June is Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month. A gypsy traveller-identifying woman who is working with Pause Islington & Camden wrote a blog post about what she would like to see change in terms of people’s behaviour towards the GRT community.
Traveller people are often discriminated against – it’s racism and there are no repercussions. The p word is used to put people down. People should be educated about the meaning of this word and how it makes the GRT community feel. I would love a world where we as people ask questions before judging.
The other day, for the very first time in my life, I had the nice experience of a random woman in the park with her kids. She heard me on the phone and could hear I was a traveller.
She asked: “Hi can my kids and I ask you some questions?”
I was offended at first…
But said yes, as she said: “Myself and my kids like the way you live, so want to ask you about it. I did it for the kids.”
They asked curious questions about how we live. It was so nice. I came away from this experience feeling on top of the world. This is all I’ve ever wanted – for people to ask questions to understand who we are, instead of judging and labelling.
That’s what I want for the future: a world where we ask curious questions to learn about each other, instead of judging.
