Are we in 1930's Mississippi?

Annasopra

anncoates wrote: »

Of course not, judging individual travellers on the actions of others would be bigoted.

That's different to asking why are disproportionately high levels of social issues in that community tolerated by wider society for fear of appearing racist, and even worse, actually assigned a bogus cultural/ethnic status?

I don't understand what you mean there. Whats bogus?

anncoates

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

I don't understand what you mean there. Whats bogus?

Tell me exactly what defines the elective traveller lifestyle as a culture that needs to be protected and qualifies as grounds for being distinct for wider society?

Not living in a house? Keeping your kids away from school? Disproportionate unemployment? Littering?

What is inherently cultural about any of of this?

Annasopra

anncoates wrote: »

Tell me exactly what defines the elective traveller lifestyle as a culture that needs to be protected and qualifies as grounds for being distinct for wider society?

Not living in a house? Keeping your kids away from school? Disproportionate unemployment? Littering?

What is inherently cultural about any of of this?

What are you looking for exactly?

I mean I can give you well researched reports on the issue

keano_afc

Ah Travellers. Its the 99% that give the 1% a bad name.

anncoates

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

What are you looking for exactly?

I mean I can give you well researched reports on the issue

If you can tell me exactly what traveler culture is, fine.

As an elective lifestyle, what does it involve that warrants extra consideration outside of normal societal rights, (such as normal equality rights) and obviously vice versa, as in your own responsibility towards society.

Muise...

anncoates wrote: »

Tell me exactly what defines the elective traveller lifestyle as a culture that needs to be protected and qualifies as grounds for being distinct for wider society?

Not living in a house? Keeping your kids away from school? Disproportionate unemployment? Littering?

What is inherently cultural about any of of this?

Culture is not a useful term here. It can be a Bach concerto, Aztec human sacrifice, or a yoghurt.

The disproportionate unemployment and littering are very recent developments. "Tinkers" had a trade in mending tin and doing odd jobs. This doesn't fit in any more so resistance to change has become a culture. Eschewing education, marrying young and having lots of children can be seen as cultural, but when they result in dependency and ill health, they stop being cultures to protect as we would language, music, cuisine etc. I think the trouble is pointing to one element of a culture, say Cant, and using it as an argument to defend the whole lot.

SEPT 23 1989

efb wrote: »

So should I be judged on all the actions of the settled community???

Stop trying to defend the indefensible

anncoates

Muise... wrote: »

Culture is not a useful term here. It can be a Bach concerto, Aztec human sacrifice, or a yoghurt.

The disproportionate unemployment and littering are very recent developments. "Tinkers" had a trade in mending tin and doing odd jobs. This doesn't fit in any more so resistance to change has become a culture. Eschewing education, marrying young and having lots of children can be seen as cultural, but when they result in dependency and ill health, they stop being cultures to protect as we would language, music, cuisine etc. I think the trouble is pointing to one element of a culture, say Cant, and using it as an argument to defend the whole lot.

I agree totally.

Funnily I had thought of the older 'Tinker' culture too but the modern day travellers have a far more interlocked/ambiguous relationship with 'settled' society: on one hand, what modern society expects from citizens in terms of anything from eduction to the environment and on the other hand what modern society gives: the welfare system, housing, etc.

Can any citizen in this country just cherry pick what they want?

I wasn't looking for a binding and narrow definition of culture, rather seeking to establish when a designation of 'culture' becomes an excuse for abrogating your responsibility to wider society.

Muise...

anncoates wrote: »

I agree totally.

Funnily I had thought of the older 'Tinker' culture too but the modern day travellers have a far more interlocked/ambiguous relationship with 'settled' society: on one hand, what modern society expects from citizens in terms of anything from eduction to the environment and on the other hand what modern society gives: the welfare system, housing, etc.

Can any citizen in this country just cherry pick what they want?

I wasn't looking for a binding and narrow definition of culture, rather seeking to establish when a designation of 'culture' becomes an excuse for abrogating your responsb8ility to wider society.

Never.

FTA69

I don't think Travellers were ever really accepted though, even when they did provide skilled trades which were useful to farmers. There is a notion that Travellers used to be looked upon fondly back in the old days but there's definitely a case of rose-tinted nostalgia there. I remember watching a Reeling in the Years documentary set in the early-1960s that showed the first Traveller woman to receive a new council house, she was forced out within a couple of weeks. Similarly you only have to look at how they were acknowledged in plays such as The Field which rightly portrayed them as being outcasts in a conservative rural society.

