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September blog – Gypsy Traveller Training: Are we blaming ourselves for our own position of disadvantage? by Jim Davies | The Traveller Movement

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September blog – Gypsy Traveller Training: Are we blaming ourselves for our own position of disadvantage? by Jim Davies | The Traveller Movement Media enquiries Sign up for self-ruling Donate Here LoginWell-nighUs Our History & Background Gypsy Roma Traveller History and Culture Meet Our Team Patrons & Trustees Gypsy Roma Traveller AdvisoryWorkbenchAnnual Reviews Our Funders & Supporters Vacancies Advocacy & Support Useful Resources Equality and Social Justice Unit Education & Advocacy Support Service Training & consultancy Women and Girls Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse Project Women’s Empowerment Network (WEN) LGBT+ Young People Working With Older People Policy & Publications Publications Brexit Campaigns Operation Report Hate Travelling2Equality Operation Traveller Vote Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month News Events Get Involved Volunteer With Us Intern With Us Research CollaborationWilta Member Sign Up to Our Newsletter Join Our GRT AdvisoryWorkbenchContact Us Select Page September blog – Gypsy Traveller Training: Are we blaming ourselves for our own position of disadvantage? by Jim Davies Sep 28, 2018 | Blog Gypsy Traveller Training: Are we blaming ourselves for our own position of disadvantage? By Jim Davies My eye has been unprotected recently by a number of advertisements offering Gypsy Traveller Training. It has got me thinking well-nigh the subject as a whole. It’s a subject I have past wits in, having worked on and delivered many GRT sensation training sessions for the GRT Police Association and like everyone else involved in this area, my motivation came from a desire to make a difference. Bring well-nigh a transpiration that would help end the inequality faced by Gypsies and Travellers. But since that time, I have reverted my mind and have come to regard GRT Training as a hindrance to real change, a flawed tideway and here’s why. A quick search of google shows a plethora of GRT training courses. Training days, events and plane online courses offered by Gypsy Traveller NGO’s and Gypsy Traveller run organisations. All variegated in their own way but all substantially offering the same thing. An opportunity to learn well-nigh Gypsy Traveller culture and history and to be worldly-wise to identify and overcome obstacles to working with Gypsies and Travellers. To enhance good practice in the delegates own particular field and therefore modernize service provision to Gypsies and Travellers. This all sounds worshipped and reasonable doesn’t it? Few would dispute that as a minority ethnic group, Gypsies and Travellers are pretty much at the marrow of the league tables.Widenessall indicators used to measure social disadvantage, whether it’s Health, Education, Employment, Prison population, you name it, we finish pretty much marrow in all categories. We suffer enormous inequality wideness the board. This is well documented. There is no shortage of evidence. So, if this is the specimen then, what’s wrong with trying to modernize the service provision of the Police, the Health Service, Education Authorities and the like? Clearly, it’s essential that we work to try and write these issues, but the problem is, Gypsy Traveller Training days might be doing exactly the opposite. It’s my weighing it helps prolong the inequality we squatter rather than reduce it. What do I mean?  Well, let’s squint at why we suffer such inequality. Is it our own fault? Is there something intrinsically wrong with us or our culture which ways we are just not as good as other ethnicities. Of undertow not! Then the problem must lie with the system itself. With the institutions and with the service providers. And we all know this. We’ve all been on the receiving end of it in one form or another. It’s not plane well-nigh individual inequity and prejudice, although this is how it sometimes manifests.  The inequality and favoritism we squatter daily is the result of entrenched institutional and systemic discrimination. There are many definitions of systemic favoritism but substantially it is policies, organisational practices and patterns of behaviour that have wilt part of the structure of that organisation and which create a situation of disadvantage for the ethnic group in question. It needn’t be intentional and very often it isn’t, but that’s irrelevant if you are suffering considering of it. To transpiration service provision for the largest then, requires institutions to take a long nonflexible squint at themselves and to be brutally honest well-nigh their own shortcomings in terms of inequality. This is a very nonflexible thing to do. Much systemic racism, by its very nature has been in place for years. Unnoticed, unquestioned, wonted practice. To start to pick  an  organisation untied and to shoehorn that perhaps for years you’ve been vicarial in a discriminatory and or  racist manner, that you’ve caused suffering and hurt, is a nonflexible thing to do. As Albert Memmi is quoted as saying in Eduardo Bonilla Silvas typesetting “Racism without Racists “ ……No one or scrutinizingly no one wishes to see themselves as racist, yet racism persists, real and tenacious”.  William Ryan put it increasingly succinctly in his seminal work of the 1970’s “Blaming the Victim” when he said “No one wants to think of himself as a son of a bitch” Rather than go through the pain of realising you’ve presided over, or been part of an organisation that is and has been responsible for inequality and suffering, much easier if the rationalization of such suffering was to be found elsewhere, and what largest place to squint than with the victims themselves. If there were something well-nigh these people that made providing a good and equitable service difficult, if they were culturally variegated to mainstream society in some way that explained their inequality, then something could be washed-up well-nigh it without the need to squint inwards. Without the hardship, effort – and let’s not forget the expense-  it would take to bring well-nigh real institutional change. In his book, Ryan identifies this very issue as a 3-step process to lamister institutional change. 