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>> No. 26516 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 9:48 am
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...It is important to state that it is not communities that commit crimes but individuals. Those convicted are squarely Henry Long, Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, not thousands of innocent people who share their heritage. Tarring all Travellers with the brush of these men’s callousness is as unfair as tarring all Catholics for paedophile priests or all eskimos for daft militant wog attacks.

Yet to completely ignore the cultural context of this crime is wrong. Henry Long, the ringleader, was removed from school at the age of 12; he followed his father and grandfather into the thieving “trade”. Albert Bowers left school at 11 and before the trial had already picked up three youth convictions. These young men could not read or write. For years they had not known school or structure. Their education was in petty crime.

Such problems do not solely beset Travellers but they are far more prevalent among Traveller communities. If we want to be a country where all are treated the same, where all live by the same rules and where the state does its best to furnish each with a decent chance in life, we have to end the squeamishness that prevents open talk about Travellers. This squeamishness is down to two fears. First, the fear of retribution. After the verdict on PC Harper’s death it emerged that the judge, Mr Justice Edis, brought the first trial to a temporary halt over an alleged potential plot to intimidate jurors. Extra security measures were brought in. Jurors were referred to by number not name. One juror was dismissed for acting oddly in court, mouthing pleasantries at the defendants. Whether she was motivated by misplaced friendliness or fear of someone up in that public gallery we do not know, but most will not be shocked by revelations of intimidation.

The fear of the bullet, the knife, the burnt-out car; this helps the lawless elements of Traveller culture maintain a certain power, and gives the law-abiding majority of Travellers a terrible name.

The second fear is that of being labelled racist. Since the Equality Act 2010 recognised Gypsy, Roma and Travellers as ethnic minorities, race has been used to shield this culture from due scrutiny. Sensible questions about why those within these groups are more likely to be in prison, more likely to be illiterate or more likely to suffer domestic violence prompt cries of racism. In April a Channel 4 Dispatches programme titled The Truth About Traveller Crime was dubbed “dehumanising” by activists and investigated by Ofcom. Desperate not to offend, the authorities turn a culturally sensitive blind eye.

The fears hush most into silence, and the silence means the stand-off between Travellers and the rest of society continues uneasily. Many feel disquieted to see the mobile homes rolling on to a local beauty spot, a portent too often of littering, mess, anti-social behaviour. Meanwhile those in Traveller communities are hardly “living their best lives”. Travellers die about ten years earlier than the rest of us. They have higher rates of chronic illness. Their suicide rates are six times higher.

You might argue that they choose to live like this, but the babies born into that life don’t. Many are destined to repeat the same pattern: leave school in your early teens, drift into a life of odd jobs and petty crime, never move beyond the circles you were raised in. As long as the culturally sensitive force-field exists around Travellers, these children are abandoned to a fate that should not be tolerated in 21st-century Britain.

It is a scandal that some Gypsy and Traveller children are taken out of school at primary age; that some start work as young as ten; that about 65 per cent of Traveller children are persistently absent from school; that they have the lowest attainment of all ethnic groups throughout their school years and are far more likely to be excluded. Are we to be surprised when they choose crime?

The status quo is not working for anyone.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/lets-not-be-afraid-to-challenge-traveller-culture-hbj3f8mkz

It seems about every two or three years gypos become the boogeyman of the moment in the national press. What's to be done about the travelling menace?
Expand all images.
>> No. 26517 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 9:57 am
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>>26516
>What's to be done about the travelling menace?

Integrate them into society, starting with getting the children into school, then into stable jobs and a fixed residences.
But that's not an easy task.
>> No. 26518 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 10:36 am
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Weird how it's difficult for travellers to keep their kids in school when local councils keep kicking them off their camp sites.

>>26517
You could substitute "Indoctrinate" for "Integrate" there and it wouldn't change a thing about it.
>> No. 26519 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 11:33 am
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This sort of shit was just as unacceptable when Sarah Champion wrote it about laplanderstani men in The S*n.
>> No. 26520 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 11:38 am
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Oh it's Clare Foges. She has form on this kind of racism, previous pieces for The Times include "Travellers have ignored the law for too long" in 2017, and "Travellers can't always play the racism card" in 2019. It's pretty vile.
>> No. 26521 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 12:13 pm
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>>26518
You could also change it to "induce" or "induct" because that's how verbs work.
>> No. 26522 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 12:17 pm
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>>26520
>Travellers have ignored the law for too long

Haven't they? It might be an unpleasant thing to say, but that doesn't mean it's incorrect.
>> No. 26523 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 12:19 pm
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>>26518

>Weird how it's difficult for travellers to keep their kids in school when local councils keep kicking them off their camp sites.

That isn't why they are leaving schools and you know it, don't twist things to fit your pattern of 'oh those poor suffering souls they can't help it'.

