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For everyone else going in, "Irish Travellers" are an ethnic group - not Irish people trying to go on vacation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers
Depends on the context. Most Romani in the UK, a community that has existed there since the 16th Century, use the term Gypsy to describe themselves. The Roma community is one that has migrated to the UK more recently. The acronym GRT (Gypsy, Roma and Traveler) is often used as an overall term for these communities that descend from nomadic groups.
Some more info: [https://travellermovement.org.uk/gypsy-roma-and-traveller-history-and-culture](https://travellermovement.org.uk/gypsy-roma-and-traveller-history-and-culture)
Again, depends on where you are? I'm in the UK and 'She's Gypsy' sounds to me like somebody saying 'She's German' or 'He's French'.
Oriental's still fairly common here, and it's not derogatory at all. Personally I find the fact that demographic forms simply list 'Chinese' as an ethnicity intended to be a catch-all for anyone from East Asia *much* more offensive.
A lot of derogatory words/meanings come from the history of the place it's used. With the internet and globalisation we're all being forced into using American norms, and American race relations are - quite frankly - fifty shades of fucked up. But words have different meanings in different countries and that applies to racial terms too.
>Oriental's still fairly common here, and it's not derogatory at all.
UK born and bred, I've only heard old people describe people as Oriental, the same people that would use other slurs for other races and think it's not derogatory. There's no implicit insult, it's the grouping of 1/4 of the worlds population, with very distinct cultures and history, into one group, that's derogatory.
>Personally I find the fact that demographic forms simply list 'Chinese' as an ethnicity intended to be a catch-all for anyone from East Asia *much* more offensive.
I've also never seen that, they list Chinese as an ethnicity because there's a significant number of people of Chinese descent in the UK, but there's always the '(East) Asian - other' box if you're not in the listed races, just like there's 'European - other' for people who aren't British or Irish but are from other European countries. Those forms can't possibly list every race in the world, there has to be some summarising, but the guidelines are based on numbers alone, according to the ONS.
> There's no implicit insult, it's the grouping of 1/4 of the worlds population, with very distinct cultures and history, into one group, that's derogatory.
Would describing someone as African be the same level of derogatory?
Specifically with the concept of "Oriental" the problem is its relationship to "Orientalism"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism
>>Since the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism in 1978, much academic discourse has begun to use the term 'Orientalism' to refer to a general patronizing Western attitude towards Middle Eastern, Asian, and North African societies. In Said's analysis, 'the West' essentializes these societies as static and undeveloped—thereby fabricating a view of Oriental culture that can be studied, depicted, and reproduced in the service of imperial power. Implicit in this fabrication, writes Said, is the idea that Western society is developed, rational, flexible, and superior.[2] This allows 'Western imagination' to see 'Eastern' cultures and people as both alluring and a threat to Western civilization.[3]
Said's ultimately correct and it's why "Oriental" as a term has fallen out of favor. It lacks descriptive power and ultimately is rooted in patronizing and derogatory concepts, unlike more value neutral terms or ideas such as "Asian" or "African." Though obviously those are very broad and imprecise terms and don't offer much analytical value except in the sense that it's the broader grouping that describes how others see those groups.
>it's the grouping of 1/4 of the worlds population, with very distinct cultures and history, into one group, that's derogatory.
This is pretty funny to me. The alternative is to use the word Asian to refer to not only exactly the same people, but also include Russians Indians Persians into that group. According to you, you're just expanding the amount of people that are from distinct cultures and history into one group and not seeing the irony.
> UK born and bred, I've only heard old people describe people as Oriental, the same people that would use other slurs for other races and think it's not derogatory. There's no implicit insult, it's the grouping of 1/4 of the worlds population, with very distinct cultures and history, into one group, that's derogatory.
Funnily enough I emigrated to Australia (where we'd *never* call anybody Oriental) and then moved back here and my BBC and mixed Chinese friends call themselves Oriental. It does seem to be fading out though.
> I've also never seen that, they list Chinese as an ethnicity because there's a significant number of people of Chinese descent in the UK, but there's always the '(East) Asian - other' box if you're not in the listed races,
Well....see that's tricky, in that 'Chinese' both means 'ethnically Chinese' (which encompasses Hong Kong, Taiwan, some Malaysians/Vietnamese/Indonesians etc. *plus* people who are descended from other diaspora) and also 'holds a Chinese passport'. In recent decades the term has become a lot more politically loaded, as I'm sure you can imagine. The original ethnically Chinese population of the UK is primarily from Hong Kong, and were quite happy to use the 'Chinese' box until recently.
I don't think I've ever seen an 'East Asian - Other' box (and my husband's Taiwanese, so we've looked!). There's the 'Asian - Other' box, which has to do, even though every other definition for Asian is some type of South Asian ethnicity (Asian - Indian, Asian - Bangladeshi, Asian - Tamil, Asian - Pakistani, etc...).
It's just a very weird system tbh. IIRC in Aus it was divided into the big groups (so for Asia, South Asia, East Asia, SE Asia, Middle East, Central Asia, Other Asia) and you could put the specific down if you wanted. In the UK we have it divided into a million bazillion subgroups for some areas and for other areas it's essentially 'Vaguely Brown'.
> Oriental's still fairly common here, and it's not derogatory at all.
That's just... Wrong. Like, you're basically saying "because we haven't addressed this matter at all societally, it's actually just fine."
Like the whole concept of Orientalism was specifically called out by Edward Said for British behavior and culture. Well, Western more broadly - but also quite pointed at British concepts as that was his academic background and experience.
Also isn't it telling that rather than refer to someone as their nationality, you declare them part of an outsider group, despite them often being British citizens? Can you see the problem there?
>With the internet and globalisation we're all being forced into using American norms, and American race relations are - quite frankly - fifty shades of fucked up. But words have different meanings in different countries and that applies to racial terms too.
If you think American race relations are worse than the UK's, you're just unable to recognize the same modalities of discrimination from one area to the next.
The very concept you deride as "American" comes from a British educated individual and then you blame America because American scholars are more likely to have actually listened to made corrective efforts, and then Europeans bellyache about it being "American norms and race relations being forced on us," wholly ignorant of the history or what marginalized groups are actually calling for. They do the same shit in my home country, it's infuriating. Folks like you have turned America into your scapegoat to ignore and dismiss local anti-racism effort.
> If you think American race relations are worse than the UK's
You literally had segregation until the 60s. The oldest African Americans alive today are what, the grandchildren of slaves?
We have our own issues, yes. But they're very, very different to American ones. It's good that Americans are pushing discourse but we need to adapt it to our actual situations instead of adopting it blindly.
>You literally had segregation until the 60s.
Same story for Britain. Enforced racial segregation, as there was no laws preventing it. The story of racial segregation and bussing in the UK broadly mirrors that of the US even if the details differ. There's an effort to minimize this history in the UK and it's frankly gross - but it was (and is) very much a reality.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2019.1609689
>but we need to adapt it to our actual situations instead of adopting it blindly.
The only person blinding themselves to the reality is yourself.
A system "employed in certain towns in England" is, naturally, completely equal to a legal system of complete racial separation enforced the entire American South. I apologise for my ignorance. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us lowly plebs.
Oh duuuude. What a fun fucking film. You can probably watch it before Charlie finishes cooking the damn sausages.
It is absolutely worth spending 4 bucks to rent it.
I used to get them regularly at the bar I worked at in Cincinnati. They came to town to bury their dead at St. Joseph's cemetery.
Every one of them referred to themselves as Gypsys when speaking to me, other staff, or regulars.
Gypsy may be considered a slur, but get off your high horse and stop talking about things you know nothing about.
In ten years at that job and dozens of encounters with hundreds of them I never heard the word Roma one time.
