fair play, it’s june

who gets to claim working-classness?

I saw a video yesterday of trade unionist Mick Lynch explaining that he believes most people are working-class. The comments were divided. Some agreed that yes, the broad Marxist definition of class argues that exists the working-class and the bourgeoise. However, others argued that this isn’t necessarily accurate in today’s world. That it’s semantics, and ignores the intricacies of classism that debunk meritocracy. Maybe it’s divisive to even argue about it, but I personally believe it’s somewhat reductive to the lower-income experience to argue that the only real problem is the borgeouise. When access to education, services, and opportunities are so inconsistent depending on geography, I don’t think it’s helpful to perpetuate the idea that we should stop at collectively hating billionaires. Obviously we should collectively hate billionaires. But should high-earners not hold more responsibility to be philanthropic? Should we not cling onto the autonomy and community we *can* build in our lives - albeit at a grassroots level? Does any of this even make sense? Idk.

Not to say that Mick Lynch said all this btw. I’m talking about the comments of the video. But it did get me thinking about the working-class experience and who gets to claim it. I think we all have different definitions of class depending on our own experience and what exactly triggered our class-consciousness. For me, I have a horrible habit of only automatically considering someone to be working-class if they are out of work, work cash-in-hand, at a temp agency, or at entry-level/minimum-wage. Which is stupid - because I know this just comes from my own personal experience of what I ‘know’ to be working-class. There is so much nuance and I know it’s not helpful at all to dissect and magnify every element of class privilege that exists. But I think we have the tendency to in-fight on what ‘counts’ because this experience is so relentless. At times it’s traumatising, isolating, and deemed non-existent. We are told not to take offence to the accent mimicry, we are told that the passive judgement on where we grew up is just a joke. Maybe if celebrities didn’t parade it around it as a badge of honour, or the creative industries didn’t frame well-connected teenagers as underdogs - maybe then I wouldn’t jump on questioning someone’s class credentials every time I think to. Everything is contextual. Everything is nuanced. Half of what I said here is contradictory and that’s why I’m not a writer.

The other reason I’m thinking about who gets to decide class, is because I’m currently writing this from the airport waiting for my flight home to the UK. By any means, I should have been forced to revoke my working-class card when I moved to Vancouver in 2023. God knows that’s the truth with the genre of English Person I meet here (avid skiers). Then I remember the reality: that I have dual nationality, I lived at home and worked at a cafe until I was 26, and that I couldn’t afford to move home if I wanted to. That’s not to say I wasn’t extremely lucky in other ways (being healthy enough to work full-time, having a good relationship with my dad meaning I could live at home). I wonder if rich people ever think about the different levels of privilege they’ve been afforded. Probably not.

I feel embarrassed to say I live abroad. What a fucking wank wank WANK statement to make. But I scroll TikTok to see “digital nomads” (get fucked) talk about how the UK is broken and I want to tell them the reason their lifestyle is ~zen~ is because they’re profiting off of foreign economies with weaker currencies and probably being obnoxious about it all in the meantime. I say the UK is broken but I don’t mean it as a dogwhistle. I mean it in a “I can’t afford to rent in Coventry and it keeps me up at night that my parents save for their electricity bills” way.

A couple months ago I applied for Arts Council funding, because I wanted to bring an event to Coventry to benefit the local creative scene. I know there is one. It just doesn’t get funded and also everyone’s busy working. We got rejected, and so I figured one way to a) build hype b) amplify even more creative voices and c) raise funds for charity (three birds one stone) would be to launch a paper print magazine. I’d love to say it was more work than I thought, but I dunno how much work I thought it’d be. It was a couple weeks of 7pm-2am nights. One quality I really am coming to appreciate about having zero education or connections is that I never learned right way to do any of this - and so I don’t know the wrong way. It’s janky and DIY until it’s not.

Here’s what no one tells you about being a working-class creative. Your options are not a) do it with all the preferred funding and infrastructure or b) do it independently. Your options are a) do it, or b) don’t. It’s frustrating. I remember when I was a kid my dad had printed a quote by Robert Henri that read “Do not let the fact that conditions are not made for you, that things are not as they should be, stop you. Go on anyway. Everything depends on those who go on anyway”. I didn’t understand it as a kid, I rolled my eyes at it as a teenager, and now inevitably I understand what brudda Rob was on about all along. Is it always possible? No. Is it frustrating? Yes. But what the fuck else am I going to do.

I don’t know what my main goal was with launching this event & magazine (other than to spite the Arts Council) but my main rule written in red was to not profit. Third spaces and communities are misappropriated enough nowadays - the last thing I wanted to do was add to the gentrification-adjacent angle that we’re viewing ‘ creative scenes’ through atm. I have the time and energy to give - so why can’t I? I can afford my rent - why do I need something in return? I spent maybe a week researching charities to partner with for Issue #1. They had to be local to the Midlands. They had to be creative-centred in some capacity. And they had to benefit an underrepresented community. I know first-hand that creativity can save lives, and yet it seems we’re hesitant to make the link between working-class/low-income quality of life and access to creative opportunities. Not in a capitalism-centred way even. Just encouraging people to make something in the attention economy. It literally rewires our brains. And for communities that are more likely to suffer with anxiety, depression and financial trauma - that’s a lifeline. Anyway.

Charity number 1: Arts Uplift work with isolated and vulnerable older people within the Warwickshire area - through community workshops and classes. They aim to improve the quality of life for people who may other wise not have access to these opportunities.

Charity number 2: Positive Youth Foundation work with disadvantaged young people in the Coventry area - typically who have dealt with the social care system - offering similar opportunities. They also aim to improve the quality of life and offer a healthy outlet for those who may otherwise not have that route.

Charity number 3: Women for Refugee Women aim to improve the lives of women who are claiming refugee status and/or seeking asylum across the country - some of whom have been forced to flee due to r*pe, genital mutilation, or other similar reasons. W4RW offer assistance in the asylum-seeking process, as well as community workshops sometimes centred around creativity, to help give these women a channel to outlet their emotions and boost community cohesion + solidarity.

So who gets to claim ’working-class’? Who knows, but it looks different on each of us. We are all struggling in our own way - and I’m really truly honoured to have the time and energy to put this magazine together to bring creativity to the lives of those who may need it. I haven’t always been in the position to do so, and I’m barely in the position to be giving TEDtalks (remember TEDtalks?) about it now. But in a time of so much division, so much AI slop, so much autonomy being lost through working to survive and staying distracted - it’s more important than ever that we find a common ground through creating and being human.

Thank you so much to everyone who has ordered Issue #1 already - for context we’ve made just over 1100 in sales - with 570 of that going on production costs. That’s 530 split between the three charities above. If you have yet to order it, she’s a fiver minimum: around three quid of that goes on production/packaging and two goes to charity. If you haven’t, fair play I guess. You should. I can’t share too much about what’s in it yet - but I’m so fucking excited for it to be out.

Oh, and if you’re based in the Midlands you should come to the launch party. We have live music, free merch, obviously the magazine - it’ll be a blast. PWYC with all proceeds going to the charities above. Tickets online start at a fiver, but DM us or respond to this if cost is a barrier and I’ll sort you out.

https://events.humanitix.com/fair-play-issue-1-launch-party

K I’m now flying home so maybe this will post, maybe it’ll be a day late.

Byeeeeeeeeeee!