The problem is cultural, their culture is incompatable with values you take for granted and assume to be universal. They set themselves upto be an underclass by making all the decisions that will lead them to be an underclass. The cycle is difficult to break and it certainly won't be broken by complaining that it is our fault for not letting them break into squat on school fields and construction sites.
>> No. 26524 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 12:31 pm
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It's crabs in buckets isn't it?
>> No. 26525 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 12:35 pm
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>>26523
In my experience it tends to be those who haven't really encountered gypsies much in real life who tend to defend them.

It always reminds me of the opinion piece in the Guardian romanticising them, saying you can't really blame them for breaking the law with the way they are treated, after there were issues with travellers in Cromer a few years back. It then emerged that they were responsible for numerous thefts and even rape, but they're still the victims in all of this.
>> No. 26526 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 12:38 pm
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>>26523

This exact argument is used against multiple groups and has been employed throughout history almost verbatim, e.g. "Why don't black people in the U.S. just stop committing crimes?"
>> No. 26527 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 1:00 pm
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>>26523
Piss off Priti.
>> No. 26528 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 1:20 pm
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>>26526
>Why don't Somalians stop sending their daughters to have their genitals mutilated?

>Why don't Russians stop being so homophobic and intolerant?

>Why don't laplanderstanis stop forcing their daughters to marry adult men they've never met?

Sometimes you've simply got to point out that aspects of another culture are just plain wrong and it doesn't make you racist to point this out.
>> No. 26529 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 1:24 pm
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>>26526
Just because that argument was used incorrectly or unfairly in some cases, that has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not it's valid in this case.
>> No. 26530 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 1:28 pm
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>>26526
'This' exact argument certainly isn't. Given I'm not arguing against helping them, I am arguing about having no understanding of their behaviour and not understanding the root of the problem, seeing a reaction and complaining the reaction is the problem, but thanks for demonstrating where I can classify your view Dunning–Kruger lad.


Travelers (by which I mean the parents of the not attending children) don't put any value on education they don't see why it matters, that stuff in school isn't applicable to how to make money so it isn't worth doing. why would they waste their time with school (which actually costs them money to send the kids to, and roots them in a place which is inconvenient for them) when the kids could be learning and applying the skills of the trade in fact there are certain trades a child is better for, and that cycle repeats generationally and is normalised. This isn't a case of being neglected, this is a case of rejecting the same opportunities everyone else has.
>> No. 26531 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 1:30 pm
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Where have I heard all this before?
>> No. 26533 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 1:49 pm
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>>26531

No one think they should be exterminated lad, they think they don't see the value in the system.

If we did nothing when faced with different cultures Indians would still be burning women alive.
>> No. 26534 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 2:03 pm
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>>26533

Oh yes because taking away and forcibly re-educating all the children of a minority group is a totally different, not at all fascist thing to do.
>> No. 26536 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 2:27 pm
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Really the state should pay for a small portable school to follow them around.
>> No. 26537 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 2:33 pm
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>>26534
Every September thousands of four year olds are taken from their parents and forced into the education system.

It's a wonder nobody has spoken out against this burning injustice.
>> No. 26538 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 2:34 pm
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Only in the UK could we have such a meek response to a roaming gang of criminals. They should be bullied out of the country.
>> No. 26541 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 3:00 pm
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>>26537

People have.
>> No. 26542 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 3:10 pm
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>>26530
>Travelers...

There's a few questions to separate out, here. First, what are you basing these opinions on? Data regarding low educational attainment among traveler kids, or something else?

Depending on the basis for your opinion, I'd probably also ask: to what extent can this be described as discrimination in or alienation from our current system?

Then there's another question, how far should society go in accommodating marginalised groups? Where does support stop and assimilation begin?

None of the answers to these questions are at all obvious, and apply differently depending on the situation. For example, I'm not a cultural relativist and believe genital mutilation is an infringement of human rights. Certain practices are not acceptable regardless of cultural belief. What I was getting at with my first post is that there's structural issues at play here -- there's far more to it than just the morality of individual actors. It's more productive to address those than to generalise the motivations or predispositions of an entire group.
>> No. 26544 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 3:36 pm
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>>26542
Isn't it also a human right that people shouldn't be denied an education? If you're removed from school at the age of 11/12, unable to read or write, in order to join the family vocation then that sounds like a breach to me.
>> No. 26545 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 3:38 pm
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The thing you have to ask yourself with pik travellers is why, exactly, they insist on maintaining their nomadic lifestyle.

They have their traditions, they have their way of life, obviously. Which is the problem. With travellers, it is not just an unfortunate side effect of cultural difference that leads them into conflict with the laws of our land. Their culture is in conflict with the laws of our land.

A lot of people are too wet to grapple with a concept like this these days, but most of those people are hypocrites too. Compare and contrast how those same people feel about the inherent thuggishness of British council estate residents, or American "trailer trash" rednecks. You'll usually find complete and utter disdain.
>> No. 26546 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 3:41 pm
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When travellers turned up on a green space across from a supermarket near me last year, the supermarket actually hired a doorman until the travellers were moved on. It struck me as quite an aggressive move, but maybe they had their reasons.
>> No. 26547 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 3:46 pm
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>>26546

Have you ever had the pleasure of working in a retail establishment when travellers show up?