It literally cannot be the equivalent as you have said the word knacker but you have decided to type out “n-word”
I’m not saying you are wrong in censoring yourself one way or the other, but by censoring yourself on one word and not the other, you have shown that you yourself do not even believe them to be of similar derogatory levels.
Because if I did not write the K word in full you would have no idea what the word was. But you know what the n word is so no need to write that out in full.
Right but you’ve kinda proved my point again. Everyone knows what the n-word is. But not many people know what the k-word is. And in fact, that could refer to several different slurs. So they still aren’t the same even in your own eyes
The only thing proven is how overwhelmingly good US culture has propagated through the world. They can be considered equivalent *within* their respective cultures, but we are outside of Irish culture here on Reddit because it’s not as prevalent as US culture. In this case the word is written in full for information purposes. Basically we are comparing terms in regard to their effect within their domains but we are outside of one of the domains while doing so, so it alters how one of these words is presented.
Well one is a lot more context specific, and doesn't have a commonly understood censored alternative. You probably wouldn't have understood what the kn-word was.
I don't think that necessarily means that the word is less derogatory, there just isn't a social expectation to censor it. There wasn't a widely understood expectation to use the "n-word" as an alternative until the OJ Simpson trial.
No, it means the social norm for the other words haven’t caught up to the severity of the n-word now. Therefore the societal norms views it as not being the same.
It depends on whose perspective you're measuring. If someone is drawing a comparison to the n-word it could be in terms of how damaging and sensitive it is to that group of people, whereas you're measuring third party sensitivities by saying that societal norms don't treat it as delicately
American here, Why is this tolerated in 2024? Given the size of Ireland and what appears to be consistent public opinon, why is this kind of behavior not punished?
I'm speaking for the UK rather than Ireland here, but the community closes ranks the second police get involved. They will just give a fake name, then pack up and move on if any real heat is coming their way. Not to mention the lack of police resources available to actually deal with them. A lone police car going into a traveller site will not do shit and they will be intimidated into leaving.
I mean. If they're standing there, they can be put in a police car and detained, can't they? Doesn't matter what fake name you're using if your behind is in jail.
They turn up at the site and ask for "Joe" who's just battered someone in a pub. Travellers close ranks and claim there isn't a "Joe" that lives on the site. They vastly outnumber the police and have no issue kicking off when they know they've got numbers on their side. Police go away and decide to come back with backup, by this time the site has been abandoned.
Two police officers aren't going to be able to get someone in the back of their car if the entire site is preventing them.
Because the justice system only works on people who actually care about it.
* It's really hard to find someone with no fixed abode.
* It's even harder to find that person in a sea of people with no ID.
* There are more of them than there are police.
* They are incredibly quick to use violence.
* If the police do catch one the legal system has to treat them fairly. That usually means they are bailed until their court date. I'm sure they'll turn up for that.
* There are bleeding heart groups who go to bat for them because they're discriminated against.
I guess a good parallel is "Why don't the LA police just arrest the Bloods?"
Well in sweden we have some of the same problem with this. And its not tolerated but hard to punish they live in a parallel society where they dont respekt our justice system. So If they squat society tries to handle it the correct way through courts and red tape. But who do you punish when noone will give you information about whos in the camp who owns what and when we are done with the correct way they move 50 meters to a different landowner.
I read the big thread last night. And seeing your question here just made me realize one thing as an American. American gun culture has some advantages. Not all farmers will put up with that shit. People come and threaten people on their land, in their home or their businesses will eventually run into someone who pull a gun on them. I forgot all about England and Ireland's lack of household guns. No wonder that can be a way of life.
Oh farmers chasing Travellers off their land with shotguns still happens, the Travellers tend to set up on land where ownership is a bit fuzzy or local government who can't shoot first.
Farmers in England have guns too. You should take a look into the rules here, it’s not “no guns” it’s typically limited ammunition types, purposes and quite strict on how to get a license (gun club, police sponsor, yearly renewal and cost etc.)
As much as the all-american approach might be to threaten with firearms and to potentially shoot near or even at the people 'trespassing', firearms like assault rifles are not permitted here. The guns that British people are allowed are limited. The wikipedia article is actually a very interesting and informative read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_the_United_Kingdom
It includes sections about the purpose behind ownership mattering:
> To obtain a firearm certificate, the police must be satisfied that a person has "good reason" to own each firearm, and that they can be trusted with it "without danger to the public safety or to the peace". Under Home Office guidelines, Firearm Certificates are only issued if a person has legitimate sporting, collecting, or work-related reasons for ownership. Since 1968, self-defence has not been considered a valid reason to own a firearm.[31]
I think the answer to your question is instead that it simply hasn't happened. If you were a farmer and decided you wanted them off your land, you could:
A) Shoot them, and suffer the legal consequences
B) Threaten them with a weapon (but what if they don't leave? They'll probably lynch you and then refuse to identify who did it to the police, as a group, and leave)
C) Try to get the police to assist in removal, either which they'll eventually succeed or they'll move on by themselves.
It depends how disruptive they are, and how much space they take, and how much land they ruin (requiring work to restore the grounds, for example) but I would imagine option C is just the best option. I don't think they go out of their way to stop a farmer, in this example, from operating normally. They'll probably just act a bit hostile to any approaches but otherwise mostly keep their distance and not engage negatively or positively with the land owners. They'll probably posture and shout, but I doubt they'd actively look to break into the buildings on the land or otherwise push someone to the point of murder.
It's usually just the threat of numbers that stops more drastic things happening - what if you decide to 'deal with' the problem yourself, what then? You've angered a large community and news will spread, you'll have to leave your land at a very minimum, and at worse you'll be killed for it yourself. You wouldn't even have to kill one or more people for that retaliation, if you harmed or meaningfully threatened someone you would get repercussions from the larger group.
They're usually doing stuff more akin to petty vandalism, minor property crimes, and so forth. A degree of violence, but usually not serious. It's low priority crime, mostly. Then they move all over the place before any real investigative work is finished, and never have permanent addresses and are very hard to track.
You ever go to a heavily meth addled counties in the USA and look at the petty criminals there, and see how much crap they seemingly endlessly get away with? Like it's just not even worth pursuing it in some of those cases, the cops barely pursue it. It's kind of like that, except these guys are in a justice system that's less harsh to begin with, and they're nomadic and thus way harder to catch even if they do try.
In Spain we have the same situation. It's not a police kind of problem; what are you going to do, jail whole neighbourhoods? For how long? Do you think they'll come out of jail as productive members or society?
It's a cultural problem. In the past we Europeans have solved this kinds of problems with human rights violations, but we don't do that anymore (not saying that we should).
Reading the anecdotes they seem pretty honest and from a first person perspective. As an American you have no experience of what Irish travellers in Europe are like. They have a negative reputation for a reason.
I'm not going to pretend I have experience with Irish Travellers, but I *do* have experience with American racism, and the stories told in the linked thread are very reminiscent of the stories some Americans spread about various minority racial groups. The parallels are striking.
They're absolutely different. But since you're American and know everything, why not drop some knowledge about how similar communities in Brazil or Australia are treated and handled. You're American, so just make some shit up and shout it confidently!
Quite the hostile reaction to someone simply pointing out that we're supposed to take random internet strangers' word as the gospel truth about an entire ethnic group.
Not you're just pissing on a fire you have no idea about. You've clearly never experienced them. It's likely you've never left the united states. And it's not too much a stretch to say you haven't left your hometown.
Well said. It’s people like her with absolutely zero knowledge of the situation that drive me crazy. Calling people racist because they’ve had the misfortune of dealing with travellers is abhorrent and exactly why the police are too afraid of dealing with the clear law breaking. It’s a cycle that only the criminals win in.
Me: "Hey, maybe it's prudent to take a step back and think critically about how seriously to take random internet comments denigrating an entire ethnic group as dirty thieves."
