Irish Travellers: Media coverage racist, unresearched

As Madelyne Toogood returns to court today, Irish Travellers and some experts on their culture are alleging that media coverage of Toogood and Travellers over the past three weeks has been unfair, unresearched and nothing short of racist.

Toogood, an Irish Traveller, was videotaped by a security camera Sept. 13 apparently striking her 4-year-old daughter in the back seat of a vehicle parked outside a Mishawaka department store.

"The last time I remember reading this type of language was when the Nazis were rounding these people up to throw them into ovens," says Larry Otway, a political scientist who has studied Travellers and fought for their rights since the 1970s. "And I've only made comparisons to the Holocaust maybe two or three times in my life."

Otway cites phrases from various newspapers nationally, which spoke of Toogood and "her kind" and stated that the "obscure clan" should be rounded up and forced to stay in one place so they could be watched.

Richard J. Waters, who is of Traveller descent on his mother's side, expresses similar views on his Web site "Travellers' Rest: Fact and Fiction About Irish Travellers in the USA," at www.travellersrest.org/index.htm.

"Is the question, 'I just wanted to know if, from your experience, it is considered OK in (the Traveller) culture for parents to beat their kids so mercilessly?' one you would ask of a Chinese, or a Mexican, or a black under the same circumstances?" he asks. "Then why us?"

Although there are no definite statistics stating how many Irish Travellers live in the United States, estimates gauge the population to be between 10,000 and 40,000.

When combined with Scottish and English travelers and members of the roma clans, who are commonly referred to as "gypsies" and are of Eastern European descent, the number probably reaches to more than 1 million, Otway says.

"If, in fact, this was a criminal subculture, than everyone in the U.S. would have been robbed so many times by these people that they would not be able to maintain their existence," Otway says.

Reports of home repair scams are sensationalized, Otway says, adding that as in any culture, only a small minority of Irish Travellers are con artists.

"There are those who say that they (or perhaps we) are none but scam-artists and thieves," Waters says. "I say not, that I have been privileged to be kin to a clan of hard workers and survivors, by and large an honorable people.

"Are there grifters among us? Yes," Waters says. "But there are many among you who may also be justly called 'criminal.' Surely not all or even most of you, however. Nor most of us either."

Many accusations are brought against members of the group simply because they are Travellers, Otway says.

"Because of old stereotypes, they have criminalized certain things for Travellers that are not criminal for others," Otway says. "Overcharging on a paint job, which is a matter of art, is prosecuted as a felony, and I would challenge anyone in this country to try and bring felony charges against any other contractor who is not a Traveller."

Otway explains that most Travellers do not traverse the country scamming people, but rather travel to the same locations every year to work for an established clientele.

"The patterns of migration are not random," Otway says. "For generations, the same families have returned to the same places that they have gone before.

"They've done excellent work and as a result have built up a client base that they count on. The police have the idea that these are fly-by-night businesses. This is not reality. They are nomadic businesses.

Many Travellers acquire long rap sheets because, after being falsely accused of crimes or faced with overblown charges, they post bail and leave, Otway explains.

"If you arrest a Traveller and hold him for trial, his family has real hardship," Otway says. "They pay it back in order to go on with their life and their career, and then they develop these long rap sheets.

"I know very few Traveller criminals. But I don't know any Travellers that have not had their civil liberties abused."

He says that, amidst the hype of the Toogood case, an extreme injustice is being wrought upon Martha, the child involved. Authorities placed the girl with a foster family after Madelyne Toogood turned herself in.

"By the age of 4, a Traveller child has a complete sense of identity of a Traveller," Otway said. "Being a Traveller is as much a part of her as being human. When that child is placed with a non-Traveller family, the message that is sent to that child is that her community is incapable and unworthy of raising her.

"There is a syndrome of failure that follows that because we cannot remove one identity and replace it with another. Rather, we have a person that has no identity, and every expert will tell you that has a recipe for failure.

His ideas support Toogood's campaign to place Martha with family members, keeping her within the Traveller community and in a familiar lifestyle. Even their primary language is different from that of mainstream Americans; Travellers speak Scelta, which is a mixture of romani language and Gaelic. They speak English, too, but the linguistic difference marks a significant change in Martha's environment.

And the assumption that Travellers, as an ethnic group, are unfit to care for the child is another example of the racist attitudes toward them, Otway says. Children are extremely important to Travellers "like to any culture -- any human beings."