The first day you might not do much, because being a good person you'll want to think "Maybe they're alright, maybe they're not the thieving bastards they're made out to be." You'll keep your eye out but mostly think it's okay.

Then you look at your stock variance report, and you give a heavy sigh, before telling your staff to kick them out immediately on sight.
>> No. 26548 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 3:52 pm
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>>26545

>Their culture is in conflict with the laws of our land.
So? Doesn't make the law right. If you ring-fence off all the land, claim it belongs to you, make hunting and trapping for game on it illegal (and kill off most of the game either directly or by destroying the habitats) and create licensing laws as well as delivery systems that make it impossible for people to survive by simple trading then yes, if you criminalise someone's way of life then they'll be criminals. But that's you being the cunt there, not them. Thing is, it's not you that did it, is it? Most of the land belongs to corporations, or is leased by them from the crown estate. Then Ms Patel comes along and tells us it's them gyppos wot want to nick your TV because they're evil non-conformist scum. And people believe her.

>Compare and contrast this irrelevant straw man
Nah.
>> No. 26549 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 3:54 pm
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>>26534

>forcibly re-educating all the children of a minority group is a totally different

You have to be educated to be re-educated.
>> No. 26550 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 3:57 pm
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>>26546
Gyspies moved into a business park I used to work at, breaking the barriers into the car park they set up in over the weekend. The kids in particular were feral monsters, vandalising cars, threatening people, taking rubbish out of the bins to empty it everywhere, shitting in the open in the car park, but even the adults would do things like getting their dogs to chase people going into their respective workplaces.

When the rozzers eventually moved them on they were talking to the women, all in their pyjamas, who were treating that like an every day event. Before leaving they pulled up most of the landscaping and threw it around the car park; it was a right state.

Whenever gyspies set up camp where I live there is always an increase in petty crime.
>> No. 26551 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 3:57 pm
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>>26548

So what are you saying, we make gyppo reservations, like the Yanks have for Native Americans?

Fucking hell you're a proper horseshoe case you aren't you.
>> No. 26552 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 4:06 pm
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>>26548

Nobody believes it because Ms Patel has said it, you fucking drip. People believe it because they, unlike you, have actually encountered a traveller group first hand at some point in their lives.

There are seriously no words for the kind of naive, sheltered, gullible worldview that lets you think of the traveller community as an unfairly victimised minority.
>> No. 26553 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 4:15 pm
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>>26545
>Compare and contrast how those same people feel about the inherent thuggishness of British council estate residents, or American "trailer trash" rednecks. You'll usually find complete and utter disdain.

This is actually a brilliant point, and I think you're probably right about many people who would call themselves "left", "centre left", "liberal", or whatever else.

Personally, I'm coming at it from the direction of someone from an immigrant working class background. I'm very hesitant to paint any group with broad strokes, "they don't want to learn" or "they commit more crime". There's often very good reasons baked into our institutions why these things happen.

>>26544

A quick Google shows that yes, it's part of the Universal Declaration.

What if our school system doesn't accommodate, though? Where does the burden lie? Remember most people in this country rely state schools.
>> No. 26555 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 4:28 pm
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>>26551

No, I don't think "reservations" are exactly fair to the Native Americans either. Seeing as it was all their land until some cunts stole it then decided they wanted to impose their own law on someone else.

>>26552

Yeah I wondered how long it would take you to double-down on the anecdotal evidence angle.
>> No. 26556 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 4:42 pm
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>>26553

>What if our school system doesn't accommodate, though? Where does the burden lie? Remember most people in this country rely state schools.

Our school system bends over backwards to cater to the particular needs of travellers, but there's only so much you can do when a) parents are actively hostile to education and b) it's politically unpalatable to actually enforce the laws requiring attendance.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/181669/DFE-RR043.pdf
>> No. 26558 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 4:44 pm
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>>26553
>This is actually a brilliant point, and I think you're probably right about many people who would call themselves "left", "centre left", "liberal", or whatever else.
It's not a brilliant point, it's a straw man. "You can't tell me not to criticise gypsies because there are people out there who would defend the gypsies but be hypocritical and criticise other disadvantaged groups". No doubt there are people like that, so what? It has nothing to do with the argument at hand.
>> No. 26562 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 5:17 pm
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The government should just make living in a caravan or trailer park on a permanent basis legal. Eventually gyppo/traveller culture will be watered down by regular people who want to escape rent or mortgage slavery through caravan living.
>> No. 26564 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 5:33 pm
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>>26545

>it is not just an unfortunate side effect of cultural difference that leads them into conflict with the laws of our land. Their culture is in conflict with the laws of our land.