FTA69

Likewise I can appreciate the fact that many people have had negative experiences with Travellers. I grew up in a council estate in Cork with plenty of Travellers living there, similarly I also boxed (still do) and interacted with a load of them through that. When I moved to London the first people I met and socialised with were a family of Travellers who drank in the pub I lived in.

Have I had negative experiences with them? Definitely. I've been in a few scraps with them growing up over the years and having also worked as a doorman during a horse fair I'm under no illusions of what some of them can be capable of in terms of violence and sheer scumbaggery. However, the basic thing that people should accept at the very least is that other people are individuals and are responsible solely for their own actions. As Ann Coates said above, people are entitled to question the litany of social problems that they face as a community (any Pavee will admit that themselves and there are plenty doing great work to address it) but you aren't entitled to portray every one of them as criminals or compare them to animals or poisonous snakes.

Similarly not everyone who refuses to accept the fallacy that "they're all bastards" is a bleeding-hearted dope. As I said above, I've more experience with them than most and I certainly don't believe that at all. Many of the people I've boxed with, drank with and worked with over the years are kind and decent people who are no more a criminal than anyone else. To see them portrayed as sub-human degenerates doesn't fit in with my own experiences to be honest.

http://tvgcork.ie/site/

I worked with the above group briefly in Cork, would they fit the bill as criminal scum?

Foxhound38

They have every right to settle within the same bounds as the rest of us...

As long as they are willing to live with the same responsibilities towards the community in which they live as the rest of us.

They are citizens of this country, same as me - there shouldn't be certain rules for them and other rules for the rest of us - that is a recipe for disaster.

So let them settle in an area, and leave them in peace as long as they leave everyone else in peace. But one whiff of anti-social behaviour, reluctance to educate their children to the standard demanded by law, feuding or unwillingness to live peaceably within the same societal bounds as the rest of us then the law should brook no excuse.

I'm sick of excuses being made for the above on the basis of "culture" - soft-handedness here doesn't help them and it doesn't help us. Particularly the bit about education - pulling a child out of school before the age of 16 is against the law, and if I did it to my kids and cited "it's a part of my culture" I'd be told to g'way on out of that before social services are called. How in the name of jaysus are we supposed to move on from the current state of affairs when we still have a community living here where functional illiteracy is so high? It's an unacceptable situation, and it is unacceptable that we as a society have turned a blind eye to it for so long.

We have a duty of care towards those kids to ensure they get a proper education which will allow them to become fully functional members of society - if their community doesn't like that then they can f*ck off somewhere else where such a duty isn't demanded on society by law.

FTA69

Foxhound38 wrote: »

They are citizens of this country, same as me - there shouldn't be certain rules for them and other rules for the rest of us - that is a recipe for disaster.

Are they exempt from the law though? It's not as if there's a shortage of them in jail or anything. I know there's plenty of them who couldn't give a f*ck about tax/insurance/licenses etc but at the same time there's a difference between that and them being allowed to get away with it.

Foxhound38

FTA69 wrote: »

Are they exempt from the law though? It's not as if there's a shortage of them in jail or anything. I know there's plenty of them who couldn't give a f*ck about tax/insurance/licenses etc but at the same time there's a difference between that and them being allowed to get away with it.

It's not just a question of the anti-social elements unwillingness to follow the same laws and social standards as the rest of us, it's also a question of us being unwilling to actually enforce those laws and standards when it comes to this community. They have problems with tax/insurance/licenses/education/feuding/anti-social behaviour because *we allow* this situation to go ahead. It doesn't help the ordinary, decent members of that community that have to live with this crapology either - they are the most failed by this fear of engagement.

I can't stress the education thing enough though, that is a situation that should have been put a stop to yesterday. It's 21st century Ireland, I don't give a fcuk what anyone's culture has to say about it - education to a certain standard isn't optional within these borders. It's time to enforce that.

FTA69

Foxhound38 wrote: »

It's not just a question of the anti-social elements unwillingness to follow the same laws and social standards as the rest of us, it's also a question of us being unwilling to actually enforce those laws and standards when it comes to this community.

Considering you believe that society doesn't enforce the laws when it comes to Travellers, why are there so many of them in jail so? Obviously they're getting convicted for something aren't they?

It doesn't help the ordinary, decent members of that community that have to live with this crapology either - they are the most failed by this fear of engagement.

I agree with you there, it's mostly law-abiding Travellers who have to deal with the worst excesses of the criminally-minded ones.

I can't stress the education thing enough though, that is a situation that should have been put a stop to yesterday. It's 21st century Ireland, I don't give a fcuk what anyone's culture has to say about it - education to a certain standard isn't optional within these borders. It's time to enforce that.