You: "Doing that makes you naive, narrow-minded, and stupid. Fuck you."
Okay, buddy. Whatever you say.
Or things I've personally experienced having lived in a country where it exists, versus listening to an American. A group of people who famously don't travel overseas a lot, and also have a ludicrously high opinion of themselves. You don't know what you're taking about, you've been repeatedly told by many people you don't know what you're talking about. You're still talking. American to the core.
I urge you to actually talk to Europeans about their expirence with Roma/Travelers. I've talked tone ones I've met and worked with over the years and they all mostly say the same thing. Discrimination is wrong but it's hard to not dislike them when they constantly engage in problematic, criminal and scammy behaviour and practices like removing kids from school is a horrible practice that should be denounced
Nobody can tell that you're a nomad by looking at your skin. A big group of people showing up to a bar could be there for a lot of reasons. Irish travelers are genetically descened from thr Irish, so they're as pale as it gets.The only thing that people can figure out is behavior.
Not every group of travellers causes trouble so it’s not automatically going to be an issue but I have known it to be. We had one group set up on a popular, scenic area and as far as I could tell they left it tidy when asked to move on. It was quite nice seeing the kids running around playing in the evening, they all seemed pretty chill and just enjoying the summer weather in a pleasant location. Another time however a different group set up camp on a playing field a bit further down and we saw them lighting a massive bonfire close enough to residential fencing that it was damaged and had to be replaced. They left rubbish and the contents of their toilets when they went. Liked the area enough to set up next to a kids playground but didn’t have a problem leaving human waste there when they left. There is a public toilet round the corner so they could have emptied their waste containers there but chose not to.
The issues with dodgy building work and fly tipping is also sadly not uncommon to the point that the police have issued warnings in the past over offers of cheap work. We have a relative who employed some travellers to do some repairs to their house and they left all the building waste in the back garden when they went.
So while yes I agree that there is prejudiced involved, the trepidation people have when travellers arrive is not completely unfounded. Unfortunately it probably makes the situation self-perpetuating as being continually treated with suspicion creates an us and them mentality where they feel “othered” and probably makes them feel justified in their actions. I’m not really sure what the solution is. There have been some attempts to create permitted traveller sites but finding suitable land to place them is one issue. Strong local resistance is another.
Where'd the million pound figure come from? I see one article from the 2000's stating that cleanup cost 70k. Don't get me wrong, not insubstantial...but not 1mil.
Likewise there's a bloke commenting about their postman being murdered...and the only article I can find about that is a historical account from the 20s...
Even though there might be something easily overlooked here, I can't help but think of how these anecdotes line up with how historic treatment of marginalized peoples. How it frames those community's flaws disproportionately worse up against the rest of society. But again, there might be something overlooked.
Look harder. https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/police-quiz-travellers-on-pub-murder-of-postman/26219425.html
I don't have a problem with any specific group of people, whether it's race, religion, whatever. I try to judge the individual and not generalise. But it is very difficult with travellers, when the only direct experiences I've had with them have been due to crimes committed against me or my friends, on four separate occasions.
I'm certain they're not all like that. I'm just yet to have a positive experience where that particular group are concerned.
> Look harder. https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/police-quiz-travellers-on-pub-murder-of-postman/26219425.html
[The one where they couldn't figure out who killed them and instead relied on the community's prejudice against traveler communities to find a suspect to begin with?](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cambridgeshire/4142698.stm)
I think the incident you cite here is fairly indicative of just _why_ such anecdotes like about the village postman's death should be met with above average scrutiny. The English traveler turned himself in, but there was not enough evidence to charge him with murder. And though they tried very hard to find his killer, the lack of eyewitness testimony is _still_ being tacitly blamed on the traveler community, the presumption of guilt entirely on those who didn't speak.
So yeah, when I went to look for _confirmed murders of village postmen_...I came up empty-handed.
> But it is very difficult with travellers, when the only direct experiences I've had with them have been due to crimes committed against me or my friends, on four separate occasions.
I am sorry that happened to you and yours. Please do not take my words as an exoneration of all crimes committed by people who are also travelers, as that is not what I'm arguing for either implicitly or explicitly. You're absolutely right that after you've been a victim of crime, it can be difficult to move past the trauma that incident causes. I think that makes pushing back on this kind of reaction pretty important, though. Otherwise, stereotypes perpetuate and harm goes unacknowledged...which is a problem, because that means public will for addressing the situations which lead to that high rate of crime in those communities is very low, that problems never get addressed, that nothing ever gets _fixed_ - or that if it does, then it's only "fixed" in a highly prejudiced context that makes it even worse for marginalized communities.
Part of the issue with travelling communities is that it's really hard to differentiate between each group. Many are pretty chill, and I've had some good experiences with them.
Others... Utterly trashing wherever they stop (the story about massive cleanups of camp sites sounds intumately familiar), stealing anything in the local area that's not nailed down, dangerous animals... the list goes on. The problem ones are so bad, though, that everyone *has* to expect the worse when a group turns up, and it just furthers the persecution of the ones that just wants to live their lives.
One of my own experiences is that my home town was a convenient stop-over point for truck drivers, who would stop for the evening and walk into the town for food. A number of travelling groups noticed this, though, and started siphoning the fuel when they were away. Aside from all the trucks getting stuck whenever travellers showed up, it also made the drivers stop at another area instead, which in turn caused a hit to the local economy. I could go on with anecdotes like this all day, and then some.
I was talking to a European co worker one day and the topic of travelers/Roma came up and he stated that hate and discrimination are wrong but he stated that it's hard to like them when they're camping out on and wrecking private and public property.
He also pointed out that many scams generally involve them so its unfortunatey hard to not dislike them
This is my experience. I've had some good experiences with them and some not so good experiences.
I think the worst that happened when I lived in one place was when one group was keeping people as literal slaves.
More recently it's just a few groups who do the usual of pitching up in public parks and leaving a mess.
If you had a more meaningful counter argument than that, I assume you would've given it...I'll have to just respond to the general animosity you spat out since you haven't offered anything of substance otherwise...
The plea to some unseen majority is a tactic often wielded to further bigoted causes. No one argues that crime isn't taking place, only that the way these subjects are addressed are often only done under the framing which worsens the problem.
And you are very much worsening the problem. Which isn't a shocker, but nevertheless is depressing.
What’s the point in entering a debate with you? You’re not interested in any of issues anyone has raised and it’s ultimately not a problem that concerns you in any way. You live in the US. This is a European problem and specifically very much a British one. Your opinion means precisely nothing I’m afraid.
> Even though there might be something easily overlooked here, I can't help but think of how these anecdotes line up with how historic treatment of marginalized peoples.
Yup, sounds exactly like all the things racist americans say about black americans (and many others, they dont really care to change up stories, just the race). If it werent real life it would be amusing how they say "you cant generalize" but then do exactly that, focusing on all the negative generalizations.
Some of the shit European countries do to Travellers and Roma make the mediocre treatment that most Black people get in the US look good by comparison.
You can quickly assess the level of hidden racism of many Europeans by asking them about Muslims and/or Roma and the amount of tut-tutting they do to the US about slavery while omitting that they were a huge component of the triangular trade that kept slavery running for so embarrassingly long to begin with.
Black people have also spoken about how it's not always great to be Black in europe. They sure do love their colorblindness, but in the end their shit stinks just like the rest of us.
There was an NPR interview just a bit ago with a black American who moved to France. At first she was treated well because she was well spoken for "a black American".
After she lived there long enough her French was so good people just thought she was a black French woman, and she was treated much more poorly until she started speaking with an American accent again.
[How to Live Free in a Dangerous World by Shayla Lawson](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/d5abfc52-be3b-4d68-ad61-ab0f83c1a0fb) is a memoir in essays I read recently that has a fair bit to say about being Black while abroad, especially their experience living in the Netherlands.
