racism alive and well

Hey, everyone seems so offended at being called a bigot! that's hilarious, seeing as you all seem to think it's fine to cast aspersions on the travelling community as much as you want, and that's no problem... not nice, is it, to be bunched off like that.

And the "chip" I have on my shoulder comes from growing up in this country, where everyone is friendly to foreigners but if you're irish, they have a problem with your percieved class, creed, origins, politics, whatever. There's only 4 million people in this country, yet there's more reasons to spit on your brother man than in most continents, it's hilarious.

...but that being so, I wouldn't call dodging work to post a bunch of crap on the internet a "chip": I'm simply unwilling to allow people to make smug remarks about other peoples' hygiene, public conduct and general appearance without asking them to first look at themselves.

Muffen, thank you very much for the objectivity: it's an unfortunate thing that we often refuse to look at ourselves and cannot see the travellers as anything other than objects of hassle.

Now, SheroN:

"The start fights in pubs, the litter the country side, they pay no tax. Basically there is one law for them and one law for the settled man. Now I know alot of settled people do many of these things too, but the numbers of people carrying out these practices (in my opinion) are far higher among the travelling community than that of the settled community."

That's charming. You sound like Ariel SheroN, talking about the uncivilised palestinians. Or An asutralian bigot explaining why he doesn't want "abbos" near his kids. Or someone in the US who's just had some black people move into his area.

And by the way, your "vast" (LMAO) experience is similar to mine (though at the age of 31, I would hesitate to call my experience of ANYTHING "vast", haha) - I have had bad experiences with travellers too - for the 329th time: So what? That gives me no right to make proclamations.

(and also: in your "experience" they pay no tax? How do you know? Are you an accountant for a traveller family or something? And while I'm at it, how do you know they start fights? have they started them with you?)

You just don't get it: when a community is marginalised and treated like they are a problem, as the travellers are, as many, many cultures are, they no longer give a **** about anything. The low standards of public behaviour that Muffen points out among ALL irish people are a hangover from a time when we were ALL marginalised and made to feel like we were nothing more than a pack of drunken louts, incapable of running our own country (ahem...)

You realise that you, and all your other mates here, all sound like a 'punch' editorial about the drunken irish from 1888 or something? Your unwillingness to make allowances for and understand a marginalised people who, IMHO, have every right to treat us with contempt*, is victorian, draconian, a joke, in short.

So, as amp asked above, what is your solution to what you see as such a huge problem? (and amp also asked that people stop generalising without backup, but hey, you don't read my posts so why read his?)

Any ideas? Concentration camps? Special police? Sterilisation? I suppose it's all "PC" of me to suggest these things, hmm?



*IMHO, the contempt we get from travellers comes from:

1) the contempt we treat them with
2) the way we think we have the right to impose our mode of living on them
3) the difference between what we think is acceptable and what they think is acceptable
4) stupidity and arrogance on BOTH sides of the equation.