Brixton news, rumour and general chat - January 2015

[editor]

This righteous hostility toward anyone even remotely considered a posho is vile.

It's also uniformly applied, as far as i can see, to anyone who doesn't fit the bill.

- braying
- villaaaaage
- jaunty hats
Etc etc

You seem to have quite a chip on your shoulder over this bizarrely described "righteous hostility." Not sure where the 'jaunty hats' bit fits into things either, but I'm pretty sure there aren't people walking around Brixton feeling desperately hurt over people using the phrase. "Villaaaage" usually raises a smile. And why not? It's funny.

 

[editor]

Here's two Brixton-related posts for the morning:

• Brockwell Park shines in the winter sun – in photos
• Brixton Pound teams up with The Turpentine to launch Barrier Block-inspired t-shirts

 

[Rushy]

In this case I interpreted the meaning as those being the driving force behind the move to get people out of their homes in Cressingham.

I see. So yuppie is a different thing in every case depending on who says it and what they are taking about (but pretty much always bad). It's about as useful as saying "bogeyman". Most of these people are regular folk, working hard, looking for homes for themselves and their families, getting shifted from pillar to post trying to find somewhere they can afford. It's easy to dehumanise or vilify them by labelling them all yuppies without actually thinking what it means and blame them for everything. I appreciate that's not where you are coming from but you appear to be tacitly accepting that usage.

 

[editor]

Relevant piece in the New Statesman.

The triumph of the hive mind: why is gentrified London so sterile and dull?

It is often said that London is a collection of villages, as a way of explaining that, within this sprawling and diverse metropolis, you can still find a sense of community, of place, of home. But in Tufnell Park and its surrounds, the word “village” has taken on what is, for me, a slightly worrying tone. A recent article in the Guardian discussed the bemusing attempts of urban developers and estate agents to “rebrand” various areas of the city to create new fashionable quarters in the hope that wealthy metropolitans will flock there – something it referred to as “corporate cartography”. The Londonist helpfully provided a mapof these new areas. Bafflingly, Holborn has been dubbed “Midtown”, a coinage the Evening Standard has been trying to make happen for some time now, without, it must be admitted, much success. Many of these rebranded neighbourhoods are “Villages”: there’s “Amwell Village”, near the Pentonville Road, “Marylebone Village” and, soon, I suspect, “Tufnell Park Village”, with all the horror (or glee, if you own property in the area) that that entails.

Despite the insane property price rises, there are still large parts of the area given over to social housing, though I am beginning to wonder where anyone on a low income is going to be able to go to eat and drink should this rebranding continue. The unusual volume of social housing was one of the reasons cited in a bizarre Economist article last year about the stubborn refusal of the Kentish Town Road to escape its “humdrum” existence (read: there’s a Poundstretcher and a pawn shop) and gentrify the fuck out of itself like everywhere else. “Kentish Town’s shops and cafés are almost invariably untrendy and in some cases mouldering”, the author wrote, snottily. He or she must not have stuck around long enough to witness the opening of “Ladies and Gents”, a new subterranean cocktail bar in a renovated public toilet, or the hoo-ha over the proposed opening of a branch Wahaca in the space above Kentish Town tube, which, locals worried, would displace the longstanding greengrocers (they have now sorted out their differences).

http://www.newstatesman.com/2015/01/triumph-hive-mind-why-gentrified-london-so-sterile-and-dull

 

[Rushy]

"Villaaaage" usually raises a smile. And why not? It's funny.

A polite smile.

 

[Mr Retro]

I see. So yuppie is a different thing in every case depending on who says it and what they are taking about (but pretty much always bad). It's about as useful as saying "bogeyman". Most of these people are regular folk, working hard, looking for homes for themselves and their families, getting shifted from pillar to post trying to find somewhere they can afford. It's easy to dehumanise or vilify them by labelling them all yuppies without actually thinking what it means and blame them for everything. I appreciate that's not where you are coming from but you appear to be tacitly accepting that usage.

Fair play, I don't disagree with any of that. As I say if somebody described me as such 10 years ago I wouldn't have been able to disagree. No I'm a muppy I guess.

 

[Ms T]

I see. So yuppie is a different thing in every case depending on who says it and what they are taking about (but pretty much always bad). It's about as useful as saying "bogeyman". Most of these people are regular folk, working hard, looking for homes for themselves and their families, getting shifted from pillar to post trying to find somewhere they can afford. It's easy to dehumanise or vilify them by labelling them all yuppies without actually thinking what it means and blame them for everything. I appreciate that's not where you are coming from but you appear to be tacitly accepting that usage.

Exactly. Young professionals are being shafted by the system too. My younger colleagues haven't a hope of buying property in London and aren't eligible for social housing (rightly)' so they're paying exorbitant rents on relatively modest salaries.

 

[Mr Retro]

On the tube this morning, there was a young lady settling in, rearranging her bag and huge earphones etc. She had a thermos cup thing and when she was settled down she took a digestive biscuit out of her bag to enjoy with her hot beverage. This pleased me greatly.

 

[editor]

We're all getting shafted but some are getting more shafted than others. Money in the bank and a good job at least provide options that aren't available to those at the bottom.

 

[ricbake]

We're all getting shafted but some are getting more shafted than others. Money in the bank and a good job at least provide options that aren't available to those at the bottom.

Being shafted is being shafted -
if you don't have any cushioning it can feel worse than if you do -
if you don't know how to object to it, it feels worse.

 

[elmpp]

We're all getting shafted but some are getting more shafted than others. Money in the bank and a good job at least provide options that aren't available to those at the bottom.

Finally a more nuanced viewpoint - everyone is affected (and is complicit) to some degree or another by an all-powerful system.

