browse by city
New York, NY (722)
Toronto, ON (720)
Brooklyn, NY (714)
Montreal, QC (376)
London, UK (286)
complete city list
popular articles
Ditmas Park
from: Peter
Shad Crossing
from: Peter
Coast
from: Peter
Cosplay
from: chiamattt
South Philly May 4th: Art, Indicators, People, Etc.
from: serlingrod
what's hot this month?
recent articles
Mailbox Timelapse
from: Peter
The Human Statue
from: jack
08 Marathon
from: fuzzytank
Journey Down Baltimore Avenue
from: serlingrod
Cosplay
from: chiamattt
The Star of India
from: jack
May 11 2008 Berlin
from: hool
The Wealth and the Poverty.
from: jack
The Werewolf of Dogdyke
from: Lincoln
Hell Gate
from: Cart Legger
read all today's articles
browse by author
Peter (741)
joey (262)
EvilGentleman (261)
hool (244)
jack (221)
complete author list
hot topics
graffiti
Justo Gallego
JA One
graf trux
parkour
fuck neck face
wheat paste
nyc
sane smith
graf
sixy
hool
harlem
banksy
brooklyn
Urban Transgressions and Taboos
London, UK - elaine - Thursday, June 16th, 2005 : goo
[previous] :: [next]
ok, what is going on here is - notices warning heavies and police that the squatters know their rights in the first 2, and the inverse, essentially, in the last. 'travellers by appointment' notices are a common enough sight in pub windows. what it is is racist. what looks like a polite enough statement just means, no gypsies (ever)
This article has been viewed 2263 times in the last 3 years
Peter: 16th Jun 2005 - 14:12 GMT
this entry reminds me of this entry. gypsies! are they common there? they arent, here.
elaine: 16th Jun 2005 - 14:55 GMT
well, it's history and geography. the romany gypsies are one thing, then there are irish gypsies, and then there are elective 'new age' travellers. the new age travellers came out of a long standing squatting culture which started because of post war housing shortage and mutated into an alternative culture, a tradition of festivals, outdoor music things and solstice celebrationswww.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/06/293935.html
, which involved people customising old ambulances and putting up teepees and whatnot.
the government hated all this because it is hard to police people who don't live anywhere properly, and this link www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/06/312477.html tells about a critical juncture of this, the 'battle of the beanfield'. i think the paranioa about that kind of culture grew partly out of fear of drug taking hippy culture growing, but there was a long standing precedent of fear of gypsies which as far as i can see is a fear of anarchy coming out of poverty largely caused by the state itself.
romany gypsies traditionally elect to keep their own rules and to lead an itinerant lifestyle, and are quite literally a separate race www.bbc.co.uk/kent/voices/youth.shtmland they have their own long history here, but the big cultural event here that informs the panic mentality here was the massive influx of starving irish during and after the potato famine en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_potato_famine.
the uk was not as resolutely urban as it is now until after WW1 when entire generations of lads from rural areas were killed for king and country, especially because of the 'pals battalions'
www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwone/pals_01.shtml which meant that when whole battalions went down, as in ypres, whole villages died.
however, before this there was a real rural culture in britain, and a massive influx of transient people at that time set up the conditions of fear of strangers which abide to this day, and informs a big moral panic at the moment about european gypsies coming into the country.
incidentally, my mother's grandfather came over to scotland at the time of the potato famine, and many british people have colours for names because the prejudice against the irish was so severe. they were catholics and my grandad married a protestant girl which at the time was a pretty big deal
jeeff: 25th Sep 2005 - 21:51 GMT
there was a nice flowery sign at the entrance to a sauna near my house in tokyo that said "foreigners please refrain from entering". too bad i never got a pic of it.
elaine: jamie, name one way then
elaine: jeeff, that was nice and polite of them!
Comment on this article
[previous] :: [next]
search citynoise.org
recent discussions
Scenes from a Little Town Called Jacksonville
from: Jones
Wild Chickens
from: Tyfoid Kid
Victoria Day Fireworks
from: Gabi
Journey Down Baltimore Avenue
from: serlingrod
With The Friends Graffiti
from: SCAM28
Duplo Graffiti
from: duplo one
Cosplay
from: chiamattt
Mailbox Timelapse
from: Peter
Clean Canvasses?
from: Peter
America's Most Boring Towns: 13
from: Scott Sargent
from the archives
Lake Ontario Ducks
The same morning we saw the sun rise in Tyendinaga, we wound up in Kingston, where I started shooting the Penitentiary and Kingston's old Yonge Street. While taking the shots of the Penitentiary from across Olympic Harbour, I saw these...
recently viewed
Urban Transgressions and Taboos
from: elaine
Shearith Israel Cemetery
from: Peter
Idiotarod 2008
from: Peter
Barberton 2
from: Guy McLaren
Goya & Pet Bird
from: Peter
Hell's Angels - New York City
from: sine
Copies
from: sine
Mill Parts
from: Tyfoid Kid
Forgotten Structure: ASPCA
from: GGP
WTC Builders Speak Up
from: EvilGentleman
concept and content © citynoise.org 2002 - 2006 : designed and maintained by
jamie (jamazon.co.uk) and
peter (rhodamine.org) (with special thanks
to jamie's php-god coding skillz).
caveat: entries and comments on citynoise.org represent
the views of their respective authors; this is an open forum, open to
all relevant ideas,
and as such, sees minimal editorial interference. as such, all content
on this site remains property of its creator/author, and is therefore
protected by all applicable copyright laws.