Its still not a contest, no matter how hard you try to win.

Why are you trying to make this a contest?

I'm speaking about the west because it's relevant to the vast majority of the forum.

i get discriminated against every day. im too beautiful for this world.

You made some very robust stereotypical comments about travellers which is your experience, I am sure a lot of people have had experience of many people in many communities who uphold stereotypes as well but if we were to mention that we would be called racist, or xenophobic or bigot or similar, the comment in the Guardian hit the nail on the head in that Irish travellers and gypsy's in general are still not protected like other groups are in relation to being stereotyped and abused.

It demonstrates the hypocricy. Irish travellers it seems are not ‘current’ or ‘PC’ enough. Not a high enough moral high ground to jump upon.

Why do you think this is? Genuine question.

I suppose my theory would be that they’re seen as more of a community than anything else? and anti-community is less of a talking point.

It is sad though. People should really start focussing on individuals to criticise instead of any group that they belong to.

I just think people see them as white trash, in the current climate it is not a popular cause to defend white trash

I wanted to disagree, but then I when I think of ‘white trash’ I think of the ‘hillbilly-type’ on american tv shows (my name is Earl used to use that phrase a lot), and i cant imagine theres much of a rush to defend communities like those either.

I think just calling people out for insulting groups when they mean individuals is the most you can do.

I suppose the problem is how do you define Travellers? They aren't a race so they can't be protected as such, xenophobia only comes into play if their irish/romanian roots are brought into it in a negative way and there's not enough pressure on the government to protect travellers, especially considering that most people will define a community by the worst of it while disregarding the rest.

People are simply too happy to see the worst in all of them.

travellers in my opinion get the rep they make for themselves

just like say the Chinese community get a rep for being quite, hardworking and beneficial

Fair enough, so I shouldn't talk about my experience of travellers, because its stereotypical? Hell, I even said I am sure thats not what they are all like, but the ones I have met HAVE been like that, ffs one of the guys even punched his 10 year old son in the head for beating him at pool...while I was on bloody shift, then threatened to shoot me as 'its **** all to do with you you slut, I'll do the same to you in a second' when I told him to get the hell out as we don't tolerate behaviour like that! There seemed to be one of them who was 'the boss' so to speak, an older guy who told him to calm down and get out, which did chill it all down immediately. But yeah, not allowed to talk about it apparently :shrug:

That's the thing Vicky you can talk about your experience, and you have done and nobody apart from me has questioned you about it, but I guarantee you if I started talking about a negative experience I had about another group using sterotypes I would be called all sorts even though I might qualify it with ' I know that all xxx are not like this' , the world is a pretty stupid place at the moment and that is the point I am making

And seriously heavy gamblers. It's true tho :umm2:

Possibly, but I doubt you would if just talking about experiences, rather than using it to say 'X group of people did this top me, this means all of them are like that' kind of thing.

I'm sure there are some travelers out there who are respectful to the natives of the areas they park at, never cause fights, and tidy up after themselves when they leave.

I've never actually heard of a single instance of this, but there probably is somewhere.

Tbf you wouldn't hear of it as such, as...like the papers aren't going to print stuff like 'travellers stayed here and did not cause any problems' :laugh:

And even among people you knw who have experienced stuff, if there were no issues they won't say anything or...they wouldn't even know the people were travellers. I mean I only knew because they made a huge song and dance about how they were travellers and 'hard as nails' to try and intimidate me into doing what they wanted me to do...which everytime was give them free alcohol, which was always a no, regardless of what threats they gave me

I think that I've subconsciously been discriminated against by older people sometimes in my life, not always meant in a malicious way but it's definitely been there.

I meant that the older people subconsciously discriminate against me based off my age.

My god the way I put things across on here can be messy.:laugh: