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!

Save your sad faces bigfam. There's absolutely nothing wrong with basing your opinion on past experiences, that's just human nature surely?

I'm sure there is a nice traveller somewhere, I'm not disputing that for a moment. What I am saying is that every single experience I have had of them has been absolutely dreadful, scary and intimidating.

irishtraveller.org.uk/find-out-about-irish-travellers/history-and-culture/

Traveller threads on MN never end well. All the prejudice that pours out is so depressing.

I have worked with traveller children for years. I live in an area of London with a couple of big, established traveller sites and a significant settled traveller community. The travellers rub along with the settled and non-traveller community just fine.

I have never found the travellers we work with rude, aggressive, dirty etc. and believe that a lot of the problems between travellers and non travellers are cultural/lost in translation, or stem from a lack of proper sites for travellers and a shitty attitude towards them from councils and residents associations. (NB: They often find US rude, prejudice and think OUR homes are dirty ).

Its not on for a traveller community to just set up site in a school, of course not. But it is possible to object to that without offending and demonising a while group of people. You can defend your attitudes all you like with anecdotal stories, but when I hear 'these gypsies are so rude/filthy/aggressive' all I hear is 'these Pakis all smell and speak a funny language/these blacks are so aggressive and lazy/these Jews are so tight and unfriendly'. It all sounds the same....

If people have no respect for them, they won't be given respect in return, it goes both ways.
Some places chase them down before they even get the chance to settle down and prove them otherwise
My village doesn't get trouble and I honestly believe it's because as a entire community everyone gets along.

www.step.education.ed.ac.uk/travelling-communities-in-scotland/

'There's absolutely nothing wrong with basing your opinion on past experiences, that's just human nature surely? '

No its not alright. Its stereotyping. Its quite damaging.

People will base their opinions on their own experiences. This is no different from threads where people have asked opinions on taking their children to places like Morocco and posters pile in saying how much they hated it because of the hassle they got from markets sellers and such like. But others just read that as opinions based on real life experiences, which is what they are.

I don't think it's fair to blame people for opinions they form based on experience, and I don't think it's helpful just to accuse people of racism without acknowledging some of the horrendous experience they have had.

You wouldn't blame someone for being wary of dogs after being bitten by one, and this is no different. (And before anyone says it, I'm not comparing people with dogs, just giving an example of how valid opinions can be formed).

I disagree. I think this attitude should ALWAYS be challenged.

I would complain to the council about the traveller site in the school. I would NOT be happy about this. But there is no way it would ever make me start slagging off travellers. Its really simple. You CAN complain about or take action against things you dont like, or against the actions of a particular group of people, without demonising their ethnicity or culture. Perfectly possible.

Hmmmm the Facebook rage re fly tipping is huge in our area.It's funny how it's ok to get livid re Joe Bloggs making a mess but not re anybody else.

Op take pics and record license plate numbers then if the mess isn't cleared after they leave keep badgering the police.

Frankly I'd be livid if our school field was taken over as it is used by after school and holiday child care provision.

Fanfeckintastic
I haven't used a sad face, it doesn't make me sad. I do find it pathetic however, that your view of traveller's doesn't stretch beyond your own experiences.

People aren't typing their posts as if there are lovely Travellers or Gypsies, though. They are typing their posts as if all travellers and gypsies are the same as the ones they have met and had negative experiences with. That's not right, IMO.

Thanks for the link ItsAllGoing

Parts of this thread are horrific.

In places,substitute traveller or gypsy with Pakistani or Asian,and think about if that'd be ok.....

Nasty racism on here and I'd expect comment fron HQ asap,please.

I've never really experienced a twattish traveller that I have noticed. I have had the misfortune to know twats but wouldn't know if they were travellers or not.

Only time I am knowing around travellers are when the Fairs come and those lads from last week.

The lads can spin those waltzers round fucking fast at the fair!

Never had a problem. Apart from the cost of rides at the fair

Obviously that just my experience and people have different experiences.

I wouldn't now think that all travellers are great and up for a laugh.

There are arseholes from every race, weight, height, religion etc

Morning all. Just popping by with a link to our talk guidelines. We've deleted a few posts in this thread that we considered to be racist or otherwise discriminatory. We can see that may people have had upsetting experiences, but it's not really on to tar every member of a community (or group of communities in this case) with the same brush.

I envisage this thread being deleted.

Coconutty and notall - do you mind me asking if you pay taxes, have cars insured and MOTed?

Why is it okay for posters to share their positive experiences, but sharing negative experiences makes you a Nazi?

That's why these threads descend into chaos; because people are so worried about sounding left wing, they'll start spouting hysterical bullshit like that to shut people down.

FWIW I'veeexperienced good and bad and have Gypsy heritage.

For the most part, the negative connotations ARE based on experience. You can shout about it being racism. It doesn't change what people have witnessed themselves.

Acknowledging concerns and sympathising with bad experiences on BOTH sides will go a lot further in having a reasonable discussion.

Koalafications

Irish Traveller community's are usually always Roman Catholic.
So you will see confirmation being a big part of a young girls life.If you've ever watched the program on television the young girls usually wear what looks like a miniature wedding dress.

They're very big on family and most do have a lot of children,Death and remembering they're dead is also something that's very important to them.

Generally they're not keen on they're sons or daughters marrying outside the Traveller community.And the boys are treated differently from the girls.

I've known some travellers and they were lovely people,but they completely agreed with us Gypsies that we shouldn't be called Travellers and they shouldn't be called Gypsies,it's like two separate entity's and it feels like a bit of an insult to our heritage and our ancestors if we go by another name.

Paddy Doherty on the program the Doherty family are a huge Irish family,I've known quite a few of them and they were really lovely people.If you've met a Doherty once that's it they'll remember you forever and always treat you like family.

After meeting a couple of them I was invited to many weddings and a Funeral,they were always so warm and welcoming.

I do find it pathetic however, that your view of traveller's doesn't stretch beyond your own experiences

How ridiculous! So if you'd travelled to a particular town and each and every single time you did, you were abused, had rocks thrown at you, threatened, bitten by wild dogs, mugged and conned, you can actually tell me that you'd say "well my experiences haven't been great but Mrs.O'Shea but the road once spent a lovely weekend there so I'd highly recommend it!"

Yeah, okay.

A question for the Romany MN'ers - do Romany view other traveller groups with disdain (i.e those that wreck sites and leave rubbish everywhere) and do Romany keep themselves apart from the other travellers?

Walter, what you are missing is that when lots of people start attacking one community, it can easily spill over into really nasty prejudice attitudes. Which this thread has proved.

Its not 'hysterical' or 'left wing nonsense' to point out that people should be careful when they talk about any ethnic group. Not out of some sort of 'its PC gawn maaaaad' sentiment, but because very, very quickly 'I'm really unhappy about the mess caused by our local traveller site' can turn into 'all the travellers I have ever met are filthy and rude' to 'ALL travellers are filthy and rude'. See upthread for examples.