I’ve thought too much, gathering all the bits what added up to 10,000 words (got it down to 2600 thank God) that could be summarised as anger, frustration and alienation. Grief for the many people I have watched be crushed into the mud. Sorry its so heavy lets see if we can get though it together haha. I have tired to edit out being to pissed off- cause in the end, going on about unfairness is hard on the kidneys. But, I think I am good at comprehension and thats what i’m aiming for. Because everywhere I go now, I meet someone who is burning with things they need tot tell about what has happened to them and people they love. (The sort of stories I edited out of this.) I do this for those people, I do everything I do for those people. Every time you see something I have made, consider it a love letter directly to you.
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Sat at a train platform this guy asks me my name and what I do I say “I’m Dudley and I am an artist” he says he is a squaddy. “where I am going?” I say “Paris” he says why? I say “because I have an exhibition.” He looks me up and down and shakes his head- “no duds no- your going to Paris for your exhibition, you are acting too cool about this, you need to go there and tell everyone who you are. That you're a great artist! Look at you, look at your style!!” This guy who I have just met- fully has my back. This is the side of working class I love. I can tell someones class because ones with power are threatened, the ones in the working class are proud and the underclass ones ask me how the fuck I got out.
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On an art school trip as a teen to London, I make friends with a guy who sells the big issue at the station next to wear we stay. Others in my class seem confused by my hanging out with him as we too and fro. He’s so excited about me, he tells me he want me to take a quid of his money. This means a lot to me- as I only have enough money for bus fair and cigarettes for that whole academic year, which aint good on an art course. He thinks i’ll be famous, that I'm going to get out. The casual bits of pride I've been given though my life, is what I had to keep me going, instead of family who believed in or where interested in or able to share my success. I don't care what anyone else thinks of me.
Underclass, we have to dream! And maybe I will become disillusioned by the dreams, but no dream is eventual death. But first- psychosis!! Don't listen to those people of other class tell you not to dream. They live in another paradigm. Become disillusioned once you have your dream, but never give it up! Dreams can be quite simple- to have job, to earn a wage, maybe legally, to not rely on benefits. A dream is as essential as a sleep or a meal of food.
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And you aspirations are here too aren’t you, so its unavoidable I speak to you. And you would not be here if you didn’t want to be challenged. I don't want to be an educational tool because it feels exploitative, as I still live in instability. But yet here we are, welcome to the perpetuation station.
A Harvard study found fifty per cent of the time class is brought up, people bring up their own struggles rather than listen. Mostly people want to tell me their parents split up. This has almost nothing to do with anything. It's giving just curious tomboy boomer finds out i’m trans and wants to tell me about liking trousers. It perpatuestes the class war.
I also read (forgot where haha) 46 per cent of people saying they are working class have middle class jobs. It's those people say class don’t exist anymore or that it’s complicated !! This perpetuates class war. Class is not about no much you earn or that you work, it’s also about the job of overseeing people, and its about your class interest- your mortgage and hoarded wealth.
So many people feel poor but know how to survive or even thrive in capitalism. And in fact - it’s 101 capitalism that part of those who benefit disagree and reform it- it survives from reforms.
And because I am an artist I have to hear so much about glass ceilings. I am very tired of the aspirational working class problems. I’m tired of the middle class dealing with problems like social workers in DIY scenes. No one cares about the difference between homeless and houseless its irrelevant. And it trivialises racial slurs to suppose it’s the case. The three Ps. Perpetuation perpetuation perpetuation. People think being poor is fun. It’s shameful to actually live anarcho primitivism not as a political choice but necessity with no way to contextualise what is happening to you and who you are. The one true privilege is to be able to contextualise your life and its significance. People still going to prison not knowing it's wrong, having never made a choice in there lives. This is the underclass. And that is how its perpetuated.
Someone tells me of having 28 days to leave there house and is so mad, I compassionately as poss nod and think about how a judge decided I had a week to leave as a child with my whole family of which two of us four kids was under five and we didn’t find any housing adequate for us for 2 years after because the ASBO made us unappealing to private landlords. And how my health has been so destroyed by it maybe permanently. Being well enough to move house without having a physical breakdown seems like a dream. It doesn’t seem very understanding to bring it up, but it got me feeling lonely as hell. And I just don’t really know how to bridge the gap sometimes.
In a meeting about my last house someone is mad the landlord hadn’t done something he said he would. He seems so angry and I burst out laughing. I think it’s great he can get so mad about that but I can’t relate to even expecting things to be different. I really wish I could get that mad about that I could only get that mad at him for being oblivious, which is confusing.
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Apparently 1979 was the most equal year for class in England. The working class has been split in two since Thatcher and the two tracks get further apart each year. Half the people of the working class where I came from have PHDS the others are disabled- because of poverty/policy not an act of god, and probs will never work again. The working class was divided by right to by- the ones who had it together ended up home owners and the one who couldn’t manage there own lives, like my family, ended up in an invisible war and I don’t say this lightly. The class war to me is not a declaration, is is an admission. An curator told me they had to move galleys to a much smaller space, they said they had to pick between the funding they get going to artists or going to rent. Cities are splitting too- some to expensive to live and totally gentrified, others are bankrupt and unable to even keep the street lights on, becoming deraclit. Society is being re classified, mixed class spaces disappear- squats and university. That means making it impossible for poor people to do higher education, to get good housing. This is no accident. (I could find a way into a masters, but it is missing the point, i’d be the only lower class person there- not fun.) This is the control of our material development to suit capitalism.