"It seems a regrettable enough occurrence without that factor, but let's face facts: The widespread media coverage does make it worse, extending what was perhaps an isolated 30-second act by an individual to a mass indictment against the most family-oriented ethnic culture in the USA beside the Amish," Waters writes.

Being "part Irish" doesn't count. You have to be like Bill Clinton and have Irish ancestors who were on the road so much they never got baptised.

If you want to learn something about Travelers and Roma, many fine books have been written about them. They used to be at the library, but now they are missing - and long out of print.

With an exception - any book about either group that contains a substantial write-up about the way the Nazis killed Travelers and Roma in the deathcamps will be there on the shelves.

These books do not get inadvertantly removed and taken out of circulation - the ones with the Holocaust stuff, that is.

Here's a story that will probably be in all the books you can find:

"Dr. Joseph Mengele took a small Gypsy boy and dressed him in fine clothes. He took the boy everywhere with him as he traveled around the death camps. The boy wore a fine hat, a fine coat, good shoes, excellent trousers, and he was treated in all ways as well as would Mengele's own son.

Then, one day as the Allies neared word went around through the camp where Mengele and the boy were then located that liberation was near.

Mengele heard about it, and he realized all of his evil ways would be uncovered, and there would be witnesses, and even the little Gypsy boy had seen everything, and he would be a witness.

So, as soon as he could, Joseph Mengele grabbed up the young boy and tossed him alive into a crematory furnace and walked on his way without concern."

