A report today shows that the Traveller community in Ireland has 85% unemployment. Cue a lot of hate and vitriol from the “settled” community about the travellers.
But the report also shows that the Traveller community is only 0.5% of the population. It’s like one person in 200 is fair play for being subject to all the hate for the other 199. How can that ever be acceptable? Say you lived in a village of 200 people and one person there was the subject of constant hate and abuse. Would that be OK? What if you were that person?
But what’s mystifying is this exists within the Irish penchant for taking offence (see various previous blogs.)
the Irish are a people who will on the whole take offence at the drop of a potato … often dragging in this whole “800 years of oppression” nonsense … but given half a chance many of them will turn on the traveller community with a malice that defies understanding … and so the formerly oppressed have become the oppressor… unless …
Unless there’s a reason for this malice.
As travellers this community have avoided the property crash and the extensive negative equity gripping the “settled” community.
Could this be a simple case of jealousy?
Damocles' Blog
The Irish Are Mystifying
A report today shows that the Traveller community in Ireland has 85% unemployment. Cue a lot of hate and vitriol from the “settled” community about the travellers.
But the report also shows that the Traveller community is only 0.5% of the population. It’s like one person in 200 is fair play for being subject to all the hate for the other 199. How can that ever be acceptable? Say you lived in a village of 200 people and one person there was the subject of constant hate and abuse. Would that be OK? What if you were that person?
But what’s mystifying is this exists within the Irish penchant for taking offence (see various previous blogs.)
the Irish are a people who will on the whole take offence at the drop of a potato … often dragging in this whole “800 years of oppression” nonsense … but given half a chance many of them will turn on the traveller community with a malice that defies understanding … and so the formerly oppressed have become the oppressor… unless …
Unless there’s a reason for this malice.
As travellers this community have avoided the property crash and the extensive negative equity gripping the “settled” community.
Could this be a simple case of jealousy?
Posted by Damocles on October 18, 2012 in Commentariat
Tags: jealousy, malice, not entirely serious, settled, travellers