A SMALL HOLE, SLIGHTLY CHARRED: CLOTHING AND CLASS IN THE SECRET HISTORY

Posted on June 23, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged class, classics, clothing, Donna Tartt, east coast, fashion, featured, fiction, gender, gender conformity, literature, novel, prejudice, privilege, The Secret History, upper class, USA, WASP, working class.

By Vyvyan René

‘I was still standing. I’m shot, I thought, I’m shot. I reached down and touched my stomach. Blood. There was a small hole, slightly charred, in my white shirt: my Paul Smith shirt, I thought, with a pang of anguish. I’d paid a week’s salary for it in San Francisco.’

A novel preoccupied with appearances and the dark realities they can conceal, it is no wonder that clothes are a recurring theme in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. As protagonist Richard notices the gunshot in his expensive shirt at the climax, his ‘anguish’ stems less from the injury to his physical body than to the painstakingly assembled body of signifiers he has spent the novel maintaining; a ‘small hole’ through which his history, in its imperfect secrecy, is exposed.

UNJUSTIFIED UPROAR: CLOSING THE ULURU PATH

Posted on November 16, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged aboriginal, Anangu, Ayers Rock, Blackfulla, closure, discrimination, indigenous, prejudice, Uluru.

By Maud Webster

Content warning: racial abuse

Whilst Indigenous people in Australia are often shoved to the side and ignored in the media, they were thrown into the limelight last month, when the wider community of the Anangu, in conjunction with a board of representatives, made the decision that the Uluru path will be closed. Continue Reading

GOING BACKWARDS – OXFORD AND THE UNIVERSITY CLASS PROBLEM

Posted on October 27, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged bias, black students, BME, class, David Lammy MP, discrimination, diversity, elitism, ender, equality, equity, ethnicity, government, Grenfell Tower disaster, higher education, Oxford, politics, prejudice, privatisation, prospective students, regional inequality, ruling class, solidarity, students, uk, universities, upper class.

by Laura Potts

I was shocked to see in recent news that Oxford university has been accused of ‘social apartheid’ after their student intake was analysed. This story joins the long standing and highly complicated debate around the wider concept of university equality and educational fairness, revealing some worrying patterns that have begun to emerge in recent years.

SORRY, ARE YOU A TRAVELLER?

Posted on August 21, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged African American, american deep south, antigypsyism, anxiety, between the lines, Brexit, Commission for Racial Equality, conservative, depression, discrimination, ellesmere port, gipsies, GRT, gyppo, gypsy, irish traveller, johnny delaney, little england, mainstream media, Marc Willers, media bias, mental health, mental wellbeing, Muslims, prejudice, racial equality, Romani, travel, traveller, Trevor Phillips.

by Jonathan Lee

Content warning: article mentions antigypsyism and racism

“The Gypsy and Traveller community complain that they don’t get enough media attention, but crime watch is on TV every week.”

This was the name of a team at a pub quiz I attended in Oxford recently. When it was read aloud, half the pub laughed and jeered. The other half remained silent, either through complicity or complete indifference. No one challenged the offending team, no one called out, no one made a disapproving noise. When the woman behind the bar saw my apparent discomfort, she asked:

“Sorry, are you a Traveller?”

Unsure whether she was apologising for the hate speech coming through the pub’s speaker system, or for the actual ethnicity itself, I answered:

“Yes I am.”Continue Reading

‘RACISM FROM THE TOP DOWN’ – BOYCOTT THE SCHOOL CENSUS

Posted on May 12, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Student and tagged activism, Against Borders for Children, anti-migrant sentiment, awareness raising, boycott, Brexit, child safety, childhood, children, Community, data, data collection, department for education, deportation, direct action, discrimination, Early Years Census, education, england, FOI, government, hate crime, Home Office, immigration policy, institutional racism, Lord Storey, May 18th, media, migrant children, migrants, migration, National Pupil Database, national union of teachers, nationality, nicky morgan, parents, polling, prejudice, privacy, racism, school census, schools, Schools ABC, state violence, survey, teachers, theresa may.

by Against Borders for Children

“…this proposal has all the hallmarks of racism…Children are children, and to use their personal information for immigration enforcement is disingenuous, irresponsible, and not the hallmark of a tolerant, open and caring society”
– Lord Storey

Against Borders for Children (ABC) is a coalition of parents, teachers, schools and campaigners. Our aim is to reverse the Department of Education’s (DfE) policy to collect country of birth and nationality information on 8 million children in England in order to ‘create a hostile environment’ for migrant children in schools, primarily by encouraging a mass boycott of the School Census.

PRETENSION IS A SCOURGE

Posted on August 30, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged 23 Things They Don’t Tell you About Capitalism, academia, bourgeois, Brexit, Britain, capitalism, civil unrest, Deptford, disenfranchisement, economy, education, finance, general election, gentrification, grassroots, ha-Joon Chang, Leave, Lionel Shriver, london, middle class, party politics, prejudice, Remain, respect, right wing, shoreditch, uk, underprivileged, Universal Basic Income, We Need to Talk About Kevin, working class, youth.

by Sunetra Senior

On Friday June 23rd 2016, millions of us woke up to the rattling reality of a momentous decision: the pound had plummeted to a 31-year low, our young people had lost the right to live and work nearby abroad, and oh yes – the UK as we knew it was now officially in a state of civil conflict. But this isn’t going to be another article about how we should respect the people who voted Leave – though of course we should – nor one that commiserates upon how we’ve tragically lost touch with the ‘underprivileged and disadvantaged’ of us, for the simple fact that it is the sole circulation – and indulgence of – such statements that is fanning the right-wing heat blowing an insidious hole through our country.

