathing people from the working class who adopt upper class values and trends.

Chavs dress in upper class clothing (albeit counterfeit), where flashy jewelry (albeit fake) place an emphasis on material possessions (as best they can afford it), and make it their primary goal to have fun and "live the high life" (as best as they can).

Isn&#39;t that the type of lifestyle that the media has been shoving down our throats for well over a decade?

Is it that the proles are acting like the wealthy celebrities the middle class looks up to? Or that they live their lives in accordance with the wealthy values and lifestyles that the middle class holds and aspires to but doesn&#39;t act upon?

That they&#39;re an easy scapegoat for a culture that refuses to look critically at the real reasons behind antisocial youth, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, and the other usual suspects?

Or do people just need someone to hate?

They&#39;re not hurting you. They&#39;re a diverse group of people linked by a common subculture. There are good chavs, and there&#39;s bad chavs as well, but to crossapply the habits of those who beat the elderly and prostitutes or whatever to everyone wearing a burberry hat and some white trainers is to allow yourself to abide by the same illogical "rationale" that&#39;s been fueling racism and other forms of prejudice for years.

If you believe that chavs are scum that deserve to die, you need to seriously reassess your attitudes toward the world around you.

The middle class and the media: neoclassist elitists in disguise. :ph34r:

ah, but you see, that&#39;s exactly the problem, I do not hate chavs (or johnny&#39;s as we call them here) because of the way they dress, because of their music or because of their background (wich is quite diverse here, ranging from really poor, to really rich)
I hate them because they are bastards, who hang out on the streets in groups of at least 10-15, waiting for whatever reason they can find to start a fight. The most popular reasons to start a fight are: because people look different and because they are fewer.
So fuck off with your analysis, chavs are scum and almost everyone I know once got beaten up by some of them.

[Dimentio]

Hang&#39;em&#39;an&#39;torture&#39;em :D

When I was at primary, I led a glorious umbrella alliance with the goal of erradicating all hiphoppers from the school. Most hiphoppers at my school were nazis as well.

[BOZG]

Originally posted by An [email protected] 06, 2007 09:42 am
ah, but you see, that&#39;s exactly the problem, I do not hate chavs (or johnny&#39;s as we call them here) because of the way they dress, because of their music or because of their background (wich is quite diverse here, ranging from really poor, to really rich)
I hate them because they are bastards, who hang out on the streets in groups of at least 10-15, waiting for whatever reason they can find to start a fight. The most popular reasons to start a fight are: because people look different and because they are fewer.
So fuck off with your analysis, chavs are scum and almost everyone I know once got beaten up by some of them.

Can you prove that? Can you prove that it&#39;s merely Chav culture? Is every Chav involved in beating up people? You&#39;re post is generalised rubbish. You could remove Chavs from that post and insert "blacks", "latinos", "other ethnic minority" and you&#39;d mirror the same misguided, racist rubbish that exists everywhere.

Anti-social behaviour and violence is a problem in every working class community, particularly the most downtrodden where these subcultures grow out of. It was a problem long before Chavs. It is the economic and social conditions that cause it, not subcultures. That is the problem that has to be addressed.

[Honggweilo]

i had a perioid way back where i used to dress a bit like that, besides the homophobia, racism and the rest of the pejorative atributes :(.. I guess it was just a way to get noticed, only in the wrong way :lol:

[An archist]

Originally posted by BOZG+August 06, 2007 12:02 pm--> (BOZG @ August 06, 2007 12:02 pm)
An [email protected] 06, 2007 09:42 am
ah, but you see, that&#39;s exactly the problem, I do not hate chavs (or johnny&#39;s as we call them here) because of the way they dress, because of their music or because of their background (wich is quite diverse here, ranging from really poor, to really rich)
I hate them because they are bastards, who hang out on the streets in groups of at least 10-15, waiting for whatever reason they can find to start a fight. The most popular reasons to start a fight are: because people look different and because they are fewer.
So fuck off with your analysis, chavs are scum and almost everyone I know once got beaten up by some of them.

