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Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain's Underclass

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McGarvey contends that intersectionality activists have oversimplified any debate over what constitutes privilege and oppression and who is affected by it. From the point of McGarvey’s class-based argument, this oversimplification has resulted in the term ‘working class’ becoming a “synonym for ‘white male’” (p.159). As far as McGarvey is concerned, the result is that intersectionality denies the inclusion of the disadvantaged white working-class voice within the present social justice discourse. No fan of identity politics either, he argues that intersectionality undermines the creation of “a well-organised, educated and unified working class”. He believes poverty will not be solved until the gulf between the classes is bridged. Written with honesty and wisdom, this is a heartfelt plea for a fairer and more caring society. People from deprived communities all around Britain feel misunderstood and unheard. Darren McGarvey aka Loki gives voice to their feelings and concerns, and the anger that is spilling over. Anger he says we will have to get used to, unless things change.

Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain s Books: Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain s

We see the effects that long term apathy, low self-esteem and self-doubt has on many communities, largely fuelled by the devastating cuts and cruel policies of a succession of neo-liberal governments which have continued to exploit and profit from the poor in many ways. He talks to inspiring people in the community, trying to change the negative and damaging culture, people like Cathy Milligan and Robert Fullertone, who are trying to affect change in places like the schemes of Castlemilk. He shows what can happen when people in the community unite and rally behind a shared cause such as the Pollok Free State movement of the mid-90s, which united against the building of the controversial M77 motorway. When talking about the arrival of the consumerist behemoth, Silverburn at Pollok, he says, “Gentrification is cool when you’re watching from a safe distance, but when it’s your cultural history that is being dismantled, it leaves a sour taste in the mouth.”

Footnotes

Poverty Safari' caught my eye on the library shelf, then the blurb convinced me to read it. McGarvey grew up in poverty in Glasgow, and I've been thinking that this year I want to read more about Scotland. Since I live here and all. While the book definitely gives an insight into life in a deprived part of Glasgow, it also has a great deal to say about poverty more generally. McGarvey is an articulate and considered writer, analytical and compassionate in his dissection of poverty as he and others have experienced it. He also confronts the fact that for his book to be saleable, he had to describe the traumas of his childhood: Class issues are concealed beneath a progressive veneer as identity politics becomes another vehicle for the socially mobile to dominate every aspect of public life.” British Journal of General Practice is an editorially-independent publication of the Royal College of General Practitioners He invites you to come on a safari of sorts. A Poverty Safari. But not the sort where the indigenous population is surveyed from a safe distance for a time, before the window on the community closes and everyone gradually forgets about it.

Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey | Waterstones Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey | Waterstones

I was never in poverty, but I've lived alongside those who were. While I might not have been poor, I've felt helpless and frustrated and unsure why I couldn't change my situation. I found myself seeing my own life through different eyes, helped by Darren's considered honesty, his willingness to examine his own experiences fron multiple perspectives.Five have experienced abuse and neglect at the hands of a care giver … five have experienced health problems associated with poor nutrition and lifestyle.’Then, in stark contrast: There's no way someone like me would have been given the opportunity to write a book like this had I not draped it, at least partially, in the veil of a misery memoir. Okay then, first, we need to create the illusion of objectivity. It seems the most effective way to do this would be to completely dehumanise my family and me, to look at our experience through a statistical lens.

Poverty safari: understanding the anger of Book review - Poverty safari: understanding the anger of

If The Road To Wigan Pier had been written by a Wigan miner and not an Etonian rebel, this is what might have been achieved. McGarvey's book takes you to the heart of what is wrong with the society free market capitalism has created . Paul Mason The authenticity of McGarvey’s message confers an ambassadorial role as a representative of the socio-economically disadvantaged communities for whom he advocates. And who is the message for? Those who are privileged by virtue of the lottery of where and to whom they were born. Those who haven’t lived the experience of being poor with all that accompanies it. As uncomfortable as it may make us feel, that would include many EPs, myself included. Five have experienced abuse and neglect at the hands of a care giver … five have experienced health problems associated with poor nutrition and lifestyle.’Brexit Britain is a snapshot of how things sound when people who are rarely heard decide to grab the microphone and start telling everybody how it is.”

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