Thursday 3 January 2013

They aren't racist...

George Osborne referred disparagingly to those on benefits who hide behind drawn blinds while their neighbours go off to work.

I hide behind drawn curtains from time to time. It's symptomatic of depression, apparently. But to G. O., it was clearly symptomatic only of benefit scroungers.

And the Daily Mail is inclined sometimes to put inverted commas around the word 'depressed' when discussing people with depression seeking benefits (or, as that paper might have it, people with 'depression' seeking benefits... see the difference?). (Sorry, can't find any of the quotes right now.)

With such subtleties is racism often presented, oh so deniably. But we know it when we see it.

Note: the internet is replete with quoted examples of the subtle and not so subtle bigotry of the Heaven-Born against the disabled. I just haven't noticed anyone make quite this connection, although I'm sure they have.


Very dispiriting, writing a blog about the Welfare State (!) as it now is: no matter how appalling I may think this or that experience has been for me, I can find a dozen examples ten times worse in a couple of minutes on my computer. I would like, myself, to shock the world just once - I'm sure it would cheer me up.

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