I can understand the sentiment to some degree against those with privileged wealth but the righteous hostility directed toward anyone other than those on the breadline is bizarre.

 

[editor]

Being shafted is being shafted -
if you don't have any cushioning it can feel worse than if you do -
if you don't know how to object to it, it feels worse.

Well exactly. And I can understand why those at the bottom can sometimes lash out in anger and frustration, especially when they're being lectured or told what to think by those who are a lot more comfortably off than them.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

#NotAllPoshPeople

 

[el-ahrairah]

Has a decision been taken to make everyone in Cressingham homeless so as to move posh people in?

I didn't think it had got that far. Is that one of the 'options'?

it's the whole fucking point innit.

 

[el-ahrairah]

I'm making a serious point - how can inverse snobbery to this extent be justified?

you didn't answer my question, you just wailed. let's try another question: are you a posho, or are you merely a self-hating lickspittle of the upper classes?

 

[el-ahrairah]

This is a meaningless phrase.

Everyone lives in society. That does not mean that everyone has the same power or wealth to change it.

people with the power and wealth to do so tend to believe that they only have the same power as everyone else. it's very sad, but it leads to attitudes like elmpps, were they consider that having a class analysis, however crude, to be an actual mortal sin.

 

[elmpp]

you didn't answer my question, you just wailed. let's try another question: are you a posho, or are you merely a self-hating lickspittle of the upper classes?

Tit

 

[el-ahrairah]

Tit

oh noes, ladyparts! you complain about bigotry but your misogyny is showing.

still won't answer the question though will you? what are you, a politician? give it a go, what's the worst that can happen?

where is the greater moral crime:

1. an anonymous internet person comments on bbuzz "poshos go home" or similar.

2. a long standing member of the community has her rent increased to force her to quit trading so that a rich outsider can have her shop.

 

[elmpp]

oh noes, ladyparts! you complain about bigotry but your misogyny is showing.

still won't answer the question though will you? what are you, a politician? give it a go, what's the worst that can happen?

where is the greater moral crime:

1. an anonymous internet person comments on bbuzz "poshos go home" or similar.

2. a long standing member of the community has her rent increased to force her to quit trading so that a rich outsider can have her shop.

The answer to that would be number 2.

To be clear: I am in no way validating the regrettable situation re. displacement through rent increases. I am saying righteous hostility to anyone who fits the posho bill is vile and simplistic.

I think you undo yourself when you enquire as to my "class"

 

[teuchter]

people with the power and wealth to do so tend to believe that they only have the same power as everyone else.

This is a massive presumption and it's frequently applied to posters here in spite of there being no actual evidence that this is what they believe. It's what leads to the "righteous hatred" mentioned earlier, and comments like this -

it's very sad, but it leads to attitudes like elmpps, were they consider that having a class analysis, however crude, to be an actual mortal sin.

again, based on nothing but your presumptions.

 

[ViolentPanda]

"steady on brixton yah, you dark-skinned people have been doing caribbean cooking all wrong, let an aristocrat show you how to cook jamaican"

Hopefully we'll see plenty of Jamaican-heritage Brixtonians walking past, sucking their teeth and shouting out "Ja-fake-an!" at the place.

 

[editor]

I am saying righteous hostility to anyone who fits the posho bill is vile and simplistic.

With all this "righteous anger," righteous hostility" and "righteous hatred" going on it's beginning to feel sound like a tabernacle sermon.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Excellent news.

I believe it was a proposition, rather than a promise, although I'd be over the moon if it were a promise!

 

[ViolentPanda]

i can see his argument. whenever i see people complaining about racism i dress as goebbels and attack ethnic minorities.

TBF, the uniform suits you.

 

[snowy_again]

With all this "righteous anger," righteous hostility" and "righteous hatred" going on it's beginning to feel sound like a tabernacle sermon.

Don't bring religion into this!

 

[elmpp]

With all this "righteous anger," righteous hostility" and "righteous hatred" going on it's beginning to feel sound like a tabernacle sermon.

I think you misunderstand the word "righteous".

 

[Rushy]

It's interesting to see an objection to phrases along the lines of "poshos out" being likened to an objection to class analysis. Does it follow that by objecting to the term "blacks out" one must be opposed to the analysis of matters of race?

 

[el-ahrairah]

The answer to that would be number 2.

To be clear: I am in no way validating the regrettable situation re. displacement through rent increases. I am saying righteous hostility to anyone who fits the posho bill is vile and simplistic.

I think you undo yourself when you enquire as to my "class"

jolly good. which is why you have no comment to make except to ensure that critics of issue number 2 do so in an appropriate manner. jolly good. we could do with more of you on the barricades.

and i really don't think i do. whether you like it or not you have a social class, "class" even. and this is the single biggest tell on your life prospects, your health, your income, your chances of getting investigated, caught, prosecuted, or jailed for any crime you commit. it's real, even if you don't want it to be, or more likely, don't want others to believe it.

 

[el-ahrairah]

It's interesting to see an objection to phrases along the lines of "poshos out" being likened to an objection to class analysis. Does it follow that by objecting to the term "blacks out" one must be opposed to the analysis of matters of race?

do you know what the phrase Structural Inequality means?

 

[elmpp]

jolly good. which is why you have no comment to make except to ensure that critics of issue number 2 do so in an appropriate manner. jolly good. we could do with more of you on the barricades.

and i really don't think i do. whether you like it or not you have a social class, "class" even. and this is the single biggest tell on your life prospects, your health, your income, your chances of getting investigated, caught, prosecuted, or jailed for any crime you commit. it's real, even if you don't want it to be, or more likely, don't want others to believe it.

Sounds a very progressive attitude you have there. I'm out