Or maybe, like me, you’re someone who can be seen as a posh person or a chav depending on where you are, someone who has experienced and witnessed social mobility going both ways… someone who has a more nuanced experience of class that you claim does not exist.

I actually take most of your point but saying that there is NO nuance to British social class is ludicrous.

http://www.met.police.uk/disordersuspects/

“These are not hunger or bread riots. These are riots of defective and disqualified consumers” 

Interesting!

So then you own a hoodie and could, feasibly, take part in the riot in the “disguise” of a lower-class person? (Why own a hoodie at all if it is such a signifier of lower class status?) If you could do that, why can’t others? Sometimes people like to feel a part of something or sympathize with a cause that may not directly be there own, or maybe just want to cause some destruction. But if all you had to do was go to your closet and grab your hoodie (or stop at a store and buy one), how is that a good indicator of who is participating in these riots?

Maybe I just don’t understand. I assume you’re not from the US because I am, and hoodies are not a big deal here (at least where I live). I am a middle-class, professional woman and I own about 20 (at least) hoodies, as do many of my friends similarly positioned on the socioeconomic spectrum.

What’s more, if they are far enough removed from British prospects for
wealth and privilege, they might not even consider the potential loss
that their victims face. It’s hard to imagine what it might feel like to
loose one’s business, if you haven’t a hope in hell of ever even
aspiring to having one yourself.

Rioting is wrong, but it looks to me like British society needs to take
responsibility for organizing itself in such a way that allows for these
kinds of conflicts in the first place. A few more avenues for social
mobility probably could have prevented all of this.

Fortunately this is just a blog, but I couldn’t help but thinking as I read through the post, “This is the kind of blind speculation that murders social science—and the kinds of progressive projects that can stem from it.” If this argument were published in a leading journal, I would have probably screamed. There is a big difference between informed judgment and logical speculation. Equating the two only serves the status quo.

You should check it out. And yup, I own a hoodie as well. One single hoodie in all my wardrobe. Chances that me and all my friends (at university or after work) would ALL wear hoodies at the same time are NIL. Why? They provide an identity to people of the working class, not to other classes. We might all year (just an example) Longchamp bags at the same time. Or chucks. Because they also provide an identity.

Seriously, these things MEAN something. It’s not random in any way.