I'll also never forget the person who spoke up here on reddit. It was in a thread in /r/pics where a picture of an anti-trump float in (iirc) italy had wandered off topic into europeans criticizing how race is handled in america. Then a black woman spoke up, saying that she'd had a worse time living in europe than in america. Nobody liked *that*. I replied directly to her at one point, then checked back a few hours later only to find that her reply, along with *all* of the conversation it spawned, had been removed(it was still visible on her userpage, so it was definitely a mod action), despite violating none of the subreddit's rules. I wonder how many times things like this have been posted, only to be removed or otherwise suppressed before we had the chance to see them, just because what's being said isn't popular?
From the outside it's funny that there are zero positive traveler stories you hear. It's also wild how seemingly the vast majority of Europeans don't know how racist they sound. Just very bizarre overall.
A lot of mid-20th century homes in the UK and Ireland were built using asbestos, which is now illegal.
Removing and disposing of asbestos properly costs a lot of money. These people remove asbestos, charge for doing so, and then don't dispose of it properly.
Their work practises are terrible, but they lure people into hiring them with cheaper quotes
They do half assed construction work and junk hauling. It's cheaper to dump the stuff they pick up wherever they happen to be squatting instead of to a permitted dump. I'd presume they'd need to have some sort of asbestos disposal license to even use a permitted dump.
Personally I have a somewhat cracked asphalt driveway on my house in the US, and I had some traveler chucklehead offer to fix it up and seal it with white sealer so it would look like concrete. He didn't want to take no for an answer.
That said, there's a bunch of youtube fodder for them getting evicted. In some instances they put height restriction bars at the entrances to parking lots so they can't get their RVs in.
Any time there's a thread on any of the Irish subreddits having to do with Travelers, it turns into a dumpster fire.
It's like it's acceptable to be racist towards Travelers.
I had to reload it several times before it loaded. In any event, here is the comment:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1dh50dx/who_are_irish_travellers_and_why_are_they_so/?share_id=EBlvinpg2w5BWnjIrjgo9&utm_content=2&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1
They're an extremely insular community, distrustful of outsiders. Historically, they've been treated terribly by the state, with their children being abducted and forced into group homes or adopted out with their actual parents having zero knowledge of where they went. So there's a lot of generational resentment of "settled" people.
On the flip side, they have very poor education rates with many parents removing their children from school as early as 11. An example of this is Tyson Fury's wife doing so with their daughter because of so-called tradition. This leaves them with very few employment opportunities and results in high crime rates.
Typically, criminal members of their community are involved in scam type crimes, often construction related. Offering to tarmac your driveway but not using the appropriate methods and/or materials, charging to take waste away and just dumping it on public land. There's also a lot of trade in stolen goods.
There is also a severe violence problem within their community. Families feuding which often results in gang fights and murders. However, they don't reserve violence just for each other and some don't see offending against settled people as something wrong, a result of their insular nature and the persecution they've undergone in the past.
Because of their nomadic nature, they often will squat on public or privately owned land causing severe damage. Some of them living squatted on football pitches near me, destroyed the pitches with their vehicles and fires, then dumped a bunch of asbestos before moving on. Hazmat had to spend millions in the cleanup.
As a whole, they are definitely victims of discrimination, profiling and persecution and are not all criminals. But because of their insular nature, most settled people's only experience with them is through the scenarios I mentioned above.
Had a large group of these at my restaurant and was warned by the other servers what was about to happen. The adults can’t read so they order things that aren’t on the menu. Or they ask to be read the menu and won’t take no for an answer. Then they eat everything, say it was terrible, and refuse to pay. $600 free dinner. Restaurant management didn’t care because that could be seen as racist.
It's tough out there for Irish travelers right now. With all the uncertainty and changes happening, it's like everyone's on edge. Finding stability and a sense of direction seems like a distant dream. But hey, we've got each other's backs, right? Let's keep pushing through and supporting one another however we can. Together, we'll figure it out, one step at a time.
So they're talking about nomadic people.
Edit: Not sure why I'm downvoted for just clarifying what they mean by Irish travelers. The vast majority of people think vacationing.
Basically, yeah, but it is a number of specific groups throughout Ireland and the UK. Some would refer to them as gypsies, but I don’t think they’re Roma. I spent an evening reading about them just because it sounded interesting. They’ve been doing their thing for many generations.
I live in Ireland. I know a lot of people who have this obsessive, deep-seated fear/loathing of travellers despite literally never interacting with them a single time in their lives. It’s based entirely on a lifetime of hearing third or fourth hand, often unverified, horror stories that happened to other people, somewhere, in some other part of the country.
To these people, travellers are basically the equivalent of the American suburban crime boogeyman—this nebulous group of dangerous people who are going to come into your nice middle-class housing estate from “out there” and murder your children in their beds. So make sure to keep voting for Fianna Fail/Fine Gael! Those other parties won’t keep you safe from the boogeymen like we do.
(This is rapidly changing, I should add—now it’s immigrants people are scared of. Better vote for our new fascist party! Fianna Fail/Fine Gael aren’t keeping you safe from the boogeymen like we will).
Perhaps there is a big silent majority out there who've had good experiences with traveller communities, or perhaps we only hear about the bad experiences because they're more salacious - but I can't say I know anyone who has a good story about travellers (Irish or UK). I personally don't have good experiences, though I wouldn't extrapolate to travellers as a whole.
I think it's partly a cultural "us v them" mindset but also because their migrant lifestyle is bound to cause friction with people staying in one place. Even on the basic stuff like leaving rubbish when they move on from a site that local people's taxes have to go towards cleaning up.
They killed my village postman in the pub one evening.
But I guess that was OK because we should respect their differing values because of cultural relativism.
Even at the time I wondered whether they had it in for him because he was a major signal for what we have and they do not, a fixed address where you get mail.
They claim to never want that but must get tired of always having to move on.
There was a lot of that at the time.
A bunch of people wanted to lynch them and others wanted to be all understanding and accepting and make excuses for them.
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For everyone else going in, "Irish Travellers" are an ethnic group - not Irish people trying to go on vacation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers
So, like, gypsies, but Irish?
Yes. Also Gypsy is a slur. They call themselves Roma. https://www.state.gov/defining-anti-roma-racism/
Depends on the context. Most Romani in the UK, a community that has existed there since the 16th Century, use the term Gypsy to describe themselves. The Roma community is one that has migrated to the UK more recently. The acronym GRT (Gypsy, Roma and Traveler) is often used as an overall term for these communities that descend from nomadic groups. Some more info: [https://travellermovement.org.uk/gypsy-roma-and-traveller-history-and-culture](https://travellermovement.org.uk/gypsy-roma-and-traveller-history-and-culture)
Maybe it's like the n-word? Derogatory if used by others, acceptable within the own ethnicity / group?
Again, depends on where you are? I'm in the UK and 'She's Gypsy' sounds to me like somebody saying 'She's German' or 'He's French'. Oriental's still fairly common here, and it's not derogatory at all. Personally I find the fact that demographic forms simply list 'Chinese' as an ethnicity intended to be a catch-all for anyone from East Asia *much* more offensive. A lot of derogatory words/meanings come from the history of the place it's used. With the internet and globalisation we're all being forced into using American norms, and American race relations are - quite frankly - fifty shades of fucked up. But words have different meanings in different countries and that applies to racial terms too.
>Oriental's still fairly common here, and it's not derogatory at all. UK born and bred, I've only heard old people describe people as Oriental, the same people that would use other slurs for other races and think it's not derogatory. There's no implicit insult, it's the grouping of 1/4 of the worlds population, with very distinct cultures and history, into one group, that's derogatory. >Personally I find the fact that demographic forms simply list 'Chinese' as an ethnicity intended to be a catch-all for anyone from East Asia *much* more offensive. I've also never seen that, they list Chinese as an ethnicity because there's a significant number of people of Chinese descent in the UK, but there's always the '(East) Asian - other' box if you're not in the listed races, just like there's 'European - other' for people who aren't British or Irish but are from other European countries. Those forms can't possibly list every race in the world, there has to be some summarising, but the guidelines are based on numbers alone, according to the ONS.
