AIBU to find it disgusting that gypsies have taken over a school playground

[Adizzylass2014]

whilst attending my best friends wedding today in a little village I was horrified to see that gypsies had taken over the school playground. There was rubbish all over the floor, children and dogs running all over the place and scantily clad women puffing away.
why a school playground, these people have no morals. The poor caretaker is going to have his work cut out for him as there was at least 15 caravans!

I go out and see many different groups in my town and in other cities. The overwhelming majority do not seem to cause issues - but a minority of them do.

However - whenever I see caravans parked up in some land that has been occupied for a while, you can almost always guarantee that crap and rubbish will be left. I would be pleasantly surprised if rubbish and crap was not left behind.

I don't think I've ever seen travellers who have taken over an area of land not leave it in a real state.

Yes, I've helped a gorger woman who was being beaten up by her I'm assuming boyfriend in the street by taking her into a shop and waiting until police arrived. I've stood up to racists at work. I've reported crimes I've witnessed. Waited with a drunk gorger vyouth for the ambulance when walking home on a Saturday and finding him passed out in a bus station.

WindYourBobbinUp

You sound lovely, unfortunately for want of a better analogy, a good turn by a gypsy or traveller is like the dropped piece of toast.
Nobody remembers it falling butter side up, they remember the butter smeared to the floor when it falls butter side down.

darths
I also believe you have a point, there do seem to be a lot of travellers who behave badly, they give the decent folki a bad name. I have romany blood, my bm was pure breed and there isn't a popular romany name that isn't in my family tree. I am the first generation not to be born in a van but in hospital. I have seen filth like nobody can imagine, disgusting and no need for it, even without huge bins they can bag stuff up and take it to the tip.

I don't think Gypsy/Travellers have any more responsibility for the actions of other members of their race than I do, nor do I think they have a responsibility to sort those problems out. I think the law needs to be applied more consistently and firmly though regardless of the ethnicity of the victims or perpetrators. My own belief is that is probably a small number of travellers who wreak havoc, the people who destroyed our playing fields and intimidated the settled community were moved on after a few weeks but I think it's likely that they just went and did the same somewhere else, the authorities turning a blind eye to this just allows the problem to continue. I think that's the same within the non Traveller community too, a lot of misery is caused by a small number of people.

Retrospective planning consent should never be given if it would have been refused on a proper application in advance - there should be no scope for a fait accompli.

The only experience I've had with travellers was when several caravans and cars pulled up on our local green. They were in town for a funeral of a little girl who had been hit by a car, but stayed for weeks until every restaurant and other evening opening business was shutting at 5pm, and the pubs shut altogether - some businesses had to stay closed until damages were repaired. We had a newly opened bowling alley which got smashed up (it had a bar). There were also issues with speeding cars which I thought was particularly distasteful considering why they were in town. The green borders the local primary school, and every day there was rubbish in the playground including drink cans and dirty nappies. There was also general rubbish on the green every day they were there, and dogs running around outside snapping at people and crapping all over the place. Council workers were picking plastic bags and underwear out of the trees after they left.

No, I don't know all travellers, but I was disgusted by these ones. The green now has an ugly iron fence all around the outside to try and prevent any future (expensive) visits.

I'm always bemused that it could be considered racist to oppose a gang of travelers squatting in a public space indefinitely, thereby depriving the public of its use). Inevitably leaving an enormous mess for the council to sort out when they move onto their next spot.

If any other group was being demonized in this way, other posters would rightly outnumber the bigots and MNHQ would have deleted the thread ages ago. As one of the articles linked to above puts it, bigotry against travellers seems to be one of the last "acceptable" forms of prejudice for many.

Imagine you went on holiday abroad somewhere. As soon as you arrived, you felt hostility from the locals. You were told that certain services were off limits to you. People asked when you would be leaving, telling you that they knew exactly how British people behaved, they didn't trust the British, and so on. You finally discover that the reaction was due to another group of British tourists who behaved badly the previous week: getting drunk, trashing local establishments, getting into fights. And based on that experience, the locals had decided that all British people would behave precisely the same way. How would you feel about that? (Assuming most people who read MN are British. Feel free to substitute your nationality.)

O.K., it's not a perfect analogy. But it baffles me that in this day and age, so many people are willing to condemn an entire community based on negative experiences with particular individuals.

I have to ask - why don't Travellers want to live in a house? Serious question. Is there a reason why you can't engage in your culture while living in one place?

Also, I think the real issue is lack of education and seeming lack of interest in education. If Travellers were in one place, they could get an education and then they wouldn't be socially deprived. Can I ask - since you travel in communities, why don't you have good home schooling networks? You could maintain the continuity of education instead of kids going from school to school and the council would probably fund it happily. Is it because you don't value education?

