Socially Accepted Racism

True ...when it applies...

I can only speak anecdotally but there's been 3 or 4 times in my local area that I can remember and every time has been the same.

Oh right, but I do know they knock down Irish travellers houses and slur them off but I'm sure for ethnic reasons east-European gypsies are treated badly but assuming op is discussing reverse racism...he's on about the white gypsies.

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.

Discrimination against gypsies is more socially accepted than against other ethnicities. So I accept the premise of the OP.

But there is racism among travellers towards those who are settled. They have an insulting name for the rest of us, gadjos. So the racism and discrimination feeds on itself.

I was talking to a paramedic the other day and she told me they have to get police protection in traveller camps when they attend emergencies like cardiac arrests. If they die they are often attacked, accused of killing the person.

That is how wide the divide between gypsies and non gypsies can be, culturally. Gadjos who are doing their job, trying to save lives are so mistrusted that if someone dies they are believed to have deliberately killed them. Extraordinary. It is a sub culture that consciously sets itself apart, and that feeds back into the dominant culture, feeding racism and prejudice.

Discrimination against gypsies is more socially accepted than against other ethnicities. So I accept the premise of the OP.

But there is racism among travellers towards those who are settled. They have an insulting name for the rest of us, gadjos. So the racism and discrimination feeds on itself.

I was talking to a paramedic the other day and she told me they have to get police protection in traveller camps when they attend emergencies like cardiac arrests. If they die they are often attacked, accused of killing the person.

That is how wide the divide between gypsies and non gypsies can be, culturally. Gadjos who are doing their job, trying to save lives are so mistrusted that if someone dies they are believed to have deliberately killed them. Extraordinary. It is a sub culture that consciously sets itself apart, and that feeds back into the dominant culture, feeding racism and prejudice.

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".

That is mainly Irish Travels not Roma Gypsies most British Roma live on caravan sites which they own or council run. Some live in house and even go university and have professional jobs.

Don't get me wrong I know they're not all bad. But when every single encounter you've had with them has been negative it's hard to keep an open mind.

I would be very interested to hear of these encounters (genuinely). What happened in these interactions?

They've pitched up in my local area and left the place looking like a bombsite on multiple occasions. Last time they took over a car park used by sheltered housing and a disabled kid's centre.

They've pitched up in my local area and left the place looking like a bombsite on multiple occasions. Last time they took over a car park used by sheltered housing and a disabled kid's centre.

an outlandish people, calling themselves Egyptians, using no craft nor feat of merchandise, who have come into this realm, and gone from shire to shire, and place to place, in great company; and used great subtlety and crafty means to deceive the people--bearing them in hand that they, by palmistry, could tell men's and women's fortunes; and so, many times, by craft and subtlety, have deceived the people for their money; and also have committed many heinous felonies and robberies, to the great hurt and deceit of the people that they have come among....

... the Egyptians now being in this realm, have monition to depart within sixteen days.... from henceforth no such person be suffered to come within this the King's realm and if they do, then they and every of them so doing, shall forfeit to the King our Sovereign Lord all their goods and titles and then to be commanded to avoid the realm within fifteen days under pain of imprisonment.

Having said that, do you not think it is a valid comment to point out that the reputation of the Traveller/Roma/gypsy community is negatively affected by the behaviour of people within the community? I think the issue is not gypsy ethnicity, obviously. But the Traveller lifestyle is highly regressive. Criminality is rife. Education is spurned. Many of these communities have nothing but contempt for planning laws and the legal-democratic order that underpins said laws.

We should not be afraid to speak out against regressive cultural practices.

Indeed, it seems like there have been ongoing issues with the Traveller community showing a complete disregard for public property, private property, planning laws... there seems to be an inherently anti-social element in that lifestyle.

also, considering how everyone's on about "crime", it should be noted that even trespassing is not actually a criminal offence, merely a civil one

I think this has a lot of overlapping issues. It should first be noted that crime generally tends to be more common in impoverished communities. With regard to Roma and gypsy community attitudes to the state and law in general, I think there's a bit of a vicious circle. Much of the persecution of Roma over the past couple of centuries has been, in part, due to them not really fitting with the modern European state.

Furthermore, a lot of Roma interaction with the state (apart from the outrightly negative experiences, of course) often seems to be gauged, not necessarily intentionally, to their complete cultural assimilation, and so they reject it.

While it is, of course, perfectly possible to be a settled Roma, I think demanding that those who do keep to the quasi-nomadic lifestyle give that up completely is unreasonable, just as it would be for the Sami or the Bedouin.

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".

By itself that figure doesn't tell us very much. Are we comparing apples with apples? What if a much greater proportion of Traveller planning applications are unreasonable or disruptive to the community?

Indeed, and perhaps it's understandable that groups who, within living memory, have been the subject of genocidal attacks would be suspicious of the state and its intentions. I suppose it's similar perhaps to some ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities and their suspicion of outsiders and fear of assimilation. But in the latter case, I have little sympathy for them and I feel the same way about the Traveller lifestyle; where that regressive, paranoid lifestyle translates into harm to their children (in educational opportunities, in instilling backwards beliefs and practices in them).

Let's say some Bedouins came to the UK now, in 2017, and started living a tribal, nomadic lifestyle, setting up their tents on village commons and riding their camels through the streets (actually, the latter would be pretty awesome), and also engaging in various regressive Bedouin practices (blood feuds, FGM, smuggling etc) and preventing their children from engaging properly with the education system. Would it be incumbent on us to accomodate this lifestyle?

I am not anti-gypsies myself, but maybe the difference in treatment is because being a gypsy is something you can easily change, whereas your race/gender/sexuality is not?