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By far the stupidest reason that I hear all the time for hating Gypsies, Roma, and Travellers is ‘I’ve never had a good experience with one.’ Yes you have. GRT folk are everywhere. We are your classmates, your colleagues, your teachers, your doctors. (1/?)
We just don’t broadcast our ethnicity to you - because we know how you’ll react. Up until the past few months I’ve never been that vocal about being half Romani. I’ve had people who I’ve gone to school with for years finding it out because they’ve seen (2/?)
my recent posts on twitter/tik tok - and they’ve been surprised. Because I’m a normal person - not the caricature of ‘Gypsies’ that you see on the tv and in the news. Newsflash: we are normal people. If you say you’ve only ever had bad experiences with Gypsies/Travellers (3/?)
because some teenage boys from a local site caused you some kind of trouble then all you’re doing is telling us that when that happened your first instinct was the blame it on them being Gypsies/Travellers. When it comes to stuff like that ethnicity doesn’t play into it. (4/?)
Teenagers of all ethnic backgrounds do stupid shit. I guess my point is just that when you say you’ve never met a ‘good’ Gypsy/Traveller - or even that you’ve never met one full stop - you are wrong. That surgeon who operated on you last week? Irish Traveller. (5/?)
The teacher who teaches your son? Romani. The nice lady you exchanged words with at church last Sunday? Scottish Traveller. The shopkeeper that smiled at you yesterday? Showman. We are everywhere - living normal lives, being good people, everyday. You just don’t realize it. (6/6)
