BBC2 & the ‘White’ season: Part I Reviews

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(Preface: the following is my opinion on the programs. If you have seen them, please share your views in the comment section. This is a long post btw) 

So I have watched 2 programs of the ‘White’ season on BBC2. The first program was called Last Orders and was about the crumbling financial state of a working men’s club in the northern town of Bradford. Bradford is in Yorkshire. The only towns in Yorkshire I have visited are Leeds and Sheffield and as far as I know, they are the only 2 beacons of the county seeing that they have undergone heavy regentation. Ethnic minorities are visible in Leeds and Sheffield and Bradford, although the latter suffered race riots in 2001 between white people and Asians.

Now, this working men’s club, subject of the documentary (which was filmed by American documaker Henry Singer), bemoans the lack of interest and money it is receiving from the town of Wibsy in Bradford. Working men’s clubs in old England were private members only affairs for working class men to relax and have a pint, which is the message the docu was trying to convey. However, today, they are all pretty much shutting down because of lack of interest.

What was problematic was how the few people left who still cared about the working men’s club of Wibsy complained that lack of interest (the club was losing loads of money!) was because of changing times. Of course times have CHANGED! I found it incredulous how this so-called segment of society, ie, white working class men and women thought that they were voiceless and marginalised. I love the way the documentary tried to make it seem like they were not racist yet I did not see one black or asian face there at all and one of the members of these clubs called Pakistanis ”Pakis” which is a disgusting racist term yet felt justified in feeling ‘marginalised’. *rolls eyes* 

These people need to wake up! Of course it is sad when traditions peter out but if young white youths do not want to be part of these clubs then that is that, you cannot force people. There were scents of a yearning for the days before immigration from some of the older members of the club. Essentially the core themes of the program also hinted to the class division in England. I cannot stress enough that this country is the most classist in the ENTIRE world properly. There was one funny scene where one member of the working man’s club was talking to his wife and presumably father at home about what working class meant; his father and wife kept telling him: “you are working class!!” and he refused noting that he was not working class as he owned a car and a mortgage.

Another part that made me snigger to myself was when another member of the working man’s group objected to the idea of it being expanded to include families. In a deep Bradford accent, he noted that he saw a woman once breastfeeding her baby and he thought “hang on, I don’t need this!” and that was his justification for no families rocking up in the club. Lol, this documentary was an experience in itself.

All in all, I can see what the BBC2 channel is trying to achieve by giving people who feel ignored a voice but quite frankly, the subjects of this documentary came across as myopic and out of touch with what England is really like today. I should note to anyone who has never been to England, London is not a real definition of England because the city is incredibly multicultural and a different animal to the other parts of the country (the city I live in, Bristol, is also different as it is very multicultural).

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The second program of the White season was called Rivers of Blood and it was supposed to be an analysis of the polemic speech that late Tory politician Enoch Powell made in 1968. For anyone who is unfamiliar with racial politics in England in the 60s and 70s, Powell was one of the key figures of the political matrix who argued against the race relations bill that the Labour government wanted to introduce that would make it illegal for anyone to discriminate someone on the basis of the colour of their skin. Watching this program was very bizarre – I had heard a lot about Powell and how he was pretty much a right winger. In his speech, he used the words ”piccaninies” to denote black people and used an example of an elderly woman in his constituency who felt ”intimidated” and victimised by black youths in her town. Hmmm. I don’t think I need to say that this speech was racist because it clearly was. The program went on to highlight how Powell advocated voluntary repatriation in his Rivers of Blood speech. Here is a fragment of the Rivers of Blood speech:

 She is becoming afraid to go out. Windows are broken. She finds excreta pushed through her letterbox. When she goes to the shops, she is followed by children, charming, wide-grinning piccaninnies. They cannot speak English, but one word they know. ‘Racialist’, they chant. When the new Race Relations bill is passed, this woman is convinced she will go to prison. And is she so wrong? I begin to wonder.

Overall, the programs were interesting but of course I disagree with the notion that immigration is to blame. It seems to me that some people just don’t want this image of a mythical Anglo-Saxon Albion to change when in truth, the nation will always change.

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