Sir, – I very much applaud Dr Jacky Jones’s article (HEALTHplus, May 29th) commenting on the misnomers of “race” and “racism” and I completely agree with her placing of the Irish Traveller community in the context of other groups which have been maligned and suffered at the hands of more dominant cultures.
However, I am compelled to take issue with her comment that recognition of Irish Travellers as an ethnic minority is “not a good idea” as it will only promote discrimination by emphasising “the differences between people, not the similarities”.
Dr Jones’s argument, while well-intentioned, is too simplistic and is misguided. It is precisely the State’s denial of Traveller ethnicity (a group of approximately 30,000, equivalent to the population of Co Longford) that is one of the primary contributing factors to the poverty, degradation and discrimination experienced by many Travellers in Ireland today.
In denying Traveller ethnicity and in refusing to recognise the right to difference, the State and Irish society allow themselves to view the Travelling community as a group of deviant and “strange” individuals who obstinately refuse to settle down and live like “normal” people. In adopting this stance, the State’s persistent policies of assimilation are vindicated while it continues to deny the Travelling community the basic and constitutional rights of access to education, healthcare and housing that is respectful and relevant to their culture. Nowhere are the effects of these policies clearer than when