Channel 4 programme Benefits Street has divided people across the country. A former vice-president of the University of Derby Students' Union, Dom Anderson, gives his views.
A LOT has been written about Channel 4 class-warfare reality show Benefits Street.
My issue wasn't just with the show; I grew up and hung around an estate much like the one depicted on the programme. What really got to me was the reaction on social media.
I looked down both my Twitter and Facebook timelines with despair as I saw people pouring scorn on the "scum" that feature on the show.
It must be great to live a privileged-enough existence to be able to sit in judgment of people less fortunate.
I grew up in Sinfin, which has a high rate of people who claim some sort of state support.
A large amount of the housing there is or has been council-owned.
The houses that are former housing association are generally owned by people who have a large property portfolio and have never lived in the area. It's the same old story of people with no link to a community getting rich from properties that were built to be state assets.
There is a stigma, even in Sinfin, around the people who live in houses owned by the council – stigma that is fed by Government narratives of scroungers and skivers and by programmes like Benefits Street.
The tweets about the addictions of some of the residents were heartbreaking to read. Addiction is terrible but I don't believe that it is something anyone would choose to have. Addiction is a condition much like and often linked to depression, often the result of difficult circumstances that people have suffered.
Watching the show was tough, as it filled me with fear and anguish for the people in it. And then you had people like Joey Barton tweeting his disgust for the lifestyles of the people on the show. "Strong evidence to support the breeding licence theory...", tweeted the footballer, among other judgmental remarks.
It seems money can buy you a nice house and nice things but it cannot buy you empathy. Let's hope that for the rest of his life he is squeaky clean.
And what about White Dee? She has two children with dual ethnic heritage. I watched my Twitter feed fill with words like "slob", "tramp" and "skank" as she came on screen.
I watched in disgust as people suggested she should just "get off her fat (backside) and get a job". There seemed a palpable undertone of racism to the way people viewed her children being dual heritage.
I was brought up by a white mother and white grandparents and I can tell you first-hand that I always found confusion when considering my own ethnicity. Imagine how those young people feel seeing the tweets about them.
People seemed to be watching the programme with a comfortable sense of distance. They forget that you are only ever a bad decision or serious illness away from having to rely on state support.
Some people I grew up with refuse to acknowledge their upbringing and roots, and this programme builds on the notion that you should be ashamed to be raised on a housing estate with poor people.
It makes me and others feel that we are inferior to those around us from "better stock". It is bad enough that, at times and in certain settings, I am already made to feel acutely like I don't belong there. This programme and the reactions to it spread far and wide by social media only serve to make that worse.
I am proud to be from Sinfin. It is by no means like the Winson Green we see on Benefits Street. Then again I am not completely convinced that Winson Green is the way it is portrayed on that programme.
If you went to most estates in Britain you could be selective and find a handful of people who would make excellent subjects for a television programme. The producers of Channel 4 programmes are experts of the extreme and they have gone to the extreme to find the subjects of their show. They have the ability to make people who are poor look awful, while peddling a message about a "culture of benefits" that just isn't true.
Much is made by our Government and certain sections of the media about the cost of false benefits claims.
According to Tax Research UK, benefit payment errors cost British taxpayers £1 million per day. To put that figure into context that is just 0.16% of all benefit payments.
When you also consider that tax evasion costs tax payers £70 billion per year (just over £260 million a day) that is around 14% of all anticipated tax income.
We never see Tax Avoidance Street gracing the prime-time slots of our national television stations, do we?
Call me a cynic, but I wonder if that is anything to do with the millionaires and billionaires depriving the Treasury every year, having access to top-notch legal teams.
I don't imagine many of the residents of Winson Green having such access, so benefits claimants are fair game.
We need communities to organise around issues and work together to change their own circumstances. Take OSCAR in Osmaston as an example. They are residents who work hard and organise to change the place they live in.
They are not alone, though; Impact Derby are a group founded off the back of an escalation of gang violence never before seen in Derby. They work tirelessly for change and are improving the lives of young people and winning the fight against gangs.
I am so proud of this city and the groups in it who work hard for the people in it.
So the next time you see a neighbour on benefits, don't judge them. Talk to them about what matters to them and how you could build together to achieve it.
For more news stories click here.![TV show Benefits Street paints unfair picture, says former Derby Uni students' union official]( "TV show Benefits Street paints unfair picture, says former Derby Uni students' union official")