That certainly sounds convincing until you remember that the 'law of the land' they are most directly and commonly in conflict with is "you're not allowed to live in a caravan all year round".
>> No. 26566 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 5:42 pm
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How come nomadic lifestyles are fine and dandy and mainstream thousands of years ago, now they're suddenly seen as something to suppress. One rule for stone age man, another for the rest of us.
>> No. 26569 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 5:52 pm
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>>26566

No one has a problem with nomadic lifestyles, the problem is breaking onto other peoples land treating it like shit using your children as a cheep source of labour and raising them to be thick as pig shit the two don't go hand in hand.
>> No. 26571 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 5:54 pm
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>>26566
Most nomads practise pastoralism whereby they herd livestock with them. Pikeys, on the other hand, make a living from thieving. You may see them chaining up a mistreated looking horse, but their livelihood doesn't depend on it.
>> No. 26572 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 5:58 pm
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>>26569

>cheep
>thick as pig shit

D'ya like dags?
>> No. 26573 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 6:08 pm
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>>26564
And the 'laws of the land' relating to thieving, littering and anti-social behaviour? What about those?
>> No. 26574 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 6:08 pm
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>>26523
>The problem is cultural, their culture is incompatable with values you take for granted and assume to be universal. They set themselves upto be an underclass by making all the decisions that will lead them to be an underclass. The cycle is difficult to break and it certainly won't be broken by complaining that it is our fault for not letting them break into squat on school fields and construction sites.

This seems to go both ways.

I used to know an ex-gypsy (his words) who was ostracised by his family for settling down, he was illiterate as far as I could tell and had nothing but disdain for the life he was forced to grow into. You're more or less fucked if you're born a gypsy and when I first found out his background he made sure to tell me he won't steal. At the same time, it's pretty obvious that the playground is an unsafe place for gypsy children given even the parents and teachers will make them feel unwelcome. Essentially there's a reason so many small businessmen with gypsy backgrounds keep it hidden because nobody would deal with them otherwise.

I think that ultimately gypsies of both types can't thrive in Europe - there's just too much historical bad blood. We should just offer to swap them with America for Latinos, for some reason gypsies aren't a problem in North America. If some KKK types complain we can always tell them that they're white and discriminated against by rural landowners. Plus we can start unbuttoning our shirts and other stereotypical Latino things.
>> No. 26575 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 6:19 pm
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>>26573

You think gypsy culture is littering and robbing?
>> No. 26576 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 6:20 pm
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>>26575
There's also vandalism.
>> No. 26577 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 6:22 pm
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>>26569
>other peoples land
You seem to not be able to see the wood for the trees.

>>26571
Where exactly would travelling communities let their livestock graze?
>> No. 26578 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 6:31 pm
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>>26577 Are you saying that travellers are being kept from the nomadic herding lifestyle they desire and deserve?

Is this a viewpoint expressed by actual travellers?
Are they shitting up the places they stop at as retaliation?
>> No. 26579 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 6:35 pm
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>>26575
It's obviously not an part of their culture by design as much as it's a by-product of the interaction between their culture and other cultures. None of which excuses it, of course.
>> No. 26580 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 7:06 pm
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>>26579 here, that last bit looks way too accusatory and uncalled for - I guess I was trying to say that just although you can frame it like that it's unfair to heap the blame onto the other cultures for not being accommodating to cases of robbery and vandalism. But I'm shit with words.
>> No. 26581 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 8:06 pm
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>>26578

No, I'm just pointing out it's a stupid thing to say.
>> No. 26583 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 8:45 pm
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The oppression of travelling communities is part and parcel of the loss of ownership in common over the past few centuries. Capitalism has carved up our land and granted the rights to it for the pursuit of profit only with otherwise limited permitted residential and recreational use.
>> No. 26584 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 9:06 pm
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>>26583
They don't want to hear it, they're just frothing at the piss-slits to punch down at someone.
>> No. 26586 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 9:19 pm
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>>26584

I'm a card carrying council estate raised leftie, and even I can admit that a) the land owner ship has LONG since sailed, and b) pikeys are all thieving bastards.

Maybe they wouldn't be thieving bastards without years of oppression or whatever, but the fact remains, they are. As for common land ownership or whatever, fucking hell, you might as well be talking about colonising Mars.

Nobody is saying its right or fair or just that pikeys have ended up in this situation, but you've about as much chance of telling the wind politely to stop blowing as you have of solving the problem with your perspective and rhetoric.
>> No. 26587 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 9:28 pm
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>>26586

I'm not trying to solve it with rhetoric. Just pointing out, as I'm not the first to, that even otherwise card-carrying progressive lefties in this country have a blind spot where it comes to just being racist about travellers.
>> No. 26588 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 9:48 pm
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>>26587

The point, however, is that the things you consider racism about them are merely acknowledgements of fact. OP's post is a rare example of the Mail, like a broken calendar, being right once a year.

I'm the lad who pointed out the second bit in the first place. My point being that nobody has an issue cross-examining the cultural issues that might make council estate lads more prone to a bit of a scrap at the weekend; but when it comes to travellers and the way their entire way of live is built around basically being roaming criminals suddenly they're the victims. We're much more prone to excusing it, because travellers are on the special list of special people, alongside muzzers and darkies.

