JayDubya said:
I've seen people throwing that term around - what's "chav?" What's the derivation, what does it mean?
Well when I think of the word chav, I think of poorer english people who dress in a certain way (for example, big hoop ear-rings, tracksuits, burberry etc.), and who are fairly rough mannered.
Among those are (what I presume) is a minority of people who are benefit leeches. And they are often reported on and it reinforces a general image of 'chavs' that is not particularly positive.
It's not correct that this is the case, to paint them all with that brush, but it is what happens, and on this board, general mockery of chavs has been allowed.
This is pretty much directly analagous to Roma Gypsies.
They are a group with distinct dress, a (presumably) minority of whom behave even worse than that same minority of 'chavs', who are reinforcing a (hopefully inaccurate) image of Roma Gypsies in general.
The commonality between the two groups is that there is highly visible anti-social behaviour, and a distinct image with which to associate it with.
Those two things together lead to an association of an image with that behaviour, and thus an association of what I presume is a minority with everyone else who is by appearance or culture, a part of that group.
It's not RIGHT that this is happening, but it's an observation as to what is happening. I don't give a fig what your ethnicity is, but that
behaviour is unacceptable. We should be defining and basing our outrage solely on behaviour, but unfortunately there is an amount of group association going on in both cases (and other cases too). And that minority should be aware of what they're doing to the broader group they associate themselves with. There is a Roma group here in Ireland who represent the 'broader' Roma community who regularly speak out against and disown this minority.
xbhaskarx said:
Yeah it's like only hating the violent black people who commit crimes and greedy Jews who rip people off, right?
Stereotyping a group is the same as judging them all based on the minority. I'm not judging them all.