First | Prev || Next | Last
¿Question #226364?
pricero1: Have you ever been discriminated against?

mattomaw: Over the years, the place where I live has been judged very harshly by certain people who have no knowledge or experience of the place. Whenever anything unsavoury happens in the wider community it usually gets blamed on us, even though it has nothing to do with us. For example, a drug dealer gets arrested - this person lives in a town 40 miles away, yet the grapevine will pass the gossip that they are from the community where I live, whereas they have no connection to it at all! Murders have been blamed on us. Anything drug related is blamed on us. Robbery is blamed on us. There is a large proportion of people that think we are all stinky, dirty, dole scrounging, drug addicted, taking and abusive hippies. They forget to realise that our community is made from wonderful people mainly. We have had athletes run for Ireland. We have won the Chelsea Flower Show gold medal. We have teachers. Care home managers. Highly skilled crafts people. Award winning food producers. Coastguard workers. Tree surgeons who work for the electricity board. School bus drivers etc etc etc. Yet we become scapegoats for everyones judgemental natures. Because we live slightly differently, look slightly different, have different values to the mainstream, people judge us as dirty heathens who are the scourge of society. Sure, we are not perfect. Shit does go down here, but no more than any community anywhere in the world. I have been refused entry to cafés, shops, organisations because of where I live. Certainly judged constantly. Saying all this, it is not so much a problem in the local town because people know we are OK. Infact, we are welcomed. It is when you move further away that this ignorant mindset exists. Admittedly, it is not as bad now as it was 20/30 years ago. The people of our community do our best to improve the reputation of our community but all it takes is an unfair association with something that has nothing to do with us to undo alot of that good, hard work.
Jedadeana: Yes