Socially Accepted Racism

Do you think that a group or community can be negatively perceived by the general public because of the behaviour of a vocal and combative minority?

Similar to how the native Americans are treated in Canada.

You can talk to the most progressive liberal imaginable, or so you think, up until the subject turns to the natives.

Scary thing is, had Hitler just targeted the gypsies rather than the jews, he'd probably be worshipped in half of Europe.

So the other day, in the midst of a debate about discrimination against one particular group, a Labour MP gets up and says: “Does my honourable friend accept that the public view of the community will continue to be shaped by the appalling behaviour of the minority, who bring absolute chaos to their own communities?”

I'm sure we know that if he'd said it about Jews or Black people, he'd (quite rightly) be out before he even finished speaking. If the debate had been about Muslims, or Asians, or to a lesser extent Poles or Romanians, maybe a couple of Express or Mail columnists, or some obscure minor UKIP MEP, might have stood up for him and made the typical moans about "political correctness", but without a doubt it would still (again, quite rightly) be denounced by all the major parties and thrown out. Gay or Trans people? Would immediately (for good reason) be taken as proof by LGBT groups that British society still has a serious homophobia/transphobia problem.

But instead he said it about gypsies, so that means it's all fine, right? No need for Labour to descend into bitter internal war for years over antiziganism (unlike the hairtrigger response to anything possibly construable as antisemitic), just like there was no need for the Tories to take any action when one of their MPs called gypsies "scum" who "do not deserve the same human rights as my decent constituents".

Similar to how the native Americans are treated in Canada.

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Gypsies generally (outside the UK) refers to the Roma gypsies, a long-standing ethnic minority in Europe who originated from around India. The treatment of those kind of gypsies is far worse than what the Irish gypsies suffer.

"East European gypsies" - that is one way to trigger an eastern European

Oh yeah, you're right. I think I missed OP's angle.

I'm sure we know that if he'd said it about Jews or Black people, he'd (quite rightly) be out before he even finished speaking.

I myself feel that the Roma are one of the most persecuted groups in Europe, along with Muslims, but I see no reason to play them off against Jewish and Black folk as if one group's loss is another's gain.

Don't even act like you care about gypsies. Five minutes from now you'll be calling them pikeys and white trash and riff raff like everyone else does.

"East European gypsies" - that is one way to trigger an eastern European

Oh yeah, you're right. I think I missed OP's angle.

Yeah SURE she is!!!

What exactly are you trying to achieve on this thread?

I said what I had to say, you quoted me and swore at me, so I responded? Do you have a memory problem? Stop quoting me.

"Saying what you had to say" here meaning claiming I'm a racist while firing a load of racial slurs?

Don't even act like you care about gypsies. Five minutes from now you'll be calling them pikeys and white trash and riff raff like everyone else does. I personally don't see what the issue is, they're just caravans like Wtf. Must be issues stemming from England's long nasty history with Irish and Catholics aka white people problems so I'll just see myself out with my teacup. 😚☕

Ugh and before any soul here gets triggered, I don't mean OP per se uses these kinds of slurs. 😑

The issue is that they leave where they've been parked an absolute shithole that the council(and ultimately the local residents via taxation) have to pay to clean up. If they left places clean and tidy I doubt many people would care.