Posted by why ? on July 31, 2004 at 12:26:56:

In Reply to: Re: 80% illiteracy among travellers posted by Mogli on July 31, 2004 at 08:39:39:

"just watch the shopkeepers in town bristle when a group of young travellers come into their shop"

And why do you think this might be so?

You can accuse Shopkeepers, Pub owners, Hoteliers etc of discrimination but at the end of the day they are business people and being overtly prejudiced against potential customers (i.e. the pubs who refuse to serve travellers) doesnt seem to make much business sense

But from having spent a couple of years working in a shop my experience was that we had a lot of problems with shoplifting and general nuisance behaviour by travellers (On the other hand hand we had problems with people from the settled community as well and some of our best customers were from the travelling community)

In the light of this experience I tend to be wary when dealing with people I dont know from the travelling community. Admitidely this is a rather prejudiced attitude on my part and Im concious that it is pretty unfair but It makes sense based on my own experience and that of people I know.
I know its not right to tar an entire community because of the misbehaviour of a minority within that community but I find myself doing it all the time. I really do believe though that there is a serious problem with criminal behaviour among a minority of travellers which the public and the authorities arent willing to face up to and do something about for fear of being branded as prejudiced but until we do the prejudice is going to be perpetuated.
On the other side of the coin it could be argued that in a society that displays so much prejudice. Travellers dont have much incentive to work towards improving their situation if people are going to treat them like dirt anyway.

Follow Ups:

• Re: just watch the shopkeepers in town bristle Mogli 12:45:18 31/07/04 (3)
  • council's legal requirement to house Travellers Why ? 16:08:46 31/07/04 (2)
    • Re: council's legal requirement to house everyone Mogli 17:22:40 31/07/04 (1)
      • 'housing' might be a bit strong - halting sites Why ? 19:31:00 31/07/04 (0)

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