At this point, we've basically no hope of reversing the established order of society where you have a house and you pay tax and all that stuff, whether you think it's a just state of affairs or not. It'd be fair to say the majority of people have their issues with it, in fact. But I'd still say we're better off trying to integrate traveller communities into society, than just excusing their lifestyle and handwaving complaints as racism.
>> No. 26591 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 10:03 pm
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>>26588
>the things you consider racism about them are merely acknowledgements of fact
I'm not sure how suggesting forcibly indoctrinating their children or deporting all of them are "acknowledgements of fact", both of which have been floated in this thread, one of them repeatedly.
>My point being that nobody has an issue cross-examining the cultural issues that might make council estate lads more prone to a bit of a scrap at the weekend; but when it comes to travellers
Again, this is that same straw man from earlier.
>At this point, we've basically no hope of reversing the established order of society
I don't know about "reversing" but major upheaval is looking more and more likely.
>handwaving complaints as racism.
This is back to the first point where what you're calling "complaints" are people outright advocating for the same policies as the Nazis.
>> No. 26593 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 10:06 pm
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>>26591

I don't think you understand the first thing about what you're talking about. You appear to be the kind of person who has been educated on politics by the dodgier subrudgwicksteamshow.co.uks and Twitter.
>> No. 26594 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 10:08 pm
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>>26593

That's cool, you appear to be the kind of person who was educated on politics by a magical sentient kinder egg wrapper. This is a really constructive and meaningful discourse.
>> No. 26596 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 10:17 pm
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>>26591
What do you want?
>> No. 26597 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 10:18 pm
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>>26596
More ketchup
>> No. 26609 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 1:53 am
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What's the difference between travellers, gyppos, and pikeys?
>> No. 26610 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 1:55 am
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I work with a traveller charity, so I'll type up a few observations, in no particular order, in case anyone is interested. (I can only speak about travellers in England, some of this is no doubt applicable to Irish travellers etc but I wouldn't know.)

Going in, I didn't know anything about travellers beyond what the press occasionally reports. Like most people I understood that they were, by choice, extremely isolated, but I assumed that there was some degree of overlap and intermingling with the society around them. Apparently not - recent research has shown that their genetic history can be traced more or less directly back to India/SE Asia, around ~700 years ago. When they say they only marry within the community, they mean it, and they've been at it a long time.

That doesn't mean that nobody ever leaves, of course. The sharper among them clearly realise early on that their best hope for a comparatively comfortable life is to get educated, get a job and get a home outside the community. But anyone who marries outside of the community is ostracised, and once you're out, there's no getting back in. This is, as you'd expect, a massive brain drain on the community. As they actively stigmatise those who make something of themselves and broaden their horizons, the traveller community effectively expel their best and brightest with each passing generation. They would come at it from a different angle: had their culture not been so aggressively isolationist then it would've been assimilated long ago. From an outsider's perspective, though, they do seem to be cutting off their nose to spite their face.

If you've never been to a traveller site it will be a shock, the squalor is difficult to put into words. It's one thing to watch it in Snatch or on some trashy ITV documentary, but it's something else altogether to see it first hand, to turn off a well maintained country road and onto a garbage patch with people living on it. I've seen some pretty rough housing estates, I used to live in Stoke for fuck's sake, but nothing else I've seen in Britain compares to the traveller sites. Nobody should be living in this degree of poverty anywhere, much less in a modern Western democracy, but here we are.

Hard manual labour, particularly fruit and vegetable picking, has historically been their bread and butter. The work available to them had apparently been on the wane through the late 20th century, but around the turn of the century the ex-soviet states that entered the EU really opened the floodgates of cheap manual labour in Britain, and farmers will always pick a Pole over a pikey. Which is where we end up today - an unskilled, largely illiterate, wholly isolated community that has no work available to them. Of course they turn to crime.

>In my experience it tends to be those who haven't really encountered gypsies much in real life who tend to defend them.
I'm not sure I'd jump to defend them - in any case, nobody can deny that they are often their own worst enemy, prideful and quick to anger, and accustomed to sorting disputes with violence. Someone above called it a cultural problem, and that's definitely true, but it doesn't really get you anywhere to say it. It's easy to identify their shortcomings, you're spoiled for choice. It's a lot harder to see a productive forward path. It's true that traveller culture does not particularly value reading or writing, this is a significant shortcoming and it really holds them back. Dig a little further and you'll find that many of them realise that in the smartphone era they are hopelessly marginalised without literacy, but they only reach this awareness once it's too late to go back to school. Obviously I'm biased, but I'd say that one small example of progress is the adult schooling provided by the charity I work for, which generally takes place at night (it's seen as shameful for adult travellers to be seen accepting such help, especially from outside the community, so classes have to be held discretely). I never hear about it and nobody ever talks about it. No doubt it's slow progress, but overall things are improving. Depending on how strictly you define literacy, about 50% of traveller women are illiterate, with things a little better among the lads, but not much. Fifty years ago, that figure was closer to 90% for both.