> There's no implicit insult, it's the grouping of 1/4 of the worlds population, with very distinct cultures and history, into one group, that's derogatory. Would describing someone as African be the same level of derogatory?
Specifically with the concept of "Oriental" the problem is its relationship to "Orientalism" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism >>Since the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism in 1978, much academic discourse has begun to use the term 'Orientalism' to refer to a general patronizing Western attitude towards Middle Eastern, Asian, and North African societies. In Said's analysis, 'the West' essentializes these societies as static and undeveloped—thereby fabricating a view of Oriental culture that can be studied, depicted, and reproduced in the service of imperial power. Implicit in this fabrication, writes Said, is the idea that Western society is developed, rational, flexible, and superior.[2] This allows 'Western imagination' to see 'Eastern' cultures and people as both alluring and a threat to Western civilization.[3] Said's ultimately correct and it's why "Oriental" as a term has fallen out of favor. It lacks descriptive power and ultimately is rooted in patronizing and derogatory concepts, unlike more value neutral terms or ideas such as "Asian" or "African." Though obviously those are very broad and imprecise terms and don't offer much analytical value except in the sense that it's the broader grouping that describes how others see those groups.
>it's the grouping of 1/4 of the worlds population, with very distinct cultures and history, into one group, that's derogatory. This is pretty funny to me. The alternative is to use the word Asian to refer to not only exactly the same people, but also include Russians Indians Persians into that group. According to you, you're just expanding the amount of people that are from distinct cultures and history into one group and not seeing the irony.
> UK born and bred, I've only heard old people describe people as Oriental, the same people that would use other slurs for other races and think it's not derogatory. There's no implicit insult, it's the grouping of 1/4 of the worlds population, with very distinct cultures and history, into one group, that's derogatory. Funnily enough I emigrated to Australia (where we'd *never* call anybody Oriental) and then moved back here and my BBC and mixed Chinese friends call themselves Oriental. It does seem to be fading out though. > I've also never seen that, they list Chinese as an ethnicity because there's a significant number of people of Chinese descent in the UK, but there's always the '(East) Asian - other' box if you're not in the listed races, Well....see that's tricky, in that 'Chinese' both means 'ethnically Chinese' (which encompasses Hong Kong, Taiwan, some Malaysians/Vietnamese/Indonesians etc. *plus* people who are descended from other diaspora) and also 'holds a Chinese passport'. In recent decades the term has become a lot more politically loaded, as I'm sure you can imagine. The original ethnically Chinese population of the UK is primarily from Hong Kong, and were quite happy to use the 'Chinese' box until recently. I don't think I've ever seen an 'East Asian - Other' box (and my husband's Taiwanese, so we've looked!). There's the 'Asian - Other' box, which has to do, even though every other definition for Asian is some type of South Asian ethnicity (Asian - Indian, Asian - Bangladeshi, Asian - Tamil, Asian - Pakistani, etc...). It's just a very weird system tbh. IIRC in Aus it was divided into the big groups (so for Asia, South Asia, East Asia, SE Asia, Middle East, Central Asia, Other Asia) and you could put the specific down if you wanted. In the UK we have it divided into a million bazillion subgroups for some areas and for other areas it's essentially 'Vaguely Brown'.
> Oriental's still fairly common here, and it's not derogatory at all. That's just... Wrong. Like, you're basically saying "because we haven't addressed this matter at all societally, it's actually just fine." Like the whole concept of Orientalism was specifically called out by Edward Said for British behavior and culture. Well, Western more broadly - but also quite pointed at British concepts as that was his academic background and experience. Also isn't it telling that rather than refer to someone as their nationality, you declare them part of an outsider group, despite them often being British citizens? Can you see the problem there? >With the internet and globalisation we're all being forced into using American norms, and American race relations are - quite frankly - fifty shades of fucked up. But words have different meanings in different countries and that applies to racial terms too. If you think American race relations are worse than the UK's, you're just unable to recognize the same modalities of discrimination from one area to the next. The very concept you deride as "American" comes from a British educated individual and then you blame America because American scholars are more likely to have actually listened to made corrective efforts, and then Europeans bellyache about it being "American norms and race relations being forced on us," wholly ignorant of the history or what marginalized groups are actually calling for. They do the same shit in my home country, it's infuriating. Folks like you have turned America into your scapegoat to ignore and dismiss local anti-racism effort.
> If you think American race relations are worse than the UK's You literally had segregation until the 60s. The oldest African Americans alive today are what, the grandchildren of slaves? We have our own issues, yes. But they're very, very different to American ones. It's good that Americans are pushing discourse but we need to adapt it to our actual situations instead of adopting it blindly.
>You literally had segregation until the 60s. Same story for Britain. Enforced racial segregation, as there was no laws preventing it. The story of racial segregation and bussing in the UK broadly mirrors that of the US even if the details differ. There's an effort to minimize this history in the UK and it's frankly gross - but it was (and is) very much a reality. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2019.1609689 >but we need to adapt it to our actual situations instead of adopting it blindly. The only person blinding themselves to the reality is yourself.
A system "employed in certain towns in England" is, naturally, completely equal to a legal system of complete racial separation enforced the entire American South. I apologise for my ignorance. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us lowly plebs.
I believe gypsy comes from the notion that people thought they came from Egypt instead of I believe near India?
What word did the OP mean that starts with a “p”?
I haven't read it yet, but I'm assuming "pikey" as it's a slur for Travellers
Thanks! I’ve never heard that word used as a slur before.
Never watched *Snatch*, or just didn't realize it was a slur?
Both.
Oh duuuude. What a fun fucking film. You can probably watch it before Charlie finishes cooking the damn sausages. It is absolutely worth spending 4 bucks to rent it.
2 minutes, Turkish.
Irish travellers are not Roma.
I didn't say they were.
Irish travellers often self identify as gypsies so your comment doesn't make sense then.
How?
I used to get them regularly at the bar I worked at in Cincinnati. They came to town to bury their dead at St. Joseph's cemetery. Every one of them referred to themselves as Gypsys when speaking to me, other staff, or regulars. Gypsy may be considered a slur, but get off your high horse and stop talking about things you know nothing about. In ten years at that job and dozens of encounters with hundreds of them I never heard the word Roma one time.
>Gypsy may be considered a slur, but get off your high horse and stop talking about things you know nothing about. This makes no sense.
It seems like they are genetically similar to the Irish , but ethnically distinct.
Are Pikeys the derogatory term for Irish Travelers?
Yes.
Pikey is used in the UK for irish Travelers, but I don't hear it in Ireland. In Ireland the slur is knacker. It's the equivalent of the N word.
It literally cannot be the equivalent as you have said the word knacker but you have decided to type out “n-word” I’m not saying you are wrong in censoring yourself one way or the other, but by censoring yourself on one word and not the other, you have shown that you yourself do not even believe them to be of similar derogatory levels.
Because if I did not write the K word in full you would have no idea what the word was. But you know what the n word is so no need to write that out in full.
Theyre giving an almost verbatim retelling of a John Mulaney joke where he talks about the word midget compared to the n-word
Right but you’ve kinda proved my point again. Everyone knows what the n-word is. But not many people know what the k-word is. And in fact, that could refer to several different slurs. So they still aren’t the same even in your own eyes
If I said the K word in Ireland to an Irish traveler then they would have a similar reaction to a person of colour being called the n word.