Can you prove that? Can you prove that it&#39;s merely Chav culture? Is every Chav involved in beating up people? You&#39;re post is generalised rubbish. You could remove Chavs from that post and insert "blacks", "latinos", "other ethnic minority" and you&#39;d mirror the same misguided, racist rubbish that exists everywhere.

Anti-social behaviour and violence is a problem in every working class community, particularly the most downtrodden where these subcultures grow out of. It was a problem long before Chavs. It is the economic and social conditions that cause it, not subcultures. That is the problem that has to be addressed. [/b]
No, I can&#39;t prove that since I haven&#39;t seen any studies on the subject yet. No, probably not all chavs like to fight, but every chav I&#39;ve met (I even had some chav friends a couple of years back, rich bastards) was a sexist, homophobe, macho. When they went out to party or have a drink, they allways had a fight with other people, mostly for no reason at all.
Later, I&#39;ve had several arguments and an occasional fight with unknown chavs for &#39;being an unwashed punk&#39;.
There is a sort of disco around here wich is known because of the fact that a) a lot of chavs come there, b) every time there&#39;s a party, there&#39;s a fight.
Yes, I may be generalising, but I have yet to meet a nice and friendly chav.

[Vanguard1917]

&#39;Chav&#39; mainly refers to white working class people from council estates. If there&#39;s one section of society you can get away with showing explicit contempt for, it&#39;s the white working class, &#39;the white trash&#39;, &#39;chavs&#39;, etc.

[Umoja]

They sound more like a public nuisance then menace to society. Besides, I&#39;m a big fan of MC Devvo&#33;

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 06, 2007 12:04 pm
Hip hop music and culture grew out of the oppressed nations in the U.S.


Most hiphoppers at my school were nazis as well.

That makes a ton of sense.
They dressed as hiphoppers, listened to hardcore, Offspring (Pretty fly for a white guy) and various white power music. They called themselves "patriots". They skated a lot. Most of them had an IQ of about 2.

Me myself listened to American 50-style rock&#39;n&#39;country, and was a religious nut who thought that even a thought of sex would be a scandal.

[Goatse]

Originally posted by midnight [email protected] 06, 2007 02:08 am
There&#39;s a strange, chiefly middle class, social phenomenon of loathing people from the working class who adopt upper class values and trends.

Chavs dress in upper class clothing (albeit counterfeit), where flashy jewelry (albeit fake) place an emphasis on material possessions (as best they can afford it), and make it their primary goal to have fun and "live the high life" (as best as they can).

Isn&#39;t that the type of lifestyle that the media has been shoving down our throats for well over a decade?

Is it that the proles are acting like the wealthy celebrities the middle class looks up to? Or that they live their lives in accordance with the wealthy values and lifestyles that the middle class holds and aspires to but doesn&#39;t act upon?

That they&#39;re an easy scapegoat for a culture that refuses to look critically at the real reasons behind antisocial youth, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, and the other usual suspects?

Or do people just need someone to hate?

They&#39;re not hurting you. They&#39;re a diverse group of people linked by a common subculture. There are good chavs, and there&#39;s bad chavs as well, but to crossapply the habits of those who beat the elderly and prostitutes or whatever to everyone wearing a burberry hat and some white trainers is to allow yourself to abide by the same illogical "rationale" that&#39;s been fueling racism and other forms of prejudice for years.

If you believe that chavs are scum that deserve to die, you need to seriously reassess your attitudes toward the world around you.

The middle class and the media: neoclassist elitists in disguise. :ph34r:
Excellent post, however, my problem with chavs is not their clothing, or their jewellery or whatever. Even their music is tolerable (although I would appreciate it if they invested into a piair of earphones rather than playing it straight off their phones in public places.) It&#39;s the fact that they&#39;re arrogant little fuckwits who believe they are better than everyone else and pick fights with everyone. Obviously this does not apply to all chavs but the majority of them I have met are exactly like this.