Look at the Amish. They live in a historic way and while they have a lot of problems (and don't believe strongly in education for eg), anti-social behavior is not one of them. They are extremely self sufficient. Couldn't you try to be more like the Amish?

Imagine you went on holiday abroad somewhere. As soon as you arrived, you felt hostility from the locals. You were told that certain services were off limits to you. People asked when you would be leaving, telling you that they knew exactly how British people behaved, they didn't trust the British, and so on. You finally discover that the reaction was due to another group of British tourists who behaved badly the previous week: getting drunk, trashing local establishments, getting into fights. And based on that experience, the locals had decided that all British people would behave precisely the same way. How would you feel about that? (Assuming most people who read MN are British. Feel free to substitute your nationality.)

With respect, this is exactly how lots of people treat the British abroad. Because we often behave like animals in other people's countries. Vomiting, lewdness, aggressive behavior. I've been to Thailand, Spain, Greece and other British haunts. And I always behave impeccably because I understand that the poor locals are justifiably sick of all the British twats ruining their country! I don't take the opportunity to behave like a hooligan just because someone thinks I can.

FromSeaToShining I think the posters who have condemned an entire community based on the action of a few have been a very small minority on this thread, those who have seen their posts deleted. People have recounted some very negative personal experience with groups of travellers but that is not the same thing at all and doesn't constitute prejudice and doesn't make them bigots.

Apple wins mumsnet traveller bingo! I have a degree by the way, I'm not dictating my posts on this thread as I can read and write too!

Coconutty

Then I don't get it. If travellers can live in houses and still maintain their culture, why are you trying to defend and maintain a clearly unsustainable lifestyle (moving from place to place with no infrastructure in place to support it)? Or are you saying that you support the settling of all travellers?

And if they are all very well educated, why do statistics say otherwise - 60% of travellers having no formal education at all (over 3 times that of the rest of the population).

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/22/gypsies-lagging-education-gypsies-travellers

windyourbobbinup

The main travelllers I've come across have been the people who park up by the side of the road or in temporary sites that they've occupied for a few days.

Do you think the children of those people get a decent education and any support to overcome any difficulties? Or do they learn "on the road" ?

WindYourBobbinUp, but would you report a member of your own community if they committed a crime against an outsider?
But do appreciate that you are obviously a compassionate person - many would walk away domestic abuse/paralytic drunks, regardless of race.
And err.. yes. Brits abroad. We're not welcomed with open arms in much of Europe and understandably so!!

I have no idea what school the people on your road go to or how they perform as I don't know them. There's a lot of very well educated Romanies including some famous ones. I read in the latest stats that white working class boys performed the worst in terms of GCSE results, but I don't go around accusing people of not being able to read and write as that would be a sweeping generalisation

Yes I would report any crime i witnessed regardless of their ethnicity. Have done before, no doubt wíll need to again

Do you think the children of those people get a decent education and any support to overcome any difficulties? Or do they learn "on the road" ?

DCs school actually do a lot of work with travellers children, provide a go between who organises work via email and phone etc.I think it comes under the ELAMP project.

WindYourBobbinUp

Congratulations on your degree. I see the snark but - tbh - I'm not really even sure what you are actually arguing. It's not controversial to state that Traveller/Gypsy communities are undereducated as compared to the "gorger" population. I don't think this is conservative thing to say because you could argue convincingly that this is the fault of the government for not adequately engaging the community and of the reasonable suspicion of a community that has faced much discrimination. That would be a liberal explanation. Other explanations might not be so... generous.

But the underlying facts would not change. Or does not being racist now require us to pretend that structural problems don't exist?

In terms of education, even the gypsy traveller community will tell you they are not well educated, if you look at the culture.
It is tradition for females to leave school before secondary as it is customary for them not to work, but to have children, housekeep and make pin money from duckerin their wares.
The more recent or less traditional maybe encouraged to stay at school and then get a job, it depends on th family tbh.
It used to be said the academic age of a grown gypsy was 10.
I think to their credit, they taught their children the traditions and business of the family so they became smart rather than academic.
This is generally speaking though, obviously not all gypsys or travellers will fall into these categories.

If any other group was being demonized in this way, other posters would rightly outnumber the bigots

But they have been outnumbered. Granted a few poster have seemed to tar the whole community with the same brush, but the vast majority have simply posted about personal experiences. It may not suit your agenda to hear bad news about travellers, but do you seriously suggest that even to mention problems involves bigotry?

And yes, other groups do suffer for the actions of others, as when single sex groups are often refused accommodation. It's tough, admittedly, but the ones I've known have never shouted "bigotry" - instead they blame those who've spoiled things for others by their awful behaviour