>>26530
>which actually costs them money to send the kids to, and roots them in a place which is inconvenient for them
One of the most common misconceptions is that travellers live on the road. They'll make a scene about getting in their old horse-drawn carriage and meeting up across the country (a big deal in the traveller world), and they'll certainly travel to new places for work, but most don't live as itinerants day to day; "traveller" is their heritage more so than their function.

(I'd guess that the ones that do just bounce from place to place are the ones that have been kicked out of, or otherwise barred, from every traveller site in the country, the worst of the worst, hence stuff like >>26550.)

I think some people get confused between Roma-descended travellers and new age travellers, I know I did as a younglad. Roma gypsies fucking hate new age travellers. Given the liberal, peace-loving sensibilities of the latter, I doubt there was ever any love lost from the the gypsy community, but in particular the Thatcher/Major Conservative government crackdowns in the 80s and 90s (the Criminal Justice Act and so on) is perceived to have been targeting the hippies, with the Roma community being collateral damage. There's probably some truth to it.

>>26588
>I'd still say we're better off trying to integrate traveller communities into society
In case it isn't obvious from the above, the issue is that many of them they will resist such integration to their dying breath. Partly this is because they know no better, but a lot of it is a simple consequence of the extraordinary racism they experience day to day, surely unparalleled in this country. For evidence, just look at this thread. The mods around here are broadly left-leaning and tolerant, and they usually ban racists. Imagine that some previous posters in this thread had instead written the following:
>I think that ultimately Jews can't thrive in Europe - there's just too much historical bad blood. We should just offer to swap them with America for Latinos, for some reason Jews aren't a problem in North America. If some KKK types complain we can always tell them that they're white and discriminated against by rural landowners.
or
>blacks are all thieving bastards
I think we all know how that would go.

(Fucking hell, that's a much bigger post than I intended. There's a bit more to say, particularly about how rough the women have it, oh well. I'll try and answer questions if anyone has any, though.)
>> No. 26611 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 1:57 am
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>>26609
I asked two of them, and the response I got back from one was that "traveller" was an insult and they wanted to be called "gypsy", and the other that "gypsy" was an insult and they'd only respond to "traveller". It's quite possible they were fucking with me.

Pikey is an insult.
>> No. 26612 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 2:10 am
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>>26610
Roma and Sinti, right? I, frankly thankfully, don't have to deal with them anymore. It's telling that similar stories are told not just in the UK but all across modern Europe. I don't know the history everywhere, but maybe I need to do a wiki walk to see why the fuck these guys seem to be more default hated than "The Jews".
>> No. 26613 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 3:02 am
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>>26610

I think a broad part of the issue, and this is why it's something that's so hard to get to grips with, is that the anti-traveller racism has a different dynamic to most racism.

Saying all blacks are criminals is one thing, but the primary defining aspect of it is that it's not true. Pick out any random black off the street, and the likelihood is he's not a criminal, and that's why you're a racist for assuming it. But when it comes to travellers, like it or not- There's a bloody good chance they've done something illegal recently. Like someone above said, it is their way of life- That's not a judgement or a condemnation of them, and it's of course an incredibly deep and complex issue as to why, but nevertheless.

I guess what I'm getting towards is this: How do we grapple with racism that has more than just a grain of truth to it? It's still racism, no doubt, but how do we delegitimise it when it's arguably kind of legitimate? And if we can get past that, ARE there really any practical solutions? If they don't want to accept outside help, what are we to do?
>> No. 26614 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 11:22 am
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>>26610
Thanks for this, post of the year.
>> No. 26616 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 11:28 am
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I should add to my praise above for >>26610 that when travellers turn up locally on a park or something and they get abuse in the local press and eviction orders from the council, I've always considered going along and knocking on the door of one of their caravans and having a chat with them and showing them not everyone considers them beneath contempt. But your post has painted them as so hostile to outsiders it's now made me think I'd be walking into Deliverance.
>> No. 26617 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 11:32 am
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>>26558

The conversation has moved on, but just to clarify, I didn't think it was a good justifiaction to criticise. Like I said, I come from the opposite direction, that generally criticism of poor people based on moral judgements of their character aren't useful.

The brilliant point is that this is deemed broadly acceptable when it's targeted toward certain groups, even on the "left", and that does reveal their hypocrisy. Think about how disparaging people are towards "chavs", for example.
>> No. 26618 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 11:35 am
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>>26616

Not charitylad, but I think it's more that some groups are treated with so much hostility that they'd be rightly suspicious of anyone outside claiming good intentions.
>> No. 26619 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 12:01 pm
26619 spacer
Why is it that the jippos I see just look like your average white Brit? How are they are ethnic group? I know the Roma ones are not that, but I thought they were more prevalent on the continent. I'm not trying to stir shit, just genuinely wondering.
>> No. 26620 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 12:15 pm
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>>26546
Oh fuck that explains why there is suddenly a security guard at the Co-op down the road. I thought it was to do with Covid, I didn't twig that it was connected to the caravans on the park opposite.
>> No. 26621 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 12:33 pm
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>>26619
Genetically speaking, they're distinctly different from the settled Irish population. This is most likely the result of generations of inbreeding within the community.
>> No. 26636 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 10:27 am
26636 spacer