There are many ways to differentiate class- like the CDC adverse indicators list, or arts council England, “how much did the highest earner in your home get when you was 14?” (I didn’t have one) or how the council decided how urgent you need housing. The biggest indications to me are the age your parents die at. The state of your gums. proximity to criminalisation, stable employment or housing. The way you talk with homeless people.
The underclass have no right to strike, and no political protection or representation. travellers- no legal rights to a home, people reliant on visas, benefits, people reliant on illegal work (drugs and sex workers) or children reliant on any of these people. Sure they can strike- people in prison strike but risk violence and death in ways people with legit jobs dont. They aren’t backed by public opinion. They aren’t even in the picture.
The underclass is maintained by straight up violence and punishment, not by overprices housing or education as it is for you aspirationals. It means having an antagonistic relationship with power- and not knowing how to get even basic things from doctors, teachers and employers because all authority has exploited you so your so crazy when your around them you can’t get your basic needs met because you have been systematically groomed to “fear authority” as they call it. So you act like a freak and they act like look what we have to deal with and patronise you more! This was done on purpose to infatilize people to control them in a class society of gatekeeping. And this is what the middle class can’t accept consciously- but them being threatened by poor people is a dead give away. Their denial of class, helps perpatueste it.
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SO THIS IS THE BIT BAD FOR MY KIDNEYS>>> To me class is inability to reach my potential consistently. Being denied housing and so access to safety. Having no where to go back to. No safe place for things. Being the most together person in my family. I can’t speak to them for any support and anticipate bad news. Not having enough suability to help them. Being in an invisible war and have to hide it. Seeing people suffer because they can’t afford to fix their teeth. Knowing people are trans but will never come out because there will be no support. It’s being thrown out of most spaces. Having people judge and critique how I try to survive. feeling like scum (and being called it) loosing friends. Feeing like your dying being in normal places. It’s thinking if I’m minute late i’ll be punished. no second chances (and then you get called a perfectionist! Why you so hard on yourself they say!!! hallucinating or assuming violence every time people touch each other because cause I’m so used to seeing. Its dark experiences you can’t speak em because people would get second hand trauma just hearing them. Its helled up with illegal spittle so fragile it could collapse at any moment. Feeling there is no way out because of reliance on illegal economy. Living in overcrowded housing most my life. Having no personal space for years. Being told when I am upset with classist behaviour that I need to be nice to middle class people, make them not feel uncombable in working class spaces. Ive never heard anyone voice that middle class people should be helping us by showing us how to survive capitalism. How to talk to authority and how to get things. No, they want to teach us how to budget! Ive never been able to work a full week without getting sick since my house was raided. Seeing my bother spend every day in “social inclusion” which is sitting in a room alone and not being allowed to even do any school work. He never learned anything. Being excluded from education. Being policed at school with the treat of being taken by social series being one mistake away, so school feels like punishment. Being put down at uni for being political because it really just was not cool - being the only person making political art. People would stare at me in crits, I was cringe. Now everyone is so so mad about 12 years of tories, and im telling you thats cringe. Becasue all of it is part of a cycle. That we already did. Nothing changes for those at the bottom, untill the most vulnerable people are prioritised. So yeah what I am trying to learn is now to be oh so gracious because like I said, my kidneys! I’m trying to put down my weapon. I want to be over this but I keep going around it.
I’m powerless to stop this. And I am tried of people trying to empower me, because half the time it is actually dismissing me and the above list. Maybe empowerment has gone into shadow. Maybe empowerment is a capitalism word now. Is that alienation really mine or is it the obviousness that causes it? PTSD is not the event, but going though it alone. I can’t tell you how many times I thought I was fine only to end up destitute or in hospital again. I can give it a go- age 14,15,18,21,26,29,30,32. And so what if I am fine? That this time I really do end up ok? After 20 years in the underclass I get to leave by some miracle combination of being interesting, clever and determined? If I do, it needs to be understood that I am not an example.
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I toyed with the idea of being the first person of my class to write something that honours where I came from- go around the aspiration. But I doubt this is even possible because where I cam from they are dying of shame to the extent that they can’t even look at me. Every line I write seems to create some friction somewhere. And yet on a deeper level I know that I am loved by my class in a way no other can, cause you can’t be kicked out the underclass and that its its most radical feature. So I keep writing. At least I will try not to throw everyone under the bus to get out. Like DH Lawrence who came from the next town to me and got disowned for what he wrote. I have seen this story over and over, you think cause you came from some place you get to call it shit. Go back to your hometown and don’t leave till you love it for being exactly what it is I dare you :) there is no feeling like it.
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I have now monetised this blog… it will always be free to access, but you can give me £8 a month if you like. Some people pledged when the I started this and, I don't know if youse know, but that doesn’t mean I got the money till you confirm it. So if any of youse who pledged do want to start giving me cash have a look on your account.
I’m celebrating my return to the working class- I just moved house this month without having a physical breakdown. This means more than any money or job, that I have got out of a pattern of institutionalised trauma. I did get a cold but my life did not fall apart! So new worlds now open to me. woo yeh!
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images; Jean Genet BBC interview screen shots.