[Fawkes]

Offspring (Pretty fly for a white guy)
That&#39;s not a white power song....

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I&#39;m working class and I think most chavs are dickheads.

[Goatse]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 12:32 pm
I&#39;m working class and I think most chavs are dickheads.
I second that motion

[Amusing Scrotum]

The word "chav" stands for council house and violent. And if that doesn&#39;t tell you something about the nature of the attacks on "chavs", then I think you&#39;re claims of being some kind of revolutionary are pretty tenuous.

Because the fact of the matter is, that the media have overblown certain, fairly trivial issues -- "happy-slapping", fighting, drinking on street corners, etc., etc. -- and then used these issues to demonise a whole layer of society. Making white working class youths who wear hoodies and caps, the latest scapegoat on which you can blame societies problems.

The role of scapegoat has been filled by different groups in the past, from the Irish to young black men. And what&#39;s disappointing, is that despite the historical record, self-proclaimed leftists still fall for this bollocks.

I suppose if history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce, then it becomes outright betrayal the third time round. Just look at this thread, and the responses by some of our more testosterone filled members. No deep analysis of the phenomena is needed in their view, rather we just need to kill the little ****s.

Wonderful. :blink:

Past discussion on the issue, and also discussion on Julie Burchill&#39;s documentary (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=46854&hl=chav&st=0).

[Hit The North]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 04:11 pm
I hope they don&#39;t make their way to the U.S.
Yeah stick with gun crime. I doubt the USA could cope with an outbreak of bad dressing :rolleyes:

Goatse:
LOL, I just stopped watching after it said people are only scared of chavs because they look at them and realise how boring their own lives are. How did someone so stupid even manage to get a programme put on TV?

It&#39;s a great documentary, demonstrating a good deal more class consciousness than much of this discussion. You need to watch it and learn how to politically analyze the groups around you. Maybe then you wouldn&#39;t start such reactionary threads.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

It seems to me there are many definitions and media generalizations which conflates chav with working class.

What i mean by Chavs, is young guys (15/15/17) who wreck their local community and are hostile to other people.

Its not the same as working class kids from council estates as most kids from council estates are not chavs. :angry: (unless you work for the media or are a politician.)

[An archist]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 07, 2007 02:43 pm
Okay, so if they are "dickheads" who "pick fights with everyone," what should the reaction of revolutionaries to that be?
Nothing, just don&#39;t talk to them when they&#39;re drunk and/or in group.
Seriously, I&#39;ve had some normal chats that turned into fights for no reason.

[Entrails Konfetti]

God, it&#39;s totally overblown in the media in the UK, because of their ASBO. Here, chavs are called "wiggahs", and they do all the same stuff. Not every white-kid trying to be gangsta or whatever is out to beat people up. And no, its not spread all over the media here about this particular subculture.

The media has always betrayed youth counter-cultures as violent, in the fiftees in the USA there were the Greasers, UK there were Teds, and they were portrayed as violent. Same can be said about Punk rock in the UK in 1977, or Hardcore in the USA in 1981. Face it, being young sometimes you&#39;re pushed into violent situtations. Older people are trying to rip you off, show you no respect, act like your stupid. Whilst you have to stand up for yourself, and claim your identity. When your a teen you have nowhere to direct your anger, and you can get taken advantage of due to lack of expirience, so how else do you stand up for yourself?

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

Yeah the media and politicians do totally benefit from Chav culture and its notoriety.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 07, 2007 02:43 pm
Okay, so if they are "dickheads" who "pick fights with everyone," what should the reaction of revolutionaries to that be?
To think of them as one of a wide variety of dickheads that exist in the world? Dickheadery knows no cultural, racial, national or class bounds.

[An archist]

Originally posted by EL [email protected] 07, 2007 08:43 pm
God, it&#39;s totally overblown in the media in the UK, because of their ASBO. Here, chavs are called "wiggahs", and they do all the same stuff. Not every white-kid trying to be gangsta or whatever is out to beat people up. And no, its not spread all over the media here about this particular subculture.