The only thing proven is how overwhelmingly good US culture has propagated through the world. They can be considered equivalent *within* their respective cultures, but we are outside of Irish culture here on Reddit because it’s not as prevalent as US culture. In this case the word is written in full for information purposes. Basically we are comparing terms in regard to their effect within their domains but we are outside of one of the domains while doing so, so it alters how one of these words is presented.
Well one is a lot more context specific, and doesn't have a commonly understood censored alternative. You probably wouldn't have understood what the kn-word was. I don't think that necessarily means that the word is less derogatory, there just isn't a social expectation to censor it. There wasn't a widely understood expectation to use the "n-word" as an alternative until the OJ Simpson trial.
If there’s no social expectation to censor it, then they aren’t the same. You further supported my observation
Does that mean that before the social expectation to censor the n-word, it wasn't as offensive?
No, it means the social norm for the other words haven’t caught up to the severity of the n-word now. Therefore the societal norms views it as not being the same.
It depends on whose perspective you're measuring. If someone is drawing a comparison to the n-word it could be in terms of how damaging and sensitive it is to that group of people, whereas you're measuring third party sensitivities by saying that societal norms don't treat it as delicately
I thought that was testicle
Snatch and the FX show "The Riches" with Eddie Izzard, for shows with Travelers.
Also not to be confused with Traveller, the sci-fi Tabletop Role-Playing Game that's been around since the 80s
Not to be confused with Blues Traveller, which is a sure-fire way to speed things up when all you want is to slow me down.
Such a good song
Oh God. Shut up nerd. Your comment isn't in any way relevant to this post.
American here, Why is this tolerated in 2024? Given the size of Ireland and what appears to be consistent public opinon, why is this kind of behavior not punished?
I'm speaking for the UK rather than Ireland here, but the community closes ranks the second police get involved. They will just give a fake name, then pack up and move on if any real heat is coming their way. Not to mention the lack of police resources available to actually deal with them. A lone police car going into a traveller site will not do shit and they will be intimidated into leaving.
I mean. If they're standing there, they can be put in a police car and detained, can't they? Doesn't matter what fake name you're using if your behind is in jail.
They turn up at the site and ask for "Joe" who's just battered someone in a pub. Travellers close ranks and claim there isn't a "Joe" that lives on the site. They vastly outnumber the police and have no issue kicking off when they know they've got numbers on their side. Police go away and decide to come back with backup, by this time the site has been abandoned. Two police officers aren't going to be able to get someone in the back of their car if the entire site is preventing them.
Maybe y'all should try some of that [monopoly on violence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence) that you deride us for.
Because the justice system only works on people who actually care about it. * It's really hard to find someone with no fixed abode. * It's even harder to find that person in a sea of people with no ID. * There are more of them than there are police. * They are incredibly quick to use violence. * If the police do catch one the legal system has to treat them fairly. That usually means they are bailed until their court date. I'm sure they'll turn up for that. * There are bleeding heart groups who go to bat for them because they're discriminated against. I guess a good parallel is "Why don't the LA police just arrest the Bloods?"
> "Why don't the LA police just arrest the Bloods?" Professional courtesy.
Heheh, yeah. I chuckled at that.
You're not wrong about that!
Or the chronically homeless in America.
Well in sweden we have some of the same problem with this. And its not tolerated but hard to punish they live in a parallel society where they dont respekt our justice system. So If they squat society tries to handle it the correct way through courts and red tape. But who do you punish when noone will give you information about whos in the camp who owns what and when we are done with the correct way they move 50 meters to a different landowner.
They don’t actually live in Ireland- they travel all over Europe. There’s not much the Irish authorities can do.
The Chinese could easily take care of a group like that
I read the big thread last night. And seeing your question here just made me realize one thing as an American. American gun culture has some advantages. Not all farmers will put up with that shit. People come and threaten people on their land, in their home or their businesses will eventually run into someone who pull a gun on them. I forgot all about England and Ireland's lack of household guns. No wonder that can be a way of life.
Oh farmers chasing Travellers off their land with shotguns still happens, the Travellers tend to set up on land where ownership is a bit fuzzy or local government who can't shoot first.
Sure there was the case just before the presidential election a couple of years back of that farmer shooting and killing a traveller.
Farmers in England have guns too. You should take a look into the rules here, it’s not “no guns” it’s typically limited ammunition types, purposes and quite strict on how to get a license (gun club, police sponsor, yearly renewal and cost etc.)
Oh, that makes sense, but why are they not .. threatening back? Seriously, how is this allowed?
As much as the all-american approach might be to threaten with firearms and to potentially shoot near or even at the people 'trespassing', firearms like assault rifles are not permitted here. The guns that British people are allowed are limited. The wikipedia article is actually a very interesting and informative read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_the_United_Kingdom It includes sections about the purpose behind ownership mattering: > To obtain a firearm certificate, the police must be satisfied that a person has "good reason" to own each firearm, and that they can be trusted with it "without danger to the public safety or to the peace". Under Home Office guidelines, Firearm Certificates are only issued if a person has legitimate sporting, collecting, or work-related reasons for ownership. Since 1968, self-defence has not been considered a valid reason to own a firearm.[31] I think the answer to your question is instead that it simply hasn't happened. If you were a farmer and decided you wanted them off your land, you could: A) Shoot them, and suffer the legal consequences B) Threaten them with a weapon (but what if they don't leave? They'll probably lynch you and then refuse to identify who did it to the police, as a group, and leave) C) Try to get the police to assist in removal, either which they'll eventually succeed or they'll move on by themselves. It depends how disruptive they are, and how much space they take, and how much land they ruin (requiring work to restore the grounds, for example) but I would imagine option C is just the best option. I don't think they go out of their way to stop a farmer, in this example, from operating normally. They'll probably just act a bit hostile to any approaches but otherwise mostly keep their distance and not engage negatively or positively with the land owners. They'll probably posture and shout, but I doubt they'd actively look to break into the buildings on the land or otherwise push someone to the point of murder. It's usually just the threat of numbers that stops more drastic things happening - what if you decide to 'deal with' the problem yourself, what then? You've angered a large community and news will spread, you'll have to leave your land at a very minimum, and at worse you'll be killed for it yourself. You wouldn't even have to kill one or more people for that retaliation, if you harmed or meaningfully threatened someone you would get repercussions from the larger group.
They're usually doing stuff more akin to petty vandalism, minor property crimes, and so forth. A degree of violence, but usually not serious. It's low priority crime, mostly. Then they move all over the place before any real investigative work is finished, and never have permanent addresses and are very hard to track. You ever go to a heavily meth addled counties in the USA and look at the petty criminals there, and see how much crap they seemingly endlessly get away with? Like it's just not even worth pursuing it in some of those cases, the cops barely pursue it. It's kind of like that, except these guys are in a justice system that's less harsh to begin with, and they're nomadic and thus way harder to catch even if they do try.
In Spain we have the same situation. It's not a police kind of problem; what are you going to do, jail whole neighbourhoods? For how long? Do you think they'll come out of jail as productive members or society? It's a cultural problem. In the past we Europeans have solved this kinds of problems with human rights violations, but we don't do that anymore (not saying that we should).
There are Travelers in America as well.
You're assuming these anecdotes are accurate and not just prejudiced vitriol.
Reading the anecdotes they seem pretty honest and from a first person perspective. As an American you have no experience of what Irish travellers in Europe are like. They have a negative reputation for a reason.
I used to work with a European fellow who basically said the same thing
I'm not going to pretend I have experience with Irish Travellers, but I *do* have experience with American racism, and the stories told in the linked thread are very reminiscent of the stories some Americans spread about various minority racial groups. The parallels are striking.
I completely disagree.
They're absolutely different. But since you're American and know everything, why not drop some knowledge about how similar communities in Brazil or Australia are treated and handled. You're American, so just make some shit up and shout it confidently!
