(no subject)
the other week i was listening to a show on the radio about punk and ska and its context, including some bits about the Anti-Nazi League, and Rock Against Racism. i think the trade unions of the 60s and 70s and the punk youth-culture thing were really important in making the social culture we live in now. i'm going to try and read up more on it. but there seemed to be an important message about fighting oppression on all fronts, from the TUs - which might have been founded on empowering working people, but went on to fight for equal rights for women and anti-racism. it's subtle thing, and so much of it is perception it's hard to tell, but when my first few years in london i lived out east - plaistow, canning town, stratford, were the places i knew. they weren't all the friendliest but i wasn't too nervous about walking into any local pub, on the Barking Rd or Plaistow High St. the base population, if you like, was white working-class - i think some that had been old-school inner east london and then moved further out, with a large minority of old and new immigrants. but i didn't find it scary. the next few years i spent in surrey quays, i was much more cautious about the local pubs. i found south bermondsey quite intimidating, also with a base population of white working-class. it's all unconfirmed feelings about a place - but i feared the locals would be racist, i feared they would hate a white-collar, coloured woman who'd recently moved to the area. it was symptomatic of the social segregation of the area i guess, but it shows the 2 sides to a culture - and i think the TUs played an important part.
i think punk bands did too - since kids are so easily led and influenced, it could all have got so ugly for a lot of them without decent 'leadership' and proactive anti-racism. as a kid skinheads and punks scared me because my parents believed them all to be racist thugs. i don't think i've managed to convince them they weren't.
i'd like to know more about the history of this place. i think it's an important part of making it mine. i grew up utterly anglocised but still feeling like an outsider in many ways. i felt foreign. it wasn't until i was about 21 i suddenly had a revelation that i could actually belong to the place. that was very specific to the landscape, and part of that is just growing up in town and not connecting with the landscape. but i used to always write "British" on forms and feel comfortable because my nationality is a fact, whereas i never felt English.
i was on the pet shop boys website the other day, and they're playing at Heaven tonight, a big-name line-up including Judge Jules, Tall Paul, Danny Rampling... anyway it's a benefit gig and i'd never heard of the name, so i looked it up. Denton or Dainton Connell. interesting life.
i think punk bands did too - since kids are so easily led and influenced, it could all have got so ugly for a lot of them without decent 'leadership' and proactive anti-racism. as a kid skinheads and punks scared me because my parents believed them all to be racist thugs. i don't think i've managed to convince them they weren't.
i'd like to know more about the history of this place. i think it's an important part of making it mine. i grew up utterly anglocised but still feeling like an outsider in many ways. i felt foreign. it wasn't until i was about 21 i suddenly had a revelation that i could actually belong to the place. that was very specific to the landscape, and part of that is just growing up in town and not connecting with the landscape. but i used to always write "British" on forms and feel comfortable because my nationality is a fact, whereas i never felt English.
i was on the pet shop boys website the other day, and they're playing at Heaven tonight, a big-name line-up including Judge Jules, Tall Paul, Danny Rampling... anyway it's a benefit gig and i'd never heard of the name, so i looked it up. Denton or Dainton Connell. interesting life.