The media has always betrayed youth counter-cultures as violent, in the fiftees in the USA there were the Greasers, UK there were Teds, and they were portrayed as violent. Same can be said about Punk rock in the UK in 1977, or Hardcore in the USA in 1981. Face it, being young sometimes you&#39;re pushed into violent situtations. Older people are trying to rip you off, show you no respect, act like your stupid. Whilst you have to stand up for yourself, and claim your identity. When your a teen you have nowhere to direct your anger, and you can get taken advantage of due to lack of expirience, so how else do you stand up for yourself?
Chavs are a counter-culture?
How?

[chitown_brotha]

today is the first time i heard and i saw about chavs. And daimn thats fucked up. I mean wtf is wrong with this shit. dem peoples should be shot on sight for that shit. no joke

[Dr Mindbender]

i wouldnt mind them so much if their aggression was aimed at the establishment rather than other proles.
They just need education.

[TC]

This thread is really elitist, "chav" is just a slur for poor urban white briton. If they have a degraded culture its because they live in degrading conditions&#33;

[Goatse]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 02:20 pm
This thread is really elitist, "chav" is just a slur for poor urban white briton. If they have a degraded culture its because they live in degrading conditions&#33;
Not really, most of them I know are pretty well-off. Fair enough, they may be a symptom of decaying society but it doesn&#39;t change the fact that they&#39;re a bunch of tossers.

[Vanguard1917]

People who use the label &#39;chav&#39; usually do so quite broadly - in the sense that it seems to be a label for working class white people as a whole (a bit like the &#39;white trash&#39; term used in the US). For example, i recently heard package holidays to Spain being referred to as &#39;chav holidays&#39;. Reebok Classics are refered to as &#39;chav trainers&#39;, and so are some brands of tracksuit bottoms and baseball caps. Young mothers from council estates are called &#39;chavs&#39;. Pubs where mainly English working class people drink (in predominantly white, working class parts of the country) are being referred to as &#39;chav pubs&#39;.

In other words, it&#39;s not always just used to describe a minority of lumpen youth, thugs, hooligans, etc., as some people here seem to be using the label. In reality, on the whole, it appears to be a term to describe white working class people generally.

As i pointed out above, the white working class is the one section of society which we can all explicitly and legitimately express contempt for. They&#39;re noisy; they drink too much; they go on too many low-cost holidays abroad (which causes global warming); they live on &#39;junk food&#39;; they smoke cigarrettes; they aren&#39;t up-to-date with all the new trendy PC words, which means that they&#39;re thick, vulgar and narrow-minded; they&#39;re racist, sheep-like and will support far-right parties unless we restrict the free speech rights of the latter; they&#39;ll abuse their children if it wasn&#39;t for the intervention of social workers; they&#39;re a drain on the state&#39;s resources, etc. etc.

In short, they&#39;re the modern equivalent of the Victorian-era &#39;undeserving poor&#39;, as one member (YKTMX) pointed out in this thread (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=46854&hl=chav&st=0):


It&#39;s part of a Victorian middle class idea that the &#39;lower classes&#39; can divided in &#39;deserving&#39; and &#39;undeserving&#39; poor.

The fact is that scum like Burchill would never submit any of her or her friends middle class lifestyles or ideas to the same scrutiny. As we know, middle class ideas like &#39;valuing education&#39; are inherently superior to working class values.

It&#39;s also an attempt to propagate the notion there isn&#39;t a &#39;working class&#39; anymore. There&#39;s only a mass of middle class people and then the feckless dregs, or &#39;chavs&#39;, at the bottom of society.

While I might not like or particuarly admire &#39;chav&#39; culture, I&#39;m not going to get involved in middle class snobbery about it, and neither should anyone else.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 02:20 pm
This thread is really elitist, "chav" is just a slur for poor urban white briton. If they have a degraded culture its because they live in degrading conditions&#33;
no, the term &#39;chav&#39; is far more extensive than that, covering musical taste, dress sense, social attitudes etc. I&#39;ve been a &#39;poor urban white briton&#39; as long as i can remember but i&#39;m no chav by any stretch of the imagination.