I agree with you there as well and it should also be acknowledged that there are many Travellers actively encouraging and promoting education within that community and they should be supported. Labelling them all as subhuman scum doesn't help that at all. (Not saying you were doing this but many on thread were.)

Tony EH

GenieOz wrote: »

I've met 7 or 8 members of the travelleing community thst I haven't had trouble with. Of the hundreds I've come across in a previous job..I guess that means I shouldn't generalise but logically..having them living beside me would be a nightmare. Unless they happened to be the tiny minority.

It's only the 98% percent of the bad ones that make the rest look dodgy.

awec

These threads are always such a load of nonsense. I guess some people are insistent on sticking their head in the sand and pretending like there is no issue, while simultaneously falling over themselves trying to pat each other on the back for their self-styled "progressive" thinking. The only people you are fooling is yourselves.

The reputation that the travelling community has didn't just appear out of thin air. People didn't just wake up one morning and decide that they would develop a mistrust of the travelling community. I'm sure there are some nice travellers out there somewhere but there is still a large percentage of trouble makers. Pretending otherwise solves nothing. Waffling on about "generalisations" solves nothing.

People don't want travellers moving in beside them, because there are real problems associated with that community and their "culture". That's reality. It's not racism.

crockholm

FTA69 wrote: »

Likewise I can appreciate the fact that many people have had negative experiences with Travellers. I grew up in a council estate in Cork with plenty of Travellers living there, similarly I also boxed (still do) and interacted with a load of them through that. When I moved to London the first people I met and socialised with were a family of Travellers who drank in the pub I lived in.

Have I had negative experiences with them? Definitely. I've been in a few scraps with them growing up over the years and having also worked as a doorman during a horse fair I'm under no illusions of what some of them can be capable of in terms of violence and sheer scumbaggery. However, the basic thing that people should accept at the very least is that other people are individuals and are responsible solely for their own actions. As Ann Coates said above, people are entitled to question the litany of social problems that they face as a community (any Pavee will admit that themselves and there are plenty doing great work to address it) but you aren't entitled to portray every one of them as criminals or compare them to animals or poisonous snakes.

Similarly not everyone who refuses to accept the fallacy that "they're all bastards" is a bleeding-hearted dope. As I said above, I've more experience with them than most and I certainly don't believe that at all. Many of the people I've boxed with, drank with and worked with over the years are kind and decent people who are no more a criminal than anyone else. To see them portrayed as sub-human degenerates doesn't fit in with my own experiences to be honest.

http://tvgcork.ie/site/

I worked with the above group briefly in Cork, would they fit the bill as criminal scum?

My own experiences mirror a lot of your own.
I come from a Town where 1/35 is a traveller, 4/33 lads in my 5th class were travellers,we boxed at the same club and hung out in the same Group as Young teens.
And despite all this,there isn't a snowballs chance in hell that I would want anything to do with them now,without going into the wrongs and slights endured, I'm just left with the whole "scorpion and the frog" fable from when you do them a good turn.

This is one of those obvious cases where I won't even try to hide my bigotry, I just don't want anything to do with them ever again.

As for the 4 classmates/ex friends, one is in jail for murdering his sister,one is in and out of pokey for public order offences and is a chronic alcoholic (about the only one I still salute,an have a Little pity for),one has been done so many times for theft of metals,and B &E, and number 4 is up to his eyeballs in the drug trade.

Foxhound38

FTA69 wrote: »

I agree with you there as well and it should also be acknowledged that there are many Travellers actively encouraging and promoting education within that community and they should be supported. Labelling them all as subhuman scum doesn't help that at all. (Not saying you were doing this but many on thread were.)

Agreed, and I do believe that those who choose to engage with the system and the rest of society (particularly the education system) should be given every support and encouragement they need. School-books paid for, etc. I'm convinced that getting the majority of one generation of travelling people to proper Leaving Cert level would be all it would take to cause a lot of mutual problems between communities to abate. There would still be work to do, but this is the single most important step that can be taken and as much as I'm willing to use force of law to ensure legal obligations in this area are forfilled on their part, I am more than willing for society to support those that do in getting there.

I am also in favour of active measures to ensure those who have done nothing wrong are not discriminated against or profiled when it comes to the provision of services whether public or private.

Functioning as a member of society is a two way street - those that do should be subject to the same benefits as the rest of us.

efb

Bio Mech wrote: »

He clearly wasn't talking about Tullamore so your point is not relevant.

If they are so bad why wasn't there a lockdown in tullamore?

Tony EH

suicide_circus wrote: »

Look obviously a social safety net is an improvement but to say there are zero negative side effects is naive. Social welfare allows SOME to essentially check out of any personal effort or civic responsibility. People who would have had to work to make a living can now pretty well choose not to as they can rely on the forced generosity of others. There is a sort of immorality in that for me. But look, probably the better of two evils.

