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!

My oh is (settled) traveller, he can read and write and runs his own successful (legit) car business, with a trade car insurance policy to boot.

Psipsina but those minorities have a greater representation in the UK, they are also part of the mainstream UK culture. They can also have distinguishing features so you know that they are from that minority. The same can't always be said for Travellers and Gypsies.

Psipina, I'm old enough to remember when my dad couldnt get a room to rent in London because he was Irish. DH is old enough to remember when he wasnt allowed to play at certain school friends houses because he was black.
I hear all sorts of absolute shit being spoken about Eastern Europeans in my day to day life in 2015.

Most travellers dont 'shit in the street'. Just like most Poles arent 'here to scrounge benefits' (and in the 70s, most Irish werent thieves, and in the 60s most blacks werent sub-human).

It astounds me that people cannot see the common thread here....

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,
Giveoverluv is that an example?

Im from a settled romany family.
Yes we do pay mortgages, tax our cars, mot and insure, send our children to school and have jobs that aren't cash in hand.

GiveOver completely agree with your post

High five bigfam

ahbollocks you know it.

Have you actually read my legitimate first hand experiences of travellers bigfam? Yes it is an example, quite an appropriate one too.

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?

Yes disdain is a much gentler word than my Father would use he hates that it gets laid at all Gypsy's doors.

Romany Gypsy's originated from India many many years ago they think between the 6th and the 11th century.

Not Romania as many people confuse it with.

Irish Travellers haven't been around as long(as it show's in the History of Irish Travellers)as Romany gypsies.

Fanfeckintastic
Sorry I can't read.
Yes I did, and an unfortunate experience. But you haven't experienced ALL travellers and gypsies, and you won't ever. Therein is my point. Your description of them is completely unfair and stereotypical

We've had travellers illegally camp in our village twice. Police and LA took ages to shift them and refused to retrieve our stolen property from said travellers. The clear up after took ages too >_<

The second time the farmers banded together and within 2hours of them breaking into the field they'd been shifted - no police or LA involvement, they've not been back since!

It's hard to label a whole group of people since some will only have positive experiences, some only negative and others a mix of both.

However it is never ok for anyone to:
Break into someone else's property and steal/damage their possessions
Leave litter/other waste/human or animal waste anywhere other than the appropriate bin
Steal animals
Attack people in the street
Use an inability to read as an excuse for vile rude behaviour to shop assistants
Refuse to follow the laws of the land and use your cultural beliefs as an excuse

Basically if you treat me and mine with respect and kindness I'll do the same for you and yours :-)

Here's a novel idea. Treat gypsies/travellers the way you would treat any other person. If you think they are being anti-social, complain to the LA; complain to the noise abatement officer; complain to the environmental health; complain to the police. And if, after all those complaints, nothing changes then consider that maybe, just maybe, they actually aren't breaking the law and that your intolerance of their behaviour is being exacerbated by your bigotry

This really is nonsense. There is a big problem with Roma here, begging with children, sleeping rough on the steps of DCs school, using it as a toilet. The caretaker has to clean the steps every morning before school. It's completely unacceptable. It's usually seven or eight women with one man. We have been campaigning for years to have something done and the council endlessly tell us to report it for their records and fill in impact reports and nothing is done.

Things temporarily got better when a shanty tow on Park Lane appeared overnight because all the posh hotels objected and the police moved in . But parents objecting that their three year olds should not be sharing space with a Roma toilet? No action. They've actually been gone over the winter and reappeared when the weather changed.

I have to say the majority of Travellers live normal life's,are very clean people and look after and love they're children and pets.

The only way I can explain it is like this.

Many years ago you would have had travellers that all lived in this way and then you would have had a group that splintered of from them(like the old term the black sheep of the family)that for what ever reason didn't want to live like that.Didn't respect the land,didn't respect they're elders and didn't want to work for a living.

They went of on they're own and lived in the way that people are complaining about,they of course would have gone onto have more children and they're children would have grown up and got married and had children and sadly carried on the way of life the splinter group had chosen.

They don't live the way the original Travellers would have done and still do.

I'd zap this thread if it were down to me.
Not to close down reasonable debate,but to close down the racist undertones running throughout,and send a message that its not to be tolerated.
But its not up to me.

Still waiting to hear if travellers (not settled) pay taxes and insure their cars .......

They always end up zapped. And I always end up not learning anything I didn't already know and still with lots of questions.

And what's the point in that? So you can wave your finger at them?! There are bloody wrong doers in all types of communities, not just travellers and gypsies.

I'd just do an internet search with any questions Sparkling if you want facts tbh.

I have done quite a bit of searching over the years. There's still stuff I don't understand. But its ok.

I think that any posts that are racist should unquestionably be taken down but I think qualified freedom of speech is vital and it's important not to close down debate. IMO the issues with the grooming scandals in Rochdale and elsewhere showed how dangerous it can be if people are frightened to voice their experiences for fear of being labelled racist. Harassment and discrimination of Gypsy Travellers by a minority of the settled community should be dealt with by the authorities as should harassment and criminal damage caused by a minority of the traveller community. I don't think either of those things is being done effectively at present.

I come from a part of Ireland with a huge Traveller community and culture.

Like anything else, some pay taxes and some don't.

I think it's disingenuous to say people who are saying "travellers wrecked our local park" are talking about ALL travellers.

Rather than assume that they're being racist why not give tthe benefit of the doubt and assume it'sshorthand for "the travellers I've been in contact with?"

Someone up thread said that people come at the problem from an aggressive and argumentative standpoint. But that's happening on both sides of this thread.

As I said unthread, no other ethnic minority would be allowed to take this amount of verbal abuse. Shame in mnhq for allowing it run. Shame because anyone who searches Gypsy/Traveller on the Internet will find it and be misinformed....again . About two groups of people, Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers who just want to live in peace. All the time knowing they are hated almost everywhere. No wonder contempt moves in, there is alot of racism, everywhere, some people still think "pikey" is a funny word. It's offensive.
Oh and for the non Gypsies who think we are dirty, this is massively untrue. Look at how some of you live with dogs and cats in your kitchens, licking your face after they lick themselves clean. Niiiiice. I've seen cats walking on worktop a then bread put down for sandwiches, no cleaning first. That's dirty in my book, but I don't assume all you gorgers do it because I'm not an ignorant, bigoted, small minded arsehoke who prefers to think the worse in all people because of the actions of a few.

Straighttothepoint ,I would expect the one's like the OP is describing that the answer would be no.

We had some people camped up in the town where we live,they were living like the people the OP described and in the local paper they'd said that all they're vehicles were removed for that very reason.

Peachy: the idea that the horrors of Rochdale were allowed to go on because the authorities were scared of being called racists is not quite true. It was a lot more to do with (surprise surprise) the concept that teenage girls in care were dishonest, uncontrollable scrubbers and what happened to them didn't matter.