While expressing admirable sentiments on inequality and anti-racism, both Jane Martinson (Diversity woes not just black and white, 25 January) and Helen Pidd (My Syrian friend speaks four languages and works full-time in the UK. But that didn’t matter to one man at York station, G2, 25 January) miss the main point. The issue in both cases isn’t about race but about poverty and lack of opportunity.
Although Martinson touches on social mobility in her article, I wonder just how many white, working-class actors face the same problems as Idris Elba? How many work at the BBC or read the news? How many working-class MPs do we have? Where are the people speaking up for white, working-class boys, who have long been the biggest underachievers in our education system? As a working-class male who taught in an area of Stoke–on-Trent with an unemployment rate of 80% and a life expectancy among males of 45, I wonder where are the voices representing these people? It certainly isn’t Tristram Hunt.
Similarly, while I wouldn’t wish to encounter the unpleasant man in Helen Pidd’s article or support his views, I do wonder how alienation and neglect of many of our working-class communities has contributed to our problem. I still remember Peter Mandelson sneering at workers who had been undercut by cheap Italian labour in England and lost jobs as a result. Does this belittling of opinion develop community cohesion or make friction more likely?
This isn’t a request for specialist treatment but rather to recognise that often these so-called “minority” issues are actually universal problems and that by concentrating on a person’s race or gender we are actually creating division when there should be unity of effort to tackle the difficulties that so many groups face. To misquote the Scottish referendum: “We are better together!”
Darren Poole
Sandbach, Cheshire