[Oswy]

I think the attack on &#39;chavs&#39; (or &#39;charvers&#39; as the term is used here in the North East of England) has a very sinister class connotation. More than one commentator on the left has referred to it as &#39;the new racism&#39; and I think there&#39;s something in this.

It&#39;s one thing to condemn the anti-social behaviour, violence, racism and general ignorance which is exhibited by some who fit this label, but it&#39;s quite something else to condemn people for happening to be white and working-class, or &#39;underclass&#39;. I happen to be white and working-class, I have a strong regional accent and walk around in a cheap baseball cap. I&#39;m also reasonably well educated, responsible and (I like to think) nowhere near fitting the negative stereotype. Moreover, there are plenty of people who fit the dress code but don&#39;t fit the behaviour - yet they are all lumped together, literally as if a lumpenproletariat.

As Marxists we should recognise that society makes people as much as people make society and the moronic ignorance which we might encounter among so-called chavs is a product of the way our society is organised - organised by capitalism for capitalisms ends. I&#39;m not suggesting we should all go hug a chav, but we shouldn&#39;t be reduced to some kind of false-consciousness. The most sustained and oppressive violence in the world is not at the hands of the ill-educated poor, drunk on cheep beer and fed with the bullshit of the far-right, it is at the hands of capital.

EDIT: As has already been highlighted, there is a long tradition in England of the moderately educated and moderately comfortably off vocally demonstrating their having &#39;made it&#39; by looking down on the uncouthness of those below them.

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 05:16 pm

Offspring (Pretty fly for a white guy)
That&#39;s not a white power song....
No, they thought it was hip-hop. :D

[An archist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 07:15 am
More than one commentator on the left has referred to it as &#39;the new racism&#39; and I think there&#39;s something in this.


This is bullcrap. You&#39;re not a chav because you&#39;re white and working class, chavs are (in belgium) mostly male, mostly white, but not mostly working class, there&#39;s a hell lot of chavs with terribly expensive clothes, drinking only the finest drinks etcetera. However, almost all of them are agressive, sexist, homophobic machos who like to go out in large groups and impress their girlfriends by acting tough, insulting bypassers and starting fights.
Off course, here might be some nice and friendly chavs, but I haven&#39;t met them yet.

[Oswy]

Originally posted by An archist+August 10, 2007 02:45 pm--> (An archist @ August 10, 2007 02:45 pm)
[email protected] 10, 2007 07:15 am
More than one commentator on the left has referred to it as &#39;the new racism&#39; and I think there&#39;s something in this.


This is bullcrap. You&#39;re not a chav because you&#39;re white and working class, chavs are (in belgium) mostly male, mostly white, but not mostly working class, there&#39;s a hell lot of chavs with terribly expensive clothes, drinking only the finest drinks etcetera. However, almost all of them are agressive, sexist, homophobic machos who like to go out in large groups and impress their girlfriends by acting tough, insulting bypassers and starting fights.
Off course, here might be some nice and friendly chavs, but I haven&#39;t met them yet. [/b]
The problem is that the term is used narrowly by some but widely by others. Here in the UK the term has become a &#39;legitimate&#39; means for the middle classes to condemn those below them as uneducated, unfashionable and uncouth. I appreciate that some reserve the term for behaviour rather than appearances, regional accents or social background, but there&#39;s definately a class dimension to it in many cases.

I also don&#39;t think describing another&#39;s opinion as &#39;bullcrap&#39; is very constructive.

[Armand Iskra]

Chavs are just too flashy to be called as working class, especially those who are too arrogant in their attitudes. Why do they need to buy fake gold instead of buying food for their families? Better for them to recall their roots, and if there are some who are friendly? then good. Ignorant, Arrogant, foolish ones must be puged, that's all.

[Mujer Libre]

Please don't necro threads. This thread hasn't had a post in it for a year and a half...