1 Identify or winnow the problem 2Squintclosely at those who have the problem and then pinpoint these as a special group variegated from the population in unstipulated 3 Allocate the rationalization of the problem to this difference “Et Voila”. You can then be seen to be doing something constructive well-nigh the issue without having to squint too closely in your own backyard. Your social conscience can be soothed without having to transpiration too much well-nigh the way you do things. And hence the problem with Gypsy Traveller Training. It is focused on us, the Gypsy and Traveller. We are saying, “Come and squint at us, learn all well-nigh us. Identify the obstacles to quality service provision”. The message stuff sent is a well-spoken one and it is this. “The root rationalization of the problem lies with the Gypsy and Traveller, not with the service provider.” Essentially, we ourselves are completing Step 2 of Ryan’s “institutional transpiration avoidance strategy”, on behalf of the very institutions we want to change. Firstly, we’re not that different. Like any group, we like to think of ourselves as unique and certainly we have a unique history and heritage, but so does every other minority ethnic group. That’s what qualifies them to be an ethnic group. We have suffered enormous oppression and discrimination, and protract to do so, but we are far from vacated in that respect. And most importantly in terms of this discussion, we are all, just like everyone else on the planet, individual human beings. We each have our own, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, political views, religious view etc. What is important and right for me isn’t necessarily the same for any other Romani.  And this is the way it should be. It is   only right and proper. So, if you winnow this is true, what unstipulated facts are there, that wield to all Gypsies and Travellers, that we can teach service providers and that will indulge them to go yonder and start treating us fairly. Personally, I can’t think of any. We are not suffering enormous disadvantage considering people don’t know unbearable well-nigh our culture or heritage. The second reason I think GRT training is a flawed tideway is this. Institutions and systems protect themselves. This is part of the systemic discrimination. They will automatically try to maintain the status quo and find ways of lamister change.  Even if someone does come yonder from a GRT undertow or event enlightened at the structural inequality within their own institution, the chances of them going when to the workplace and bringing well-nigh systemic transpiration are tropical to zero. The very nature of structural systemic favoritism ensures it is tightly entrenched and forms part of the very fabric of the organisation itself. Any individual struggle to transpiration this will be met by fierce resistance. I know this from personal experience.  Anyone looking to dismantle systemic racism within their own organisation can expect at weightier to be ignored or not taken seriously, and at worst to be met with hostility and isolation, which are in effect efforts to remove them from the very system they are trying to change. Can we expect delegates to GRT training courses to put themselves through this? It might happen, but it’s a big ask. My money is on it not happening. GRT training then, may squint like an lulu proposition but is it really? I suggest not. To the service provider, GRT Training allows them to finger like they are doing something constructive.  They can demonstrate that they are taking some whoopee to write inequality. Most if not all institutions will have performance indicators of some unravelment in terms of their equality duty. What largest way to show you are working towards addressing equality issues and meeting your duty, than showing you’ve made the effort to been trained in “Gypsy Traveller Culture”. And to us, the Gypsy or Traveller, it might at a surface level allows us to think we are doing something positive. To finger we ae making progress. After all, we have a need to finger we are proactive and have some influence over our own destiny. But what is GRT training really achieving? In my experience, Institutions don’t transpiration voluntarily out of upstanding or social conscience. They only transpiration when waffly becomes less difficult than not changing. When the current status quo becomes untenable and the only option left is for change. The issue has to be forced.  To reach this tipping point requires massive cohesive whoopee on the part of the disadvantaged group. History shows us this. The Civil Rights Movement of the 60’s brought well-nigh transpiration through enormous organised polity protest, and action. Not by holding Black CulturalSensationSessions. If transpiration is going to happen for Gypsies Roma and Travellers it is vital we all work together.  However, all the time institutions have a reason not to change, they won’t. My fear is, Gypsy Traveller Training gives them that reason considering substantially it’s saying the problem lies with us, not them. Maybe it’s time to stop giving them that excuse. Jim Davies is currently TM Equality and Social Justice Manager, is a Romany Gypsy and is a founding member of the Gypsy Roma Traveller Police Association, as well as a retired police officer     Search for: Search for: Subscribe To Our Newsletter'Spotlight' is our newsletter, and gives up-to-date policy and research developments by The Traveller Movement. SUBSCRIBE! You have Successfully Subscribed! Terms & Conditions Privacy statement Cookie Policy Copyrights 2018, The Traveller Movement. All Rights Reserved. Registered Charity: 1107113 Company limited by guarantee no. 4038939