Prejudice: Stigma

First-hand accounts of poverty do not appear regularly in popular culture and the mainstream media. Most commentary comes from the well-meaning middle classes who have concerns over the unfairness of our society.

People in poverty are too busy to sit and write ‘letters to the editor’, keep a diary or make any form of written record. In those rare instances where a person does have time, they must overcome another hurdle - the stigma attached to being poor.

When Marcus Rashford wrote his letter to parliament criticising their failure to provide free school meals, the news coverage talked about “his bravery” to reveal a “warts and all” account of his childhood. Yet, his was not an unusual childhood. In the UK 4.2 million children are growing up in poverty. Real accounts of poverty should not be a rare event where we wince at the sight of families struggling to make ends meet. And, more importantly, no matter how well-meaning the commentators may be, there should not be any condescending remarks when someone reveals their family struggled.

The stigma of poverty is real. It is stifling the debate. Let’s get over it.


Anecdote

My parents split up when I was eight years old. We moved into temporary social housing, into this block of maisonettes. Our place was on the upper level, second from the right.

Block of maisonettes with a car park at the front

This is a recent photo (2019) of Dormston Drive, taken from a news article in the Daily Mirror.

When I lived in this corner of Weoley Castle there were 30 blocks of maisonettes just like this one. 250 homes crammed into under 8 acres. The area was an estate within an estate. A holding pen for families as they waited for a council house to become available.

Even now, my mom sidelines any conversation about the time we spent there. When we reminisce about my childhood we skip over those 18 months and jump straight to the council house we eventually moved into. My mum feels the stigma attached to living in those maisonettes when she should be proud of how she supported me through those times.

This place is (and was) the bottom rung of the social housing ladder. There were drug addicts, ‘dole scroungers’ and gangs of men who would venture out at night to burgle houses. Luckily, I was too young to realise the dangers of where I was living.

My mother was a great judge of character and did a superb job of directing me away from trouble and to mix with families that showed a sense of morality. There were good people living there then and there are good people living there now (for example, Dr Fathi Jamil interviewed in the Daily Mirror article).

When I was growing up, the car park in the previous photo was a patch of grass where all the kids played outside.

Block of maisonettes with grassy area at the front

This is my brother and myself playing football outside the same block of maisonettes, circa the 1986 World Cup. It’s my favourite photo from my childhood.

First, it’s a great photo of us and the brotherly bond we had. It also represents the happiest period of my childhood - those carefree years before senior school, homework and exams. And finally, the photo reminds me of my school friend Sarah.

Sarah lived on the ground floor, on the right hand side. When we played outside, Sarah’s mom would offer us a glass of squash to save us running upstairs. Their maisonette was beautiful inside. Shag pile carpet, a sofa that was definitely not second hand, everything immaculately clean. It was the kind of home where you feel compelled to take your shoes off when you enter. Not that Sarah’s mom asked us to do that; it was naturally the right thing to do. I had never encountered shag pile carpet before - I would remove my shoes just to enjoy the feel of the pile through my socks.

The family took pride in their home and environment, even if outside the front door were empty beer cans blown in from the alleyway, the smell of a bleach-soaked concrete stairwell and the sight of abandoned mattresses at the roadside. This was pride without question.

When journalists and politicians talk down people living in poverty - either as lacking resolve, not trying hard enough or even criminal - I think of my friend Sarah and her parents who, along with many other friends, prove that society falls back on this stereotype to justify inaction.


Discussion

Common thinking: hard work and success is a linear scale.

Some believe there is a direct proportional relationship between hard work and wealth. The harder you work, the richer you will be; i.e. a simple linear scale.

Some logical assumptions come out of this fallacy. At the top you will find the super rich who have been rewarded for being super productive and working super hard. Secondly, the circle of ‘benefit scum’ overlaps exactly onto ‘council estate’.

This is a rose-tinted view of society. We like to think our society is fair, where hard work pays off with success. We hope that hard work is enough to earn a way out of poverty, therefore anyone in poverty must not be working hard. Ergo, people at the bottom of society deserve to be there.

While this stigma mostly arises from middle class people, there's plenty of prejudice amongst the working classes too.

My senior school sat on the border of two council estates, Northfield and Weoley Castle, Northfield being the more respectable area, where a higher proportion of people had bought their council house. There was also a smaller group of middle class children, who must have been wondering what they’d done wrong to end up here, rubbing shoulders with rough working class kids.

Cliques formed with a clear class divide based on neighbourhood. By the end of the first year we already ‘stuck to our own’.

Kids from Northfield would hurl abuse when they discovered who came from Weoley Castle.
“Your parents are dole scroungers.”
“Actually, my parents both work but thanks for asking.”

“Yeah, they work, but you live in a council house, you get your house for free.”
“Council houses aren’t free, you still have to pay rent.”

These kids got everything they knew about council estates from The Daily Mail. What the snobby kids from Northfield didn’t realise was that I lived in Northfield before my parents split up. My dad still lived there and I would visit at weekends. Did I magically become a better person when I slept in a bed in a bought house in Northfield and then turned back into scum on Sunday when I returned home to the council house in Weoley Castle?

Reality: hard workers and layabouts can be found at all levels of society

In reality hard workers can be found at all levels of deprivation. Of the 4.2 million children living in poverty, 71% are from working families. The idea that poverty is due to an apathy for work is simply not true.

In my experience, you can take any section of society and divide the people into hard workers and free-loaders.

You will find loafers and layabouts throughout the middle classes. I have seen many office workers free-loading from their position, teams split into two; half who spend their days shopping on the internet and half who carry the other’s workload. Even within my own department, I have worked with a couple of software developers who were full of excuses for lack of output.

There are fewer working class jobs that can be blagged. Either you have built a wall or you haven’t. Either you have laid a road surface or you haven’t. Either you have cleaned those toilets or you haven’t. Free-loaders in working class jobs quickly become dole scroungers.

Hard workers can be found everywhere too. In my opinion the hardest workers are in low-paid work; these people are doing the most physically demanding jobs which pay less than white collar jobs. They work hard for less incentive.

There is no shame in living on a council estate. There is no link between wealth and working hard. There is no shame in working in a low-paid job and, because society has decided to pay below the living wage, having to claim benefits to make ends meet.