What Is Broke Shaming ?

In 2021 I went to dinner with a mixed couple. We chose a Caribbean restaurant in Brixton, South East London. During one of the conversations I had to describe where we lived. In Gravesend. We described Gravesend as “white trash”. I noticed the expression on their face, it looked like they just swallowed turtle poop or something similar.

I have had numerous occasions where I have described something I’ve done or experienced and people have had the turtle poop reaction.

But why?

I grew up with white Italian middle class foster parents. I went skiing in the winter and beach in the summer. We had a German shepherd as guard dog in a colonial 3 floor house with a basketball court. I’m saying this to make the point, that I’ve seen what middle class looks and feels like. The other side of the coin was that we’d go camping, do charity at the local Catholic Church where my foster parents were personally involved, we recited 50 Ave Maria’s every May for a week, and I remember we housed a family of Albanian refugees for years. Giovanni was in real estate and often would perform manual labour, Luisa was a part time social worker and enjoyed doing charity and helping the less privileged. We’d go restaurants once a week, eat seafood anytime we went to the seaside, have Deer sausages and mulled wine when skiing in the winter.

During all of these experiences I have never heard them broke shame or make faces at people when they claimed to be starting from the bottom from whichever social extraction they claimed to come from. 

I’ve noticed it’s the poor, black kettles of this world that call the pot black. 

Broke shaming is the highest form of insecurity. It’s a classist way to look down on others. Whether it’s because they’re black, African, overweight, working class, or have limited financial freedom we all do it when we feel threatened.

As a reporter on human nature, I’ve learnt that being authentic invites disrespect, being modest invites shaming, being respectful invites bullying. 

We live in uncertain times where the world would prefer we posed, and chased after the Jones’ rather than be poised and chasing introspection. My observations have also brought me to understand that these individuals that broke shame are running away from poverty in a toxic way. After suffering from PTSD they can only dread the sight of authentically sharing, authentically living and authentically building.

No culture has the monopoly on modernisation, most of us are more worried about getting closer to whiteness rather than improving ourselves.

We have a long way to go but awareness is certainly a major factor if we want real improvement.

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Author

Campbell Kitts