To think if you've escaped a war zone, have shelter and food a wristband is no hardship

[Lj17lj]

I might get slammed but I really don't see the issue. I've went on very expensive holidays and festivals and have to wear a wrist band for weeks on end, its fine. When I go to the steam room in local gym I have to wear a band.

I really can't see the issue. It's not the same as forcing a tattoo on someone.

TBH if I had to leave my home country, and another country took me in, fed me & housed me, I think I'd just be grateful rather than whinging & posing for sadface photos because of the colour of the door of my FREE house or having to wear a wristband for my FREE meal. If it bothers any of you that much then why don't you offer them your spare rooms and feed them yourselves?

Agree with everything JonSnow said at 14:40:14.

I'm also a bit boggling that someone came up with this idea in the first place. It's a problem already solved by schools, which use fingerprint systems for pupils to get lunch.

Unlike the pupils, who aren't legally obliged to have fingerprints recorded, asylum seekers are fingerprinted on arrival. Many people in the asylum system have to report weekly to police stations (maybe all, I'm not sure). They are already part of the fingerprint and id system just be being here. There's no additional loss of privacy (well, I suppose whether they're eating or not...)

And what Dawn said at 09:51:23.

TBH if I had to leave my home country, and another country took me in, fed me & housed me, I think I'd just be grateful rather than whinging & posing for sadface photos because of the colour of the door of my FREE house or having to wear a wristband for my FREE meal.

Really?
Can you put yourself in their position and be happy and grateful to wear a wristband (which presumably couldn't easily be removed) to be able to eat?

Can someone explain to me why you're all getting angry about wristbands?

Why aren't you getting angry the racist thugs dishing out the abuse? Sod the wristbands, they're a good idea; the thing we need to stop is the abuse.

Talk about getting angry about the wrong thing.

Of course we're angry with the damn thugs.

But why would you help the thugs? And why on earth would you mark people out so that even if others aren't behaving illegally to them, they could still behave unpleasantly to them?

In fact, if people have lived in fear for a long time and have now escaped persecution, and are now hearing/reading vitriol against "people like them", it doesn't even take someone actually having a go to make them afraid.

I don't think it was necessarily done maliciously, but the negative effect is easy to see and entirely unnecessary. Quite right that it was stopped.

Are you actually fucking kidding?

What about a yellow star, op? That worked well the last time.

Was just going to say that, Trooperslane.
"I wore a yellow star when I dressed like a sheriff one time at Halloween and it really wasn't that bad. Don't know what the fuss was all about"

But why would you help the thugs?

I'm not suggesting helping the thugs, unless you think arresting them and imprisoning them is somehow "helping" them.

they could still behave unpleasantly to them?

Perhaps we could try to curb unpleasantness? Maybe we should strive to make a nicer society, rather than apologising for the thugs. Maybe we should teach the thugs not to abuse.

And I'm prepared to categorise the people who set this up as just headdesk-ingly dim, who despite working with refugees didn't actually think it through.

But I'm not prepared to extend the same benefit of doubt to posters on this thread once they've had the issue explained, who are still disingenuously posting, "Ooh, I don't see any problem."

Free houses and food?

Wow, I wish I could be an asylum seeker. What do you have to do to become eligible? What's that you say, watch my country being torn apart by war, watch my family being killed, tortured and raped, lose my job, my home and everything I take for granted?

I've changed my mind actually. I'll pay for my house and food.

Maybe stupid people should be made to wear wrist bands so we can avoid them

Nah, we just need to wait for them to open their mouths.

I don't understand this. There is nothing wrong with a wristband in a country of compassionate people. In this instance it was telling the people who are willing to help who those people were who were entitled to help. There is no comparison with yellow stars and jews. The jews were being demonised.

Now we assume that a decision to identify people who require help, in order to make that job easier, is effectively demonising them, Heaven help us all - political correctness gone mad again. If we were decent people we would be saying 'oh, that person has a wrist band, they need support' and ask them in for tea, cake and a chat. And now that chance has gone.

I think its sad that theres so many stupid thoughtless people on this thread.

Surely a country of compassionate people wouldn't even dream of wristbands.
They'd treat refugees as their own and give them cash to spend. No need to have an ID to buy food.

England is not a country of compassionate people, sadly. You only need to read this thread to see that.

Reading social media, news site comment sections etc depresses me. It often feels like the ignorant and aggressive are starting to outnumber the decent and educated.

Asylum seekers are demonised.

If we were decent people we would be saying 'oh, that person has a wrist band, they need support' and ask them in for tea, cake and a chat. And now that chance has gone.

You're either joking or amazingly patronising.

Refugees are not pets. They are people who can make decisions for themselves. They were resourceful enough to flee their countries. They don't need randoms to see them in the street and invite them for tea.

tormentil You are labelling them as "other", which is always the first step towards oppression. In every ethnic cleansing, the group was somehow identified as "other" first. Next the "others" are to blame for everyone else's problems (already happening with migrants). Then something must be done about the evil others who are ruining everything for "us".

That's one reason why racial discrimination is so rife, it is easy to see if someone is black, while discriminating against people who fiddle their taxes is difficult because there is no outward indication, even though one group deserves ostracising and the other doesn't.

It is particularly horrible to do this to people who have effectively been ethnically cleansed from Syria. Let them blend in. Be one of us. Look no different to you or me or the tax dodgers. A person seeing them on the street shouldn't be able to tell they are "other".

They don't need randoms to see them in the street and invite them for tea. Why not? It's a traditional way of welcoming people.

I think its very insulting to compare it to Nazis, as someone who has family members that died in the Holocaust. Godwins law in overdrive.

It was ill thought out, but they were given to help and give preferential treatment, not the other way around.

You are labelling them as "other" No, it's marking a distinction.

I disagree with the 'otherness' argument. That is a presumption on our part and it is a disempowering presumption.

There's only a sense of 'otherness' if there is a negative interpretation of that 'otherness'. I have no negative interpretation of refugees. Nor do, I hope, the majority of British people.

In making a fuss about wristbands, we are making an assumption that their refugee status is a negative one in which they are lesser beings. They are not. We then presume they are conscious of their 'lesserness' and then fall over ourselves to make sure that they don't feel stigmatised by what is, in effect. a presumption on our part. This is patronising.

Refugees are not 'less than'. Traumatised, yes, needing help, yes - but NOT less than. Who, then is doing the 'othering'?

I am a refugee and I can tell you what's wrong with them.

1. it singles out people and makes integration harder.

2. it makes it easier for people to identify refugees and abuse them.

3. it is degrading and embarrassing to be identified as someone that's using state help to survive for many

In order to understand what's wrong with it maybe you can entertain the idea of getting all people on benefits to wear wrists bands. Or maybe imagine all kids on free school meals having to wear a wrist band. Would you still ague that they can hide it under their sleeve?

Just to add... I also think vouchers are a stupid idea for the exact same reason as wristbands are. We should give out cash and let people decide what they want to do with it. Exactly the way we give out cash to British people who are on benefits. Just because someone is a refugee it doesn't mean they aren't capable of deciding how to spend their weekly money.

P.S. OP, please don't write 'could of' when you mean 'could have'.

I think the reluctance to give them cash is that it will end up in the traffickers' pockets.