In an otherwise excellent letter in today's Guardian, Veronica Ward comments on Deborah Orr's argument that inequalities of income complicate the picture of diversity. She uses the word "community" three times in the letter and each time it would make much more sense if she hadn't. Sadly the letter is a great example of how the self-important (and yet ultimately empty) term leads us astray and makes us think we are saying something much more meaningful than we actually are. The letter is worth quoting at length as it rightly sets out how appalling everyday representations of the working class have become:
"what is shocking is the lengths some communities will go to ensure they are cut off from communities not comfortably like theirs. In education, particularly, they ensure that their children do not meet their counterparts on lower incomes. This avoidance and stereotyping of large sections of our community .... is insidious and shocking". This is absolutely right - but why has she felt the need to use the c word not once but three times here? What does it add? It would have been just as clear if she had used the term "people" instead of the first two uses of the term "communities". This would at least make it clear that this self-segregation is both potentially an individual as well as a collective choice.
Had she used the term"society" rather than "community" it would have been clear that this is actually a societal problem rather than one "within sections of a community" (whatever that means)
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Jacky Moran comments:
Its time that some journalists and politicians are more serious in their use of the word community. Young people are clear about what is their neighbourhood, often referred as my 'hood , also class will always play an important part when we identify ourselves within a community. One of the reasons the concept of community cohesion and integration ... Read More are so confusing is that it glosses over issues surrounding poverty and socio-economic barriers within different sections with in a certain community or should we really be using the word neighbourhood.
"I also think that we should start making a difference between community, neighbourhood, society and class even though their are all interlinked. This is why some young people call it their 'hood. The word community in itself is meaningless particularly in community cohesion..."
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