Xenophobia is a tried-and-tested tool. Most people have racist instincts to some degree. Unlike pregnancy, it is, actually, possible to be a bit racist. There are echoes of Ireland’s history of discrimination against the Traveller community in what is going on now as entire groups of people get tarred with one brush. Because some Traveller members engaged in crime, all members got tagged thus and were barred from hotels and pubs and, in effect, from the nexus of Irish life.
These days, unfounded rumours are spread about asylum seekers sexually assaulting women, with the intention of ghettoising yet another group of people and, even when these rumours are established as lies, the mud still sticks. Prejudice is an emboldening human condition, at least until it is called out. Its early manifestation is observable in the schoolyard, where certain children decide they don’t like the look of certain other children and bar them from joining the gang. Prejudice is seductive because it makes us feel superior. Tuppence ha’penny never felt better than when it was looking down on tuppence.
in a speech he gave at Georgetown University in 2015 following incidents of police brutality against African-American citizens. While in no way excusing them, he said police officers had human instincts and, when they had dealt with incidents involving citizens from a particular socio-economic demographic, they developed prejudices. As a descendant of Irish emigrants, he recalled how American society had once viewed the Irish as “drunks, ruffians and criminals”.
How quickly we forget. Xenophobia comes in many guises. In this country, Brit-bashing has been a national sport for more than 100 years. Anglo-Irish history sowed the seeds and a long wallow in an inferiority complex has watered and fed it. In a similar vein, how often have you heard natives on a Dublin bus moan “they’re back”, when some raucous Spanish students appear as predictably as the swallows each summer? Like it or not, that is prejudice.
Ireland Latest News, Ireland Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: IrishTimesSport - 🏆 2. / 99 Read more »
Source: The42_ie - 🏆 5. / 86 Read more »
Source: IrishMirror - 🏆 4. / 98 Read more »
Source: RSVPMagazine - 🏆 7. / 76 Read more »
Source: The42_ie - 🏆 5. / 86 Read more »
Source: IrishTimesSport - 🏆 2. / 99 Read more »