What We Don't Know

I have been reading Barak Obama's book on his early life. Even though he is half black half white it is the being black that stands out. As he explains how other black young men felt and the conflict he had inside about being discriminated by white people and yet having a white mother and white grandparents is very interesting. There is something in what he says his black friends say about continuously feeling oppressed in a white man's world and the anger that causes inside of them, that feeling that they will never really be able to be true to themselves, that whole depth that slavery has done to the psyche of this people group. And of how people who were mixed race actually did not want to recognise the black African inside of them. All this is something I will never understand and neither will most of my friends.

It got me to pondering something that was said at church yesterday, of how we shouldn't call someone a "chav", a word that came about originally to apply to young men, generally white, who lived in large council housing estates, went around in gangs and were violent. And yes like lots of words it has become an insult but also to me I was feeling like it describes a people group, again a group that have been so down trodden that we, as in motivated, educated, encouraged to reach our potential will never know.
These are young people who listen to a certain aggressive style of music, girls wear provocative clothing from a young age, boys in tracksuits and trainers, under age sex is common, but the main thing that gives them this hopelessness way of life is that they are 3rd or 4th generation unemployed, their schools are deprived schools where teachers do not want to come, and they have people in government trying to help them out by throwing money at them, but not understanding the depravation in their souls.
Brenan Manning talks of people like these before the word came into being. Of how even when they meet Jesus they cannot get out of this cycle. Yes Jesus gives them some hope and they do want to change but with such little education, being stuck in slum housing, maybe having to resort to prostitution to feed their families, to feed themselves, not because of a drug habit but because there are no jobs.

Sometimes at church I do wondering if we do try to reach people we know nothing about like the "chavs" when we have never lived like them, like the black person who even though they have never known slavery feel something deep inside. In fact with the "chavs" they have finished up in the housing estates they have because to a point they were the white slaves of the oppressive landlords, mill owners, etc. We have never walked their road, we do not know.
So maybe it is ok to use the word "chav" as a people group so long as we are not using it as an insult, but also maybe we need to be careful we do not think we can understand when we have never ever been there.