GRADUATING WHILST BLACK

Posted on July 28, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #BlackLivesMatter, #rhodesmustfall, #ueagrad16, BAME, Bangladeshi, black, Black Caribbean, BME, Brexit, discrimination, diversity, education, employment, erasmus, ethnic, european union, Frances O'Grady, grad week, graduate, graduation, graduation week, Institute for Social and Economic Research, job application, job market, Masters, Pakistani, post-university, prejudice, race, rhodes, Trades Unions Congress, TUC, tuition fees, UEA, unemployment, university, women.

by Candice Nembhard

I graduated! I actually graduated. Mortarboard thrown, picture taken, congratulatory conversations with parents and friends and then you hear the dreaded, “What are you doing next?”

It’s not that I have never given much thought to what would come post-university — quite the opposite. The last few months prior to dressing in my cap and gown have been filled with endless job applications, copious redrafts of my CV and looking into Masters programmes both in the UK and elsewhere – I cannot be the only one. I am certain the same can be said of other BAME students whose road to graduate employment is a lot more uncertain and suspiciously taxing.Continue Reading

UN PEACEKEEPING’S SEXUAL ABUSE PROBLEM, PART I

Posted on May 14, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged #PredatoryPeacekeepers, Al Jazeera, authority, Ban Ki-Moon, blue helmets, Bosnia, CAR, crime, currency, genocide, Graça Machel, international law, KFOR, Kofi Anna, Kosovo, Lebanon, Mogadishu, Mozambique, peacekeeprs, petition, prejudice, rape, Rwanda, sexual assault, soldiers, somalia, UN, united nations, violence.

by Zoe Harding

TW: Sexual assault, rape, genocide.

Founded in 1948, the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations is intended to ‘help countries torn by conflict to create the conditions for lasting peace.’ Their role is not as direct military intervention during conflicts; instead, they observe ongoing peace processes and stop ceasefires and peace treaties from collapsing back into armed conflict, while also working to help refugees and the displaced. Peacekeepers aren’t just soldiers- they also employ aid workers, diplomats, medics, engineers and negotiators. They’re the ‘world’s army’, with their distinctive blue helmets and white-painted vehicles, and in their prime they’ve stood up to global superpowers and stabilised seemingly irredeemable trouble spots.

Despite very public failures like the disastrous Somalia mission and the failed attempts to prevent genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda, the United Nations continues to operate peacekeeping missions around the world. They work to protect and improve the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world – those living in some of the world’s worst war zones.

Unfortunately, that’s the problem.

THE NEW ‘LEFT-WING’ MCCARTHYISM?

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged activists, alliance, black activists, Bright Green, campaigners, campaigning, criticism, Dennis Carney, far left, Green Party, green valuess, greens, human rights, Humanist, humanitarian, in fighting, left values, left wing, Lenin, LGBT+, liberation, Maryam Namazie, mccarthyism, OutRage!, Peter Tatchell, prejudice, progressive politics, racism, response, Rob Berkeley, Simon Nelson, smears, SMM, socialists, solidarity, Stop Murder Music Campaign, student atheist secular, Ted Walker Brown, unity.

In February The Norwich Radical carried an article by Chris Jarvis entitled ‘How I fell out of love with Peter Tatchell‘. This is Tatchell‘s reply.

by Peter Tatchell

A reply to the sectarian distortions of Chris Jarvis.

The future of progressive politics is under threat, again. But this time from the left. Historically, socialists and greens have made gains by building broad alliances around a common goal, such as the campaigns against the poll tax and the bombing of Syria. We united together diverse people who often disagreed on other issues. Through this unity and solidarity, we won. The government of the day was forced to back down.

Nowadays, we are witnessing a revival of far ‘left’ sectarian politics and it is infecting the Green Party too. Zealous activists, seemingly motivated by a desire to be more ‘left’ and pure than rivals, are putting huge energy into fighting and dragging down other campaigners.Continue Reading

WHY ACTIVISTS SCREAM #BLACKLIVESMATTER AT BERNIE SANDERS

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged #BlackLivesMatter, Bernie Sanders, black lives matter, black votes, BME, climate change, Democratic Debate, election, Hilary Clinton, minority voices, police brutality, prejudice, racism, Seattle, US presidential election, USA, vote.

by Natasha Senior

Something amazing is happening. We are finally talking about racism. And I mean really talking about it. We are asking why it is, that in the US, black people are targeted significantly more than white people in terms of police violence. We are talking about institutional racism, wherein every single year we see little to no racial diversity in the academy award nominations. We are talking about symbolic racism, in which academic institutions seem to see nothing wrong with commemorating racist historical figures. It is not a coincidence that these conversations are taking place at the same time because we are in the midst of a powerful international movement called Black Lives Matter, which is taking a battering ram to every single racist barrier you can think of. But it is also going for the ones you might not have thought of, because now it is forcing us to introspect as we examine the places we thought were free and open spaces.

prejudice

A SMALL HOLE, SLIGHTLY CHARRED: CLOTHING AND CLASS IN THE SECRET HISTORY

By Vyvyan René

UNJUSTIFIED UPROAR: CLOSING THE ULURU PATH

GOING BACKWARDS – OXFORD AND THE UNIVERSITY CLASS PROBLEM

SORRY, ARE YOU A TRAVELLER?

‘RACISM FROM THE TOP DOWN’ – BOYCOTT THE SCHOOL CENSUS

PRETENSION IS A SCOURGE

UN PEACEKEEPING’S SEXUAL ABUSE PROBLEM, PART I

THE NEW ‘LEFT-WING’ MCCARTHYISM?

WHY ACTIVISTS SCREAM #BLACKLIVESMATTER AT BERNIE SANDERS

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