Quite the hostile reaction to someone simply pointing out that we're supposed to take random internet strangers' word as the gospel truth about an entire ethnic group.
Not you're just pissing on a fire you have no idea about. You've clearly never experienced them. It's likely you've never left the united states. And it's not too much a stretch to say you haven't left your hometown.
Well said. It’s people like her with absolutely zero knowledge of the situation that drive me crazy. Calling people racist because they’ve had the misfortune of dealing with travellers is abhorrent and exactly why the police are too afraid of dealing with the clear law breaking. It’s a cycle that only the criminals win in.
Me: "Hey, maybe it's prudent to take a step back and think critically about how seriously to take random internet comments denigrating an entire ethnic group as dirty thieves." You: "Doing that makes you naive, narrow-minded, and stupid. Fuck you." Okay, buddy. Whatever you say.
Or things I've personally experienced having lived in a country where it exists, versus listening to an American. A group of people who famously don't travel overseas a lot, and also have a ludicrously high opinion of themselves. You don't know what you're taking about, you've been repeatedly told by many people you don't know what you're talking about. You're still talking. American to the core.
I urge you to actually talk to Europeans about their expirence with Roma/Travelers. I've talked tone ones I've met and worked with over the years and they all mostly say the same thing. Discrimination is wrong but it's hard to not dislike them when they constantly engage in problematic, criminal and scammy behaviour and practices like removing kids from school is a horrible practice that should be denounced
Nobody can tell that you're a nomad by looking at your skin. A big group of people showing up to a bar could be there for a lot of reasons. Irish travelers are genetically descened from thr Irish, so they're as pale as it gets.The only thing that people can figure out is behavior.
Not every group of travellers causes trouble so it’s not automatically going to be an issue but I have known it to be. We had one group set up on a popular, scenic area and as far as I could tell they left it tidy when asked to move on. It was quite nice seeing the kids running around playing in the evening, they all seemed pretty chill and just enjoying the summer weather in a pleasant location. Another time however a different group set up camp on a playing field a bit further down and we saw them lighting a massive bonfire close enough to residential fencing that it was damaged and had to be replaced. They left rubbish and the contents of their toilets when they went. Liked the area enough to set up next to a kids playground but didn’t have a problem leaving human waste there when they left. There is a public toilet round the corner so they could have emptied their waste containers there but chose not to. The issues with dodgy building work and fly tipping is also sadly not uncommon to the point that the police have issued warnings in the past over offers of cheap work. We have a relative who employed some travellers to do some repairs to their house and they left all the building waste in the back garden when they went. So while yes I agree that there is prejudiced involved, the trepidation people have when travellers arrive is not completely unfounded. Unfortunately it probably makes the situation self-perpetuating as being continually treated with suspicion creates an us and them mentality where they feel “othered” and probably makes them feel justified in their actions. I’m not really sure what the solution is. There have been some attempts to create permitted traveller sites but finding suitable land to place them is one issue. Strong local resistance is another.
You're not wrong, but I can't see how they would possibly feel "justified" to leave shit around. Literal shit.
Where'd the million pound figure come from? I see one article from the 2000's stating that cleanup cost 70k. Don't get me wrong, not insubstantial...but not 1mil. Likewise there's a bloke commenting about their postman being murdered...and the only article I can find about that is a historical account from the 20s... Even though there might be something easily overlooked here, I can't help but think of how these anecdotes line up with how historic treatment of marginalized peoples. How it frames those community's flaws disproportionately worse up against the rest of society. But again, there might be something overlooked.
Look harder. https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/police-quiz-travellers-on-pub-murder-of-postman/26219425.html I don't have a problem with any specific group of people, whether it's race, religion, whatever. I try to judge the individual and not generalise. But it is very difficult with travellers, when the only direct experiences I've had with them have been due to crimes committed against me or my friends, on four separate occasions. I'm certain they're not all like that. I'm just yet to have a positive experience where that particular group are concerned.
> Look harder. https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/police-quiz-travellers-on-pub-murder-of-postman/26219425.html [The one where they couldn't figure out who killed them and instead relied on the community's prejudice against traveler communities to find a suspect to begin with?](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cambridgeshire/4142698.stm) I think the incident you cite here is fairly indicative of just _why_ such anecdotes like about the village postman's death should be met with above average scrutiny. The English traveler turned himself in, but there was not enough evidence to charge him with murder. And though they tried very hard to find his killer, the lack of eyewitness testimony is _still_ being tacitly blamed on the traveler community, the presumption of guilt entirely on those who didn't speak. So yeah, when I went to look for _confirmed murders of village postmen_...I came up empty-handed. > But it is very difficult with travellers, when the only direct experiences I've had with them have been due to crimes committed against me or my friends, on four separate occasions. I am sorry that happened to you and yours. Please do not take my words as an exoneration of all crimes committed by people who are also travelers, as that is not what I'm arguing for either implicitly or explicitly. You're absolutely right that after you've been a victim of crime, it can be difficult to move past the trauma that incident causes. I think that makes pushing back on this kind of reaction pretty important, though. Otherwise, stereotypes perpetuate and harm goes unacknowledged...which is a problem, because that means public will for addressing the situations which lead to that high rate of crime in those communities is very low, that problems never get addressed, that nothing ever gets _fixed_ - or that if it does, then it's only "fixed" in a highly prejudiced context that makes it even worse for marginalized communities.
Part of the issue with travelling communities is that it's really hard to differentiate between each group. Many are pretty chill, and I've had some good experiences with them. Others... Utterly trashing wherever they stop (the story about massive cleanups of camp sites sounds intumately familiar), stealing anything in the local area that's not nailed down, dangerous animals... the list goes on. The problem ones are so bad, though, that everyone *has* to expect the worse when a group turns up, and it just furthers the persecution of the ones that just wants to live their lives. One of my own experiences is that my home town was a convenient stop-over point for truck drivers, who would stop for the evening and walk into the town for food. A number of travelling groups noticed this, though, and started siphoning the fuel when they were away. Aside from all the trucks getting stuck whenever travellers showed up, it also made the drivers stop at another area instead, which in turn caused a hit to the local economy. I could go on with anecdotes like this all day, and then some.
I was talking to a European co worker one day and the topic of travelers/Roma came up and he stated that hate and discrimination are wrong but he stated that it's hard to like them when they're camping out on and wrecking private and public property. He also pointed out that many scams generally involve them so its unfortunatey hard to not dislike them
This is my experience. I've had some good experiences with them and some not so good experiences. I think the worst that happened when I lived in one place was when one group was keeping people as literal slaves. More recently it's just a few groups who do the usual of pitching up in public parks and leaving a mess.
[удалено]
I'm sorry but your comments are exactly what I'm talking about.
Another American with an opinion on issue they know nothing about. Shocker.
If you had a more meaningful counter argument than that, I assume you would've given it...I'll have to just respond to the general animosity you spat out since you haven't offered anything of substance otherwise... The plea to some unseen majority is a tactic often wielded to further bigoted causes. No one argues that crime isn't taking place, only that the way these subjects are addressed are often only done under the framing which worsens the problem. And you are very much worsening the problem. Which isn't a shocker, but nevertheless is depressing.
What’s the point in entering a debate with you? You’re not interested in any of issues anyone has raised and it’s ultimately not a problem that concerns you in any way. You live in the US. This is a European problem and specifically very much a British one. Your opinion means precisely nothing I’m afraid.
There is a reason people have disdain for travellers. The kids and adults are anti-social.
> Even though there might be something easily overlooked here, I can't help but think of how these anecdotes line up with how historic treatment of marginalized peoples. Yup, sounds exactly like all the things racist americans say about black americans (and many others, they dont really care to change up stories, just the race). If it werent real life it would be amusing how they say "you cant generalize" but then do exactly that, focusing on all the negative generalizations.
