so i've lived in br*tain long enough to adapt to most of their weird ass ways, except the phenomena of class aesthetics, which still makes no sense to me. being on the spectrum doesn't help i guess, since it's mostly unwritten and subtle rules

which wouldn't matter really except that i'm trying to do organising. and i've been literally told to my face "well you're middle class so what the fuck do you know about our problems". a few times that was implied, one time word for word. and in that particular case i literally only had time to offer a leaflet, so i know it wasn't anything i said, just purely from looking me up and down

i'm an estern european immigrant working minimum wage?? i've no idea what am i doing to make people think i'm anything but working class. one of my comrades gets it too, but she's got a london accent, so she just accepts it like fair enough

i'm mostly just venting because it seems like such a stupid problem to have, but if anyone actually has any suggestions i could use that would be great

i don't dress fancy, especially not to organising. jeans and a tshirt. the most expensive piece of clothing i own is a £150 leather jacket. guess i look gay? people tend to assume i'm gay. nobody can really place my accent, they have to ask where i'm from, so i guess i don't have a generic eastern european accent. i can't imitate the local accept well, not without it looking like i'm taking the piss anyway. what else can i do

    • sima [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      the few times when it came up, the idea was generally that you're middle class => you represent the establishment => the establishment doesn't care about me => you don't actually care about me, doesn't matter what you say. we were talking to this one guy that just kept repeating that we're going to go back to our cozy office with our moneybags party boss. we said we were communists like three times, but there was no getting through to him, he made his mind up. so we just listened to him complain about moneybags for a while

      • D61 [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Ah... those folks probably aren't worth trying to talking to if you aren't going to see them more than once. They just want to talk at you instead of talking to you. I can see the frustration in that.

        • sima [she/her]
          ·
          2 years ago

          yeah that true, that's why we picked just a few areas and do them repeatedly so people keep seeing us.

          i remember an old photographer guy telling me how he'd photograph people on the street. not approaching them directly, because they're likely to just tell him to fuck off. but just sort of hang around for a while. so they see him, get used to him, and eventually just go "oi! photo guy!"