Are you guilty of racism against chavs?

[BLEEPyouYOUbleepingBLEEP]

I was listening to Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 earlier, and they were talking about how feelings are running high in some white, working class areas where people feel they're being ignored by the government (which some might say is a blessing!)

Jeremy asked, in a totally serious tone 'Should the term chav not be used because it could be considered racist?'

Unfortunately, I was laughing so hard I missed the answer he was given.

So perhaps you could give me the answer, could chavs be considered a race in themselves?

(If you're still not sure what a chav is, just put it into google images...veeery enlightening)

?I shall post this time without ill-judged attempts at humour.

'Chav' is certainly a lazy and inexact term. I had always believed it to refer to a section of disenfranchised underclass.

However it is sometimes used to refer to people for a number of other reasons, which may or may not be related to 'underclass' status. Choices in clothing, design, food are among those which may be deemed by some as 'chavvy'. This is simply a disagreement in taste, and may not bear any valid correlation to class.

But

?.it is disingenuous to pretend that the disenfranchised underclass does not exist. It is also disingenuous to claim that class is invisible, or that it is unimportant. We may not all be easily classifiable, but this does not render all classification useless.

So discussions on class are relevant. Indeed they are essential to properly understand people, how we live and interact. One of the sequelae of this is that some of the discussion will be ill-informed or inexact, or use boorish terms like 'Chav'

But some of this chav hate is about people wanting to keep the working classes in their place. Burberry was fine until the working classes wore it and then it was a case of "How there they? How can we wear this now that the dirty uneducated masses have it?" Apparantly us working classes should know our place and not seek to rise above it.

Hmm, I wonder why that was.

'A baseball cap is being dropped by Burberry because it is the hat of choice for football hooligans.

The fashion house is concerned at the effect on its image and has stopped production of the cap, which sells at around £50.

The paper quotes a worker at Burberry's Castleford factory saying it was because of the association with hooliganism.

Last year, a gang calling themselves the "Burberry Boys" attacked a coach of Turkish fans at the England-Turkey match in Sunderland. '

Ah, the poor down-trodden working classes. How terrible it is.

Middle class snobbery is rife and the working classes are demonised. You only have to look at threads on here, the angst about schools, what if my child comes into contact with a child who is not middle class.

Unless you are defining 'working class' as anti-social, which seems a rather unfortunate definition for your purposes, nobody could care less whether the other children are working class or not. There are things that people object to, whether it be smoking in the playground or whatever, but to say that that's a working class trait seems rather patronising IMO.

Working class teachers not being able to talk properly.

Since when does being working class mean you can't talk properly? Class wasn't even mentioned. The teacher might be middle class, who knows, it's you that's making this into some big class warfare issue. You seem to have half the chipshop on your shoulder TBH.

Of coarse it is not racist, PC mob gone mad

...nearest Waitrose is in Bath!

£4.50 to park, too...

...so no matter how eager I am to be a social climber I just take the Waitrose bags to LIDL instead....

the ease with which chav is applied is alarming.on MN chav seems to equate to working class.with a long diatribe about the frightful school one has to endure, or regional accents

Racist? More like classist.

I've bought a pair of slippers and sneakers in ASDA today.

SOmeguy there are constantly threads on here beomoaning the fact that their child would be better off in a more middle class school, or that state schools would be better if the middle classes were not fleeing them.

I certainly am not defining the working classes as anti social. I am working class myself so as you say that would be daft. But there is a tendency to assign anything that is good to the middle classes and anything that is bad to the working classes. Are you educated to degree level or beyond, that makes you middle class. Do you read a broadsheet paper - yes middle class. Do you recycle, care about the environment - right mmiddle classes will have that and so on.

There is a post on the nufink thread that talks about a working class accent. Nonsense.

I dont have half a chipshop on my shoulder but when you spend your life mixing with people of a different class than you, you become more aware of your roots, your own class and what people expect of you because of it. I am however extraordinarily chippy tonight. Half term is looming, thank God.