NINTCHDBPICT000598614163.jpg
266362663626636
Gypo kids attack and racially abuse children's entertainers dressed up as Paw Patrol at a four year old's birthday party.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12251148/paw-patrol-entertained-abused-hostage-kids/
>> No. 26637 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 10:47 am
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>>26636
First a times article and now a sun article? You really are spoiling us.
>> No. 26638 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 10:49 am
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>>26637
Pikeys are are the target of silly season this year, what with outrage over PC Harper’s killers getting away with murder.
>> No. 26640 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 11:08 am
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Why is it all the first hand accounts in this thread are ones of people who seem to distrust travelers, and all of the posts defending them seem to mention no first hand experience? I'd like to hear at least one positive first hand experience from the 'saying they are criminals is genocide' camp.
>> No. 26642 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 11:23 am
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>>26640
It's just the way these things go in general. It's a bit like when you have someone living in a middle class suburb that is almost exclusively white lecturing working class people on how they need to be more tolerant of immigrants when the demographics of their neighbourhood has changed beyond recognition in the past 15 years.

How people think they'd like to act around certain groups of people never really gets put to the test. I believe there were posts in our homeless thread about how people's attitudes towards them hardened and changed completely once they lived near a shelter and had to regularly deal with their intoxicated antics.
>> No. 26644 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 11:57 am
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>>26640
"Distrust" is a funny word for "think we should round up and brainwash all the children of". I'm guessing it's mainly because you want it to be that way and are inferring it's true to try and justify being racist.
>> No. 26645 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 12:48 pm
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>>26644

"I'd like to hear from the otherside, do they have any positive stories?"

"I bet you would you filthy fucking racist!"
>> No. 26646 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 12:57 pm
26646 spacer
>>26644
Brainwash is about as loaded a term as pikey.

Yet again - what do you want? Can anything be done to improve the lot of the next generation? Should anything be done? Should non-travellers butt out and leave them to it? Do non-travellers have obligations to traveller kids that override their community's wishes?
What the fuck?
>> No. 26647 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:04 pm
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>>26640
Think it's going to entirely depend, like when you meet most people. Personally, they can be pricks, some can be alright, you can get along with them. Do like the bare knuckle boxing too to be honest.
>> No. 26648 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:05 pm
26648 spacer
>>26640>>26642

The guy who works with travellers for a charity expressed mixed feelings at best, and explicitly said treating this as a problem of their culture doesn't get you anywhere. Any opinions expressed here also come with the caveat that we're an odd sample of only a few hundred (or more?) people on an imageboard. I am certain you can find people who have regular direct contact with minority groups that both praise and criticise said groups.

Even with that in mind, what are you trying to prove, exactly? Distrust of travellers is rational if you live with them for a long time?

To answer your question, a few potential explanations come to mind. For one, compassion fatigue is a fairly well studied phenomenon that affects people in job roles that require a high level of empathy. It's common among nurses and doctors, and it may help to explain why some go on to abuse and neglect patients.

Another more general explanation is that we all have to relate to others in a particular framework or setting, e.g. the quality of your workplace can affect how well you get along with your colleagues. If that framework is dysfunctional, it's much harder to develop good relationships. Speaking as someone that worked for a deeply flawed charity aimed at another 'vulnerable' group, I've experienced first-hand how running up against the limits of your organisational role, as well as sheer stress, can make you much more cynical towards people you're trying to help.

Something similar can be said of living conditions in neighbourhoods. If you happen to live in a rough area, we don't tend to see the bigger schema of things at play like unemployment or deprivation, we just know when the neighbours are acting up again. If enough of your neighbours look a particular way, we start forming connections, justified or not.

As a more general political point, our general culture is extremely individualistic in a way that a) makes us blind to the scope and limits we set on people by circumstances, and b) makes a group with a very strong sense of separate identity seem alien to us.

Personal responsibility exists, yeah, and I wouldn't defend people committing crime or refusing to send their kids to school, but all things happen within a context. The statistic that stands out to me about the OP post is that life expectancy is ten years shorter and suicide rates are six times higher. That leads me to think that there are serious issues in that group, probably tangled up with history and politics, that requires a lot of thought, co-ordinated effort, and funding to solve.
>> No. 26649 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:09 pm
26649 spacer
>>26648
>we're an odd sample of only a few hundred (or more?) people on an imageboard.

If there's more than a dozen regular posters I'd be surprised.
>> No. 26651 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:21 pm
26651 spacer
>>26649
This was probably ages ago now but wasn't the userbase clocked around 100 once? Though that was inflated by people just passing by, I think. Active posters wise it's probably still just us 3.
>> No. 26653 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:27 pm
26653 spacer
>>26646

I just want you lot to realise that you're being massive racists but so far you're just defending yourselves with links to The Sun.
>> No. 26654 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:27 pm
26654 spacer
>>26648

>what are you trying to prove, exactly? Distrust of travellers is rational if you live with them for a long time?

