Dying is an expensive endeavour. And when my Mum died, I and the rest of my family went to Ghana to give her a good send off. CeX partially funded my trip.
I've both bought and sold things at CeX (a second hand goods chain specialising in technology, computing, video games, DVDs and technology repair) for years.
I was underemployed at the time of my mother's death, hiding from the world and working in a zero hours contract job from home. Tickets to Ghana aren't cheap. Clothes for funerals, which are the biggest expense Ghanaians ever have in their lives, more so even than weddings isn't cheap. So I sold some of the skills I had accrued over the years to CeX. What I mean by that, is my camera, my audio recorder, the things I used to make films. Turns out my camera wasn't wanted at CEX but they took my audio recorder for 28 quid (it had cost me £89 retail a year before.)
So underemployed still on the 18th December I bought a phone from CeX. A second hand Samsung. My phone maker of choice. I'd barely been using a mobile for 2 years before and had relied on an old HTC of my brothers’, that he gave to my Mum and that I started to use at some point as she wasn't too hot with smartphones being in her 80s. But on the 19th December myself and others had organised a demonstration against the Nationality and Borders bill and I needed a working phone that could upload to Instagram and twitter, my HTC didn’t. I had also been tasked with editing a film once the day was over and thus I figured I'd do some interviews. My HTC as sturdy as it had been wasn't cut out for on the fly filming at a busy protest.
The new/old phone cost about 80 quid. It didn't have that much in hard drive space, but more than the HTC and it was what I could afford.
If you haven't heard this James Baldwin quote before, it came to mind as I typed in my pin number and completed the transaction,
“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”
That phrase has been apt most of my life. I realised recently I have never been motivated by money. Actually I always knew that, my epiphany was that this has held me back in my career(s). I don't mind that so much, I am proud of my achievements. They are hard won. But it has also held Media Diversified back. I'm in the process of remedying that though and have been interviewing potential board members for the last 3 weeks. The aim being to have a super talented and high profile board to keep us on track as we become a corporation. The secondary reason being that I can eventually leave when all these structures are in place and MD doesn't need me. It may be a few years. I have a plan.
To illustrate Baldwin’s quote I often give the example of needing to print something, for example CVs. Going to an Internet shop or library to print there rather than buying a printer seems odd. But if you can't afford the printer let alone the ink, that’s how it is. Think how much over years you spend on those printouts… many times more than a printer would cost no doubt. But anyone who has struggled with poverty understands that yes, y the maths doesn't work but those extra pounds in that moment, in that week are needed for other things. Likely food and fuel. The essentials. So your job search is just going to be more of a struggle than it needs to be. Dems da breaks for the poor and the working class.
About a month after I purchased the phone it began to play up. It kept turning itself off. Whilst I was typing. One of my colleagues in activism suggested to the group they raise money to buy me a new phone. I was essential at that point. I said no. Because I am poor AND proud. I guess nowadays Klarna with their pay in 3 installments sthick has taken the place of the state. But that has its many pitfalls too. As anyone who was made redundant after a Klarna purchase can attest. It’s all fine to pay monthly when you have a regular income. Once that is stopped, a spiral of debt awaits you and at the end of that road the bailiffs and a CCJ.
But it was a struggle, so eventually my assistant said his Dad had a phone he could lend me. I was overjoyed. And just before I departed for Glasgow I took my second hand phone to CeX. It was under warranty so I figured they could fix it whilst I was away. So I wiped it of all pictures, logged out of my social media accounts and cleared the Internet cache.
In the shop I asked if they could give me a replacement phone or just a refund. They said no. It needs to be warranty tested etc. I'd have to wait. So I waited. A couple of weeks later I got a call from CeX that the phone was fine. I can come and pick it up. I asked had they fixed it. They said no. I said, but it doesn't work. They said it did. I said you can keep it then because it doesn't. And I'll be writing about how CEX are thieves. I hung up.
Last week I got another call. CeX had done a second warranty test on my phone, they said. I can come and pick it up. I asked had they fixed it. They said no. I said, but it doesn't work. They said it did. I said you can keep it then because it doesn't.
Then I thought better of it. I went to pick it up. Here's the exchange at the Tooting CEX shop.
And that sound at the end is me throwing the phone on the floor. The beginning of the recording seems to be them plotting to sell another under par phone to another unsuspecting poor person.
Two days ago it was International Workers Memorial Day. Something I had never heard of before. I know of International Workers Day. I organised a protest to mark it 10 years ago. The only reason I knew it was memorial day was the journalist Jack Shenker. A great journalist and a generous person. A few years back I was struggling to get commissions and he introduced me to an editor at the New York Times. I still haven't got the commission but have stayed in touch with the editor.
Jack did an award winning investigation for Tortoise about the cleaners who worked at my old foe, the Ministry of Justice during the COVID lockdowns. He did a few tweets that caught my eye, so I asked if he fancied writing it up for Media Diversified. A tactic that has worked for me plenty of times and resulted in one of our recent exclusives.
He was on a writing hiatus but was happy for me to write it up.. I wasn't online for the last 2 years so it's reasonable that I missed International Workers Memorial Day. But I have been pretty online for 20 years and have never heard of it before. As I wrote in my articlethat's because, 'The workers we need to commemorate, who have died in the ‘line of duty’, otherwise known as the back breaking often little rewarded work that keeps a country such as ours going are in the main from working class, and or, black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. Yeah those people you don’t sit and stare at on the tube. Like me (having worked as a traffic marshal on a construction site), my late mother (a childminder) my sister (a care worker) my half brother (a former office cleaner).’
There is a hidden war on the working class. Anyone who tries to bring it to light is doing God's work in my opinion. We're all complicit, whether it’s about working class men and women with Indeterminate Prison Sentences, dying by suicide and self harm after 17 years with no release date. Or unemployed youth unable to apply for jobs because they can't afford to print their CVs or travel to interviews, or cleaners who go from job to job, paid by the hour but not for their travel time between jobs.
Not directly related to the above but here's a tweet that caught my eye and resonated.
We're all small in the big scheme of things, but big when we join together, that's how we take on those enemies of the working class.
Have a great bank holiday.
Sam
P.S I know there is going to be some non-black women and /or middle class women who try to take my experiences and use them as their own. Trust me, I will hunt you down if you do and you will catch these hands.