london calling

I must say, the rioting in England has taken me by surprise. This is mainly due to the fact that with my VAST knowledge of the modern UK gleaned mainly from watching lots of British sitcoms, scifi shows, and movies, I thought that a.) it was less...arduous...being poor there than it is here and b.) there is less racial tension.

Example of the latter? Let's take Dr Who and Rose and Mickey's relationship. That fact that theirs is an interracial relationship seems totally unremarked and unremarkable. In American TV, interracial relationships even in 2011 seem to be shown either To Make A Point or else to prove how hip and liberal the writers and producers are that they aren't making a point of it. Know what I mean? But Rose's boyfriend being a black kid seems to have no more relevance than if her boyfriend were a tall kid or a freckled kid or whatever. If Rose's mother dislikes him initially, it's because he's kind of a hapless slacker, not because he's a different race than her daughter. Also from Dr Who, we have Martha, beautiful black medical student/doctor from upper middle class family who saves the world. At least once. There is nothing about how her character is written that suggests her role couldn't have been cast with a white woman or an Asian woman. All of this, and many other examples, led me to believe (apparently wrongly) that race is much more of a non-issue in the UK than it is here.

Evidence for the former? Well, let's return to Rose and Mickey and the council estate they live in. Compare it to, oh, the projects in The Wire. Where would you rather live? I'm not saying that if you were Rose, you *wouldn't* jump at the chance to travel time and space with a mysterious man and his magical box/spaceship. I'm just saying you might be just fine living in her little apartment, fine enough that you wouldn't feel compelled to deal heroin and shoot people in order to maybe make it out of there. Pretty much any time they show where the "poor people" live in British TV or movies (the squat in Trsinsspotting being a notable exception), my reaction is the same. It's like, eh. Looks pretty nice. I could go fifteen minutes from my house right now and find you places that make those council estates look like luxury housing.

It's also sort of my impression from lots and lots of British media that it is possible to go on the dole there and stay on forever, and while I am quite sure that there is something very demoralizing and aimless about not having a job, having no prospects for ever having a job, or having no hope of ever having a satisfying, interesting job, the fact that there is a safety net in place and that you *will* always have at least a place to live and enough money to feed yourself and your family seems a lot better than here, where I think most of us Americans feel deep down in some corner of our souls that we are just one long period of unemployment or one devastating illness away from losing everything, and that if we don't/didn't have family to rescue us, we could be on the streets.

I hope this post doesn't come off as jokey about a very sad and serious situation, but honestly, I wanted to point out how ignorant of reality you (by which I mean me) can be when you form your impressions based solely on what the media presents to you and not on any real life experience or first-hand knowledge.

And just because I brought it up and you cannot argue with an absolute classic:



xoxo