Just because there are SOME elements that are willing to take advantage of a given system, it doesn't mean that that system is inherently wrong, or "evil". :rolleyes:

All systems are abused in some way by small numbers of people who choose to do so.

It doesn't make the system wrong (a system that offers the vast majority greatly needed and appreciated help), it makes the people who abuse the system wrong.

Skylinehead

efb wrote: »

If they are so bad why wasn't there a lockdown in tullamore?

Maybe because the associated parties lived in Mullingar and not in Offaly? Pretty obvious I would have thought.

allibastor

eviltwin wrote: »

Is building houses that are only intended to be used for travellers not discrimination against the rest of society?

You cant discriminate against the majority, don't you know. Unless you have some claim that the "man" is against you your ****e out of luck

efb

Skylinehead wrote: »

Maybe because the associated parties lived in Mullingar and not in Offaly? Pretty obvious I would have thought.

It's an awful distance- considering from earlier posts they don't even pay for diesel...

Ghost Buster

efb wrote: »

My understanding, he was in Tullamore hospital. I was there visiting my mother. No lockdown

Had to get transferred there such was the result of his injuries. He was first brought into casualty in Mullingar and the 'separate and unique cultural identity' folk followed along and displayed their culture.

Ghost Buster

efb wrote: »

If they are so bad why wasn't there a lockdown in tullamore?

Skylinehead wrote: »

Maybe because the associated parties lived in Mullingar and not in Offaly? Pretty obvious I would have thought.

Exactly this. The families are living in Mullingar. As usually happens in these lock downs, the Gardai and special units get called in and have to actively block the families from following on to cause further disruption. This is so regular in hospitals in the midlands region that the Gardai have it down to a fine art now and it doesnt even merit a News story. Longford Clinic had CS gas or some sort let off in it a few years back and the staff had to be quarantined for several hours until the nature of the gas could be identified.
Wake up and smell the coffee EFB. These are not isolated incidences.

SEPT 23 1989

Ghost Buster wrote: »

Exactly this. The families are living in Mullingar. As usually happens in these lock downs, the Gardai and special units get called in and have to actively block the families from following on to cause further disruption. This is so regular in hospitals in the midlands region that the Gardai have it down to a fine art now and it doesnt even merit a News story. Longford Clinic had CS gas or some sort let off in it a few years back and the staff had to be quarantined for several hours until the nature of the gas could be identified.
Wake up and smell the coffee EFB. These are not isolated incidences.

Why is my hard earned tax paying for that type of bullsh1t?:mad:

Nemeses

efb wrote: »

It's an awful distance..

I'll stop you right there.

This is boards.ie ..not bleeding Joe Duffy's show!

Arbiter of Good Taste

Ghost Buster wrote: »

Exactly this. The families are living in Mullingar. As usually happens in these lock downs, the Gardai and special units get called in and have to actively block the families from following on to cause further disruption. This is so regular in hospitals in the midlands region that the Gardai have it down to a fine art now and it doesnt even merit a News story. Longford Clinic had CS gas or some sort let off in it a few years back and the staff had to be quarantined for several hours until the nature of the gas could be identified.
Wake up and smell the coffee EFB. These are not isolated incidences.

I had a close family member who used to work in Mullingar hospital. Everything Ghost Buster says is true. I remember there was a story in the news about 5 years ago. Major traveller riots in Mullingar. We were watching the news worried about our relative as we assumed the hospital was a war zone. It turned out it was one of the quietest nights he ever had in A&E as the hospital was effectively in lockdown.

emeldc

crockholm wrote: »

My own experiences mirror a lot of your own.
I come from a Town where 1/35 is a traveller, 4/33 lads in my 5th class were travellers,we boxed at the same club and hung out in the same Group as Young teens.
And despite all this,there isn't a snowballs chance in hell that I would want anything to do with them now,without going into the wrongs and slights endured, I'm just left with the whole "scorpion and the frog" fable from when you do them a good turn.

This is one of those obvious cases where I won't even try to hide my bigotry, I just don't want anything to do with them ever again.

As for the 4 classmates/ex friends, one is in jail for murdering his sister,one is in and out of pokey for public order offences and is a chronic alcoholic (about the only one I still salute,an have a Little pity for),one has been done so many times for theft of metals,and B &E, and number 4 is up to his eyeballs in the drug trade.

But they will claim that they never got the same opportunities as you because they were travellers.

A brother in law of mine, a solicitor, once told me that the hardest case to prosecute or defend was one which included travellers, because they just weren't capable of telling the truth ................ even when they were in the right.