Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

Chapter 6 focuses on the relationship between race, class, and injustice in Britain. British society has traditionally been divided into three groups: the working class, the middle class, and the upper class. These categories, however, have become blurred over time. The working class has increased its purchasing power through credit while economic hardships undermined the stability of the middle class. According to a 2016 survey by British Social Attitudes, 60% of Brits identify as working class, yet 47% of these people hold managerial and professional jobs (190). The survey called this phenomenon the ‘working class of the mind’ and found that people with this mindset were more likely to hold anti-immigrant ideas (190). Eddo-Lodge draws on the British Social Attitudes study, focusing her discussion of class on mindsets rather than wealth.

The BBC’s Great British Class Survey of 2013 provides a more nuanced view of class than the tripartite division described above. According to the study, there are seven classes in Britain: the elite, the cultured middle class, the technical middle class, the new affluent working class, the traditional working class, emergent service workers, and the precariat, which Eddo-Lodge describes as “the most deprived of groups” (191). The BBC survey is significant because, unlike others of its kind, it collected data on the race of its participants.