Call out racist rioters for their beliefs and actions – not their social class
The IndependentWe’ve been living through almost a week of far-right riots on our streets, with hundreds of arrests following ugly confrontations, both on and offline. As a result, perhaps inevitably, we’ve seen slurs hurled in every direction; from overt racism and Islamophobia to dismissive, sneering commentary from the person who owns the very platform being used to spread misinformation. I’m talking about the way working class people have been demonised. As MP Zarah Sultana put it: “The enemy of the working class travels by private jet, not migrant dinghy.” What’s more, while their behaviour is unequivocally deplorable and has no place in modern society, it is their actions and their views that are contemptible – not the fact they come from lower income backgrounds. Steeped in snobbery, these phrases being bandied about will be internalised by the many working class people who haven’t taken to the streets to cause chaos, who haven’t delivered racial and Islamophobic slurs and racially-motivated attacks.
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