What I am trying to prove is far more basic than that, I would like someone to say something positive about them, anything at all to balance the conversation. I assume they exist so I would like to hear them.

The fact you and the other lad have accused me of having a secret racist agenda for asking for what should be a rather basic request that could balance the thread and share positive experiences, says more about you than it does about me.

I don't want equivocation about compassion fatigue, or how we are apparently a large enough group to have negative stories but not a large enough group to have positive stories. I want one positive first hand relationship with a traveller. This won't be a 'no true Scotsman' or a gotcha (although they must be 'a traveller' no their grandfather was a traveller) I would like to hear about that.
.
>> No. 26655 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:45 pm
26655 spacer
>>26654

The reason you're lacking positive stories about travellers is that they're only described as travellers when they've done something bad. In much the same way you wouldn't have heard white Americans talking about polite young black fellas back in the lynching days - theor colour only becomes relevant when they've done something that conforms to your expectations of them.
>> No. 26656 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:47 pm
26656 spacer
>>26653
I am a massive racist.
When travellers park up on the industrial estate where I work, I expect damage, squalor and abuse until they leave.
If travellers are a race, then this is something I only expect of that race. If any other people rocked up in a camper van, I'd expect them to do whatever they're doing without causing harm, then leave. It doesn't happen, though, so I have no idea if my expectations are unfair.
My prejudices about the travellers I come into contact with seem to be reasonably accurate so far. Hence the racism.
I'm not sure how I can not be racist. Help me understand your point of view.

(A good day to you Sir!)
>> No. 26657 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:48 pm
26657 spacer
>>26655

Additional I've met a few travellers through 4x4 winching and greenlaning events, they were all lovely, usually very funny. But I don't see how an anecdote helps anyone.
>> No. 26658 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:49 pm
26658 spacer
>>26654
Secret? Not at all. Priti Patel has been banging on about how they're all terrible all year, now the red tops have started their smear campaign and all of a sudden we're having this thread. It's quite tediously predictable. Anecdotal evidence wouldn't be valid in any other situation, why should it be now?
>> No. 26659 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:50 pm
26659 spacer
>>26654
In primary school my best friend's parents were travellers who moved into a council house when he was born. He and his family are lovely people. They play in bands a lot, and help run festivals. If you met them you wouldnt think they used to live in a van.
>> No. 26660 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:52 pm
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>>26659
What should we call travellers who don't travel?
>> No. 26661 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:55 pm
26661 spacer
>>26655

That isn't a positive story that is the equivocation of someone who doesn't have one, and is affraid no one else does.
>> No. 26662 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:57 pm
26662 spacer
>>26657 >>26659

Thank you.
>> No. 26663 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 1:57 pm
26663 spacer
>>26657

>But I don't see how an anecdote helps anyone.

It humanises them.
>> No. 26664 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 2:11 pm
26664 spacer
>>26663
They're already humans.
>> No. 26665 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 2:22 pm
26665 spacer
>>26654

I have no interest in labelling anyone a racist. I was specific in what I meant by "compassion fatigue" and how hard it can be to keep up empathy for others, or how circumstances can lead us to associate characteristics with groups of people rather than the issues they face.

Saying a particular group is more likely to commit crime due to unemployment, or charity workers might burn out due to constantly running into the same issues, isn't equivocation.

I also didn't say that the number of posters here is "large enough to have negative stories but too small to have positive stories", what I said was:
>I am certain you can find people who have regular direct contact with minority groups that both praise and criticise said groups.

Even if other posters hadn't jumped in with nice anecdotes about travellers, we can't take it as representative. Maybe >>26663 has a point, but that makes me worried about the times when no one has a positive story to chime in with -- would having only negative anecdotes justify distrust? I don't want things to go that way.

The poster >>26655 also raises a valid point, and that's not equivocation, either. I don't mean to single out posts, but you can see an example of it in this thread. Negative characteristics are expected of travellers, good characteristics are in spite of the fact they're travellers:
>If you met them you wouldnt think they used to live in a van.

I'm not pretending to be morally above anyone, here. If I had the constant pain of >>26656 I would probably start associating that behaviour with the fact they're travellers, consciously or not. I already know for a fact I do prejudge people based on appearance and background. What I try to keep in mind, though, is that people of any background can commit crime or be antisocial, and it's mainly the bigger factors that puts someone in that position. Not excusing the behaviours, but understanding that makes it a solvable problem.
>> No. 26666 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 2:41 pm
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>>26661

I did post an anecdote too, but that's still not the point - I would imagine most people simply don't interact with travellers, and if one helped an old lady across the street or let you cut in line at Tesco because you were only buying a pint of milk, would you even know they were a traveller?
>> No. 26669 Anonymous
29th July 2020
Wednesday 3:06 pm
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>>26659
That would kind of tally with charitylad's "the best and brightest get out of the community" hypothesis, though.
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