History of All Nations | 1857 | S.G. Goodrich
Posted on 09/28/2002 9:50 AM Eastern by
"Our account of the Spanish peninsula would be incomplete without a notice of that remarkable race, the Gypsies, who have long existed in this country, isolated from the rest of the community. they are also found in several other countries of Europe; but the accounts of those in Spain, where they are said to number some forty or fifty thousand individuals, are the most complete."
"For a period of more than four hundred years, this singular group of people have been strolling, with little change, over Europe, like foreigners and strangers. Their "hand against every man, and every man's hand against them", they are the Ishmaelites of civilization. Africa makes them no blacker, nor Europe whiter; they neither learn to be lazy in Spain, nor diligent in Germany; they neither reverence Christ in Christiandom, nor Mahomet in Turkey. The year in which they first made their appearance in Europe is nowhere recorded; but it is clear they did not originate in that quarter of the globe."
"Everywhere , the Gypsy race live the vagabond life."
"They generally reside in tents, which they pitch in bye-places; and, when the resources of that neighborhood are exhausted,--that is, when every henroost they can reach is robbed and every movable thing they can lay their hands on is pilfered; when the men have jockeyed all who will deal with them in horses, and prescribed for all men and animals who will be doctored by them; and when the fortunes of all the silly people of the vicinity have been told by the women,--the vagrant troop suddenly decampfrom their filthy lair, greatly to the relief of the inhabitants of the vicinity. Though probably one of the most beautiful races by nature,--as might be inferred from the beauty of their infants even now,--yet habitual exposure to the burning rays of the sun, the biting of the frost, and the peltin of the rain and snow, destroys their buaety at an early age, and the ugliness at an advanced period of life is no less remarkable than the lovliness of their infancy."
"Learned men trace them to the neighborhood of the River Indus, and supposed them to have been Hindoos of a very low caste, driven from their country by Tartar invaders. In Spain, they are also called Gitanos, and in England, Gypsies, from a general belief that they were originally Egyptians. The French call them Bohemians, as they first attracted attention in Bohemia, though they had been previously been long wondering in the remote parts of Sc;avonia. In their own language they call themselves and their language Rommany, a word of Sanscrit origin, signifying "The Husbands". The unchangeableness of their manners and institutions points to a very ancient and an oriental origin."
" In 1417, they are mentioned near the North Sea, and the next year in Switzerland; in 1422 in Italy, and, a few years after, in France and Spain. They did not travel in a single body, but in seperate hordes, each having its leader, sometimes called a 'Count' , as, in England, their chief is still called 'King of the Beggars'. Others gave themselves out for dukes and kings of Lesser Egypt. People believed then to be Egyptians and pilgrims, who were constrained to wander on some religious account.. The Gypsies told fabulous stories to spread this belief, and these were recieved with such credulity, that they were allowed everywhere free passage.. Even in Spain, the Inquisition overlooked these practical pagans, being, probably, intent at hawking at richer, and therefor more profitable game. In Hungary, too, they were no less free, though in the midst of slaves. The early golden age of the Gypsies, alluded to above, lasted half a century, when their impostures were exposed, and they were discovered to be inveterate vagabonds and robbers by profession. From this period, they began to suffer persecution."
"In Russia, Gypsies are found in all parts of the country, except St. Petersburg, from which place they have been banished. In most of the towns they support themselves by trading in and doctoring horses; but the greater part of them live an unsettled life upon upon the vast plains, which afford them pasturage for their herds , and plenty of wild game. Fortune-telling and robbery are among their employments. They resist cold to a wonderful degree; and it is not uncommon to find them encamped in the midst of snow, in slight canvas tents, when it is twenty-five degrees below zero. But, among the Gypsies of Moscow, there are many who inhabit stately houses, go abroad in stately equipages, intermarry in good society, and are not behind the higher order of Russians, either in appearance or mental acuirements. This arises mostly from the perfection of the female of this colony have acquired in the vocal art."
"In Hungary, the habits of this people are abominable; their hovels are sinks of filth, their dress is rags, and their food is vilest aliments. Yet no people are merrier. They sing and dance perpetually, and play the violin with great skill. They are addicted to horse-dealing, and are likewise tinkers and smiths in a small way. Thieving and fortune-telling are added to their occupations in this country, as everywhere else. Napoleon brought several of them, in his army, from Hungary to Spain; and many interesting scenes ensued between them and their compatriots, the Gitanos, who were astonished at the proficiency of their brethren in the art and mystery of thieving, and looked up to them, consequently, as superior beings."
"The race appeared in England [1550] , but a persecution, aiming at their extermination, was raised against them; and the gallows, that prominent characteristic of English civilization, groaned under the weight of Gypsy carcasses. But these days passed by, and the miserable remnant crept forth from the secret holes where they had burrowed, increased in numbers, and, each tribe or family taking a particular circuit, fairly divided the land, as for foraging ground, among them. The men are jockeys, evoting their leisure to tinkering; they are always to be found at the prize-fight and racecourse. The women tell fortunes. Both sexes are arrant cheats and thieves. They usually pitch their tents in some green lane, or on the side of a common, near a village, under the shelter of a high bank, trees, or a hedge. The english Gypsies are the handsomest of the race; they speak English with fluency, and, in their gait and demeanor, have the ease and grace of the free sons of the wild.
"In France, the police have nearly rid the country of them. In Italy, they are not allowed to remain two nights in any one place. They are scattered, though not in great numbers, over Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. Many of the race are found in Turkey, especialy at Constantinople, where the females frequently enter the harems of women of rank, pretending to cure the children of the "evil-eye", and to interpret dreams. They also appear in the coffee houses as dancing girls, and peddle precious stones, and sometimes poisons. They are common in Moldovia, Walachia, and Servia."
"The Gypsies of Spain, for many years after their arrival in that country, made no change in the usual vagabond habits of the race, except that they became, from the disordered state of society there, even more unprincipled, reckless, lawless, and mischievous, than elsewhere. They were often in league with the 'contrabandistas', or smugglers.
[follows, a story of how the Spanish Gypsies gained a reputation for murdering their marks]
"Among the characteristics common to the Gypsy race in general, beside those of rejecting agriculture, and regular service of every kind, filtiness, jockeying, pilfering,iron-working, tinkering,and fortune-telling, already enumerated,--it may be remarked that they have many Oriental notions, are strongly attached to their own peculiar habits of life and modes of thinking, are destitute of Christian ideas of morality except in regard to female chastity, and live as athiests without worship or a belief in the immortality of the soul. They invariably preserve every custom or fancy which has once been current among them, be it ever so noxious or absurd, while any affection which has once predominated in their minds, retains its dominion for ages. Their marriage festivals are boisterous, bizarre, and often ruinously extravagant. The themes of their rude poetry, which generally consists of single verses, scraps, or catches, are, of course, the various incidents of Gypsy life, cattle stealing, prison adventures,assassination, revenge, etc. Amongst those effusions are sometimes found tender and beautiful thoughts; but they are few and far between, like the occasional flower or shrub adorning the rugged crags and gloomy dens in which most of the race love to harbor."
S.G. Goodrich, 1859
A Gypsy History
History of All Nations | 1857 | S.G. Goodrich

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