Why is there so much hate for gypsies?

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(grabs cheeks of person who hates gypsies) Thinner.

Every so often a group of gypsies would pitch up in the village I grew up in, stay for a few months, and then move on. There was always trouble between the two sides. The gypsies would park up on somebody elses land, make a huge mess, and be pretty nasty to anybody who came near them. On a few occasions a group of older kids chased us just for wandering too close to their camp.
On the other hand, the locals were downright nasty to them. They would be harrassed in the street, the land owners would try to remove them from the land, local kids would shout abuse at them and even launch rocks into their site.
There was just dislike on both sides. I'm not sure who was really to blame. Probably a bit of both.
Their kids would be enrolled at our primary school. They really suffered. There would maybe around 8 of them aged between 4 and 12. They wore really dirty clothes, were usually in a class without any other gypsies, and were always miles behind the rest of the class at schoolwork. They were bullied constantly, and nobody would be friends with them. At playtime they would all gather together and try and keep out of the way. Nobody even made the effort to get to know them. There seemed no point, because they'd be gone in a few months. I kinda grew to get on OK with one girl once, but she left soon after and I never saw her again.

My family on the other hand, has often hired gypsies to do short term jobs, and have always found them nice enough guys. Never had any trouble from them.

Would you still love it if that was your culture and you had no choice but to do it?

I can't stand 'mainstream' Western gender roles...let alone more 'traditional' ones like those found in travellers.

Traveller girls don't get any education. They can't go anywhere on their own. Their life is mapped out for them since they are born - they have to get married in their late teens and they HAVE to have one of those ridiculous weddings (I think all weddings are ridiculous, but you get my point). They have no choice whatsoever and all their life leading up to their silly wedding is all about the wedding (and keeping their virginity until then). After the wedding, their whole life is about trying to keep their husbands from beating them and about having kids.

It's sounds like I'm horribly generalising, maybe I am a little bit - but not much.

People then have the cheek to defend this aspect of traveller culture by saying things like, 'oh they respect their women more than we do because all their girls are virgins and they have their honour protected'. Sorry, as a woman, I give more of a damn about my freedom than I do about some imaginary sexual 'honour'.

I realise that life was like this for most women until the 20th century but I still hate it.

End of rant. I didn't mean to sound like I was taking it out on you, sorry.

I read an article about gypsies in the balkans in nat. geographic.
In the transylvania part of Rumania the population is divided between ethnic Hungarians and ethnic Rumanians who are locked in mutual hatred. But both groups hate the Gypsies more than they hate each other.

When asked why one women gave a litney of reasons which included the observation that "their children are theiving monkeys".

I have had my own experience doing business with local Americans of the Rom persuation.

I was hired to deejay for a wedding. One of the strangest evenings of my life.
To capsulize it- the adult men all dressed in silk suits like hollywood mobsters. And the children all- well- acted like theiving monkeys- first shamelessly playing with my sound system controls and then snatching my CD's.

The parents never heard of disciplining their kids.
At the end of the night the crowd bolted out the door. The motel staff told me that "part of the contract was to clean up afterward" which they didnt do. The place was left a mess.

There was much else to make the evening grueling and surreal.
They were unique in thier taste in music. I had grown tired of the top 40 rap, country, celine dion love songs, and the macarena, from most of my gigs back then.
They wanted endless reams of old school funk and soul punctuated by an occasionally cut by the gypsy kings. An odd combination of music. But for that very reason -kinda cool.
The one thing I like about the event.

They liked me. But I declined to work for the bunch again when they rest of the clan called to try to hire me again.

But years later I still make mix tapes for myself of barry white and Al green - with a little flamenco rock mixed in.

Kinda like the Sopranos- thier subculture is kinda fascinating -if you dont have to do business with them.

I live in a cul de sac (dead end street) and one day while cleaning my bike a group of gypsies came around asking if I wanted my drive tarmaced, I said no I'm a builder and I could do it myself it I wanted to. So they said they could landscape my garden for me instead, I said no thanks. All the time they were looking past me into my garage which was open. 2 days later my garage was broken into and £2000 worth of tools, generator and fishing equipment was stolen. In 11 years this is the only robbery in my street and of all the garages in the street mine was the only one broken into. You do the maths. I work with Gypsies a lot and most are great people but those same people would rob you blind and think nothing of it.

That's how the situation in our town seems too- the travellers doing a bit of petty stealing, making a mess, but the locals being downright rude and nasty to them. It makes a bit hard to determine what's the root of all this tension- the travellers causing trouble or the locals being unwelcoming and nasty.

On the other hand, we live only half a mile away from their camp, and I've never seen or heard of any problems with them in my area. My fiance runs a scrap yard with his dad, and they have really piss poor security over there but rarely get any break-ins. I know many people who have them do jobs here and there for them or who buy things off of them, and they always say that they were fair and did a good job, but then go on to insult them in another way. It makes me think that some people are going to hate them no matter what they do.

I think some travellers are more traditional than others, not all will be that strict with their daughters. I do agree with you about the whole virginity thing, what's so great about abstaining until marriage? Sod honour.
I like the idea of travelling around the country or world, but without certain aspects of gypsy culture of course. Just travelling around seems fun to me.

I still don't see why you would want to tolerate people who simply pitch up on the edge of town, colonising your community without wanting to be part of it and making a huge mess in the process.

Do it then, if you can. 'Tis good fun.

Well what else is there to do other than complain about them? I think that respecting them will go a long way in fixing a lot of the hostility. The travellers in our area are actually settled here and have been for quite a few years, so I don't see the point in excluding them and calling them nasty names. It's just going to make them have less of a respect for us and thus more likely to cause mischief.

/thread

You run them out of town like what we did.

And you wonder why they have no problem stealing from you?

Are you a gypsie, doeintheheadlights?

You don't just pitch up in someone else's town en masse without asking and build vast caravan parks in violation of all local laws, rules and regulations.
You don't harrass/steal from/pick on local people (especially pensioners/vulnerable people).
You don't create a huge mess that the State has to foot the bill for.
You don't deliberately refuse to integrate within the local community.
You don't act like a psycho to anyone who simply comes and chats to you.

They are the ones breaking the law and acting like scumbags. We're not.