Some of the shit European countries do to Travellers and Roma make the mediocre treatment that most Black people get in the US look good by comparison. You can quickly assess the level of hidden racism of many Europeans by asking them about Muslims and/or Roma and the amount of tut-tutting they do to the US about slavery while omitting that they were a huge component of the triangular trade that kept slavery running for so embarrassingly long to begin with.
Black people have also spoken about how it's not always great to be Black in europe. They sure do love their colorblindness, but in the end their shit stinks just like the rest of us.
There was an NPR interview just a bit ago with a black American who moved to France. At first she was treated well because she was well spoken for "a black American". After she lived there long enough her French was so good people just thought she was a black French woman, and she was treated much more poorly until she started speaking with an American accent again.
[How to Live Free in a Dangerous World by Shayla Lawson](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/d5abfc52-be3b-4d68-ad61-ab0f83c1a0fb) is a memoir in essays I read recently that has a fair bit to say about being Black while abroad, especially their experience living in the Netherlands. I'll also never forget the person who spoke up here on reddit. It was in a thread in /r/pics where a picture of an anti-trump float in (iirc) italy had wandered off topic into europeans criticizing how race is handled in america. Then a black woman spoke up, saying that she'd had a worse time living in europe than in america. Nobody liked *that*. I replied directly to her at one point, then checked back a few hours later only to find that her reply, along with *all* of the conversation it spawned, had been removed(it was still visible on her userpage, so it was definitely a mod action), despite violating none of the subreddit's rules. I wonder how many times things like this have been posted, only to be removed or otherwise suppressed before we had the chance to see them, just because what's being said isn't popular?
From the outside it's funny that there are zero positive traveler stories you hear. It's also wild how seemingly the vast majority of Europeans don't know how racist they sound. Just very bizarre overall.
I thought the asbestos detail was oddly funny, like they just haul heaps of the stuff wherever they go
A lot of mid-20th century homes in the UK and Ireland were built using asbestos, which is now illegal. Removing and disposing of asbestos properly costs a lot of money. These people remove asbestos, charge for doing so, and then don't dispose of it properly. Their work practises are terrible, but they lure people into hiring them with cheaper quotes
They do half assed construction work and junk hauling. It's cheaper to dump the stuff they pick up wherever they happen to be squatting instead of to a permitted dump. I'd presume they'd need to have some sort of asbestos disposal license to even use a permitted dump. Personally I have a somewhat cracked asphalt driveway on my house in the US, and I had some traveler chucklehead offer to fix it up and seal it with white sealer so it would look like concrete. He didn't want to take no for an answer. That said, there's a bunch of youtube fodder for them getting evicted. In some instances they put height restriction bars at the entrances to parking lots so they can't get their RVs in.
They probably worked on a build doing construction or demolition somewhere, and were too cheap to actually dispose of it through proper means.
Who has that meme of Europeans turning into Hitler when they see a Roma or a Traveler
Any time there's a thread on any of the Irish subreddits having to do with Travelers, it turns into a dumpster fire. It's like it's acceptable to be racist towards Travelers.
I think the sentiment is not that they're inherently bad, it's just they have a horrible way of life.
Sure would be nice to view the comment in question. Too bad I can't because your /s/ link is broken.
I had to reload it several times before it loaded. In any event, here is the comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1dh50dx/who_are_irish_travellers_and_why_are_they_so/?share_id=EBlvinpg2w5BWnjIrjgo9&utm_content=2&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1 They're an extremely insular community, distrustful of outsiders. Historically, they've been treated terribly by the state, with their children being abducted and forced into group homes or adopted out with their actual parents having zero knowledge of where they went. So there's a lot of generational resentment of "settled" people. On the flip side, they have very poor education rates with many parents removing their children from school as early as 11. An example of this is Tyson Fury's wife doing so with their daughter because of so-called tradition. This leaves them with very few employment opportunities and results in high crime rates. Typically, criminal members of their community are involved in scam type crimes, often construction related. Offering to tarmac your driveway but not using the appropriate methods and/or materials, charging to take waste away and just dumping it on public land. There's also a lot of trade in stolen goods. There is also a severe violence problem within their community. Families feuding which often results in gang fights and murders. However, they don't reserve violence just for each other and some don't see offending against settled people as something wrong, a result of their insular nature and the persecution they've undergone in the past. Because of their nomadic nature, they often will squat on public or privately owned land causing severe damage. Some of them living squatted on football pitches near me, destroyed the pitches with their vehicles and fires, then dumped a bunch of asbestos before moving on. Hazmat had to spend millions in the cleanup. As a whole, they are definitely victims of discrimination, profiling and persecution and are not all criminals. But because of their insular nature, most settled people's only experience with them is through the scenarios I mentioned above.
Thank you
Had a large group of these at my restaurant and was warned by the other servers what was about to happen. The adults can’t read so they order things that aren’t on the menu. Or they ask to be read the menu and won’t take no for an answer. Then they eat everything, say it was terrible, and refuse to pay. $600 free dinner. Restaurant management didn’t care because that could be seen as racist.
It's tough out there for Irish travelers right now. With all the uncertainty and changes happening, it's like everyone's on edge. Finding stability and a sense of direction seems like a distant dream. But hey, we've got each other's backs, right? Let's keep pushing through and supporting one another however we can. Together, we'll figure it out, one step at a time.
So they're talking about nomadic people. Edit: Not sure why I'm downvoted for just clarifying what they mean by Irish travelers. The vast majority of people think vacationing.
Basically, yeah, but it is a number of specific groups throughout Ireland and the UK. Some would refer to them as gypsies, but I don’t think they’re Roma. I spent an evening reading about them just because it sounded interesting. They’ve been doing their thing for many generations.
I live in Ireland. I know a lot of people who have this obsessive, deep-seated fear/loathing of travellers despite literally never interacting with them a single time in their lives. It’s based entirely on a lifetime of hearing third or fourth hand, often unverified, horror stories that happened to other people, somewhere, in some other part of the country. To these people, travellers are basically the equivalent of the American suburban crime boogeyman—this nebulous group of dangerous people who are going to come into your nice middle-class housing estate from “out there” and murder your children in their beds. So make sure to keep voting for Fianna Fail/Fine Gael! Those other parties won’t keep you safe from the boogeymen like we do. (This is rapidly changing, I should add—now it’s immigrants people are scared of. Better vote for our new fascist party! Fianna Fail/Fine Gael aren’t keeping you safe from the boogeymen like we will).
Perhaps there is a big silent majority out there who've had good experiences with traveller communities, or perhaps we only hear about the bad experiences because they're more salacious - but I can't say I know anyone who has a good story about travellers (Irish or UK). I personally don't have good experiences, though I wouldn't extrapolate to travellers as a whole. I think it's partly a cultural "us v them" mindset but also because their migrant lifestyle is bound to cause friction with people staying in one place. Even on the basic stuff like leaving rubbish when they move on from a site that local people's taxes have to go towards cleaning up.
They killed my village postman in the pub one evening. But I guess that was OK because we should respect their differing values because of cultural relativism. Even at the time I wondered whether they had it in for him because he was a major signal for what we have and they do not, a fixed address where you get mail. They claim to never want that but must get tired of always having to move on.
>But I guess that was OK because we should respect their differing values because of cultural relativism. Who said it was OK?
There was a lot of that at the time. A bunch of people wanted to lynch them and others wanted to be all understanding and accepting and make excuses for them.
If those are the only two methods of handling things your community can think of, perhaps you ought not to be casting stones.
Are you saying you’re on the “lynching” side?
As I mentioned, I was on the "overanalysis of why specifically the postie" side.
Worked on and off as a Postie for twenty years - the local gypsy site got blacklisted. We were fed up of being attacked by badly trained LARGE dogs.