I seem to end up saying this on every thread about racism; this time I'll say it near the beginning of the thread.

There is no distinction in international law, between ethnic and racial discrimination. So asking if something is racist or not no longer has to involve any element of biological difference between people.

I don't know if chavs are an ethnic group. I think the term is discriminatory though.

pip I don;t think it is because they are poor that people dispise them, it is because of their attitudes.

Young middle and upper class people who are brash, loutish and wear designer sportswear (jack Wills) are generally called Toffs, and get an equall amount of bashing as chavs.

See, if I was going to use the word chav, then it would be to describe Jordan.

OMDB I don't think that people talk about toffs with the venom that they do "chavs" but that is just my opinion obviously.

I see it at work, middle class kids getting away with things that working class kids wouldn't. Perhaps because they share the same backgrounds and codes as many teachers in management. I can remember at my previous school our more middle class students who tended to go down the goth root got away with coloured hair, stripey tights etc. If the working class students tried to rebel with their uniform they were clamped down on and made an example of. White working class achievement is a big issue in schools.

I've always considered Chavs to be people who hang around street corners intimidating people. If that's the case I dislike them and their anti-social behaviour. I have no opinion on their homes, where they shop or what they wear. It's not racist imo.
Where does the term come from? Is it an acronym?

op; why do you think the government ignoring white working class people is a blessing..?

are you white..?

Council House and Violent, although I am not sure if that is how it started. But that is the point it is not just violent it is council house and violent.

Good post Morosky.
I agree

Chav's originated meaning from between Chatham and Faversham in Kent. So anyone that lives in that area could be termed a Chav like you might call someone a brummy, scot,paddy etc etc. (none of which I hope are coming across as derogatory so apologies if they are rude within regions, not meant to be offensive)

Then some delightful red top (lets face it the broadsheets are way to up themselves to think of something like that) decides that Chav means something different. TBH I would term Jodie Marsh/ Jordan/ any footballers wife wannabe as Chav rather than your bog standard "chav" all other posters seem to be talking about. And lets face it they are really in a class of their own!

Chav seems to have been made derogatory, although I don't think it necessarily means council house, van, scarey dog, a variety of rainbow children with different fathers (again not meant to be offensive in anyway shape or form/ or racist just referring to what I have read in the press/online etc etc)

I certainly don't think that chav refers to working class, council occupying people, but I guess there are some people out there that have grouped those who are benefit frauds, users of the system and generally taking the ppiss that the rest of the hardworking people pay for - again not meant to be offensive but the type of person who makes the blood boil and expects everything for nothing and for someone else to take care of it. (Also include anyone who throws rubbish on the ground when there are perfectly good bins, if that makes any sense?) And that is unfair to the original chavs!

According to Wikipedia-

The word may have its origins in Romani language. One suggested etymology for "chav" is that it derives from the Romani word chavo, meaning boy (cf. "yob" - a reversal of boy).This is similar to the colloquial Spanish word chaval, meaning "kid" or "guy".
Many folk etymologies have sprung up around the word. These include the backronym "Council Housed And Violent", and the suggestion that pupils at Cheltenham Ladies' College and Cheltenham College used the word to describe the young men of the town ("Cheltenham Average").

I have heard the boy theory as well, I am sure someone once told me that cockneys call their children chavs.

Strictly - good detection, seems that it comes from all over the place so I guess my meaning is now defunct. until reading this post didn't even know about Council housed and violent. Now i feel v sorry for the word! (Meant word not world, if words had feelings it would be very sad at the moment)

daftpunk - that's a bit of a presumption you're making about my ethnicity isn't it? How is that relevant to any thread?

I answered mrsruffalo who asked about why I thought it was a blessing anyone escape the notice of this governement, saying that any group who finds themselves under the scrutiny of them are suddenly criminalised or hit by stealth taxes in the forms of 'fines'.

I had heard the same meaning as that strictlyboogying from a bloke I knew who came from the medway towns, an area where lots of gypsies settled. He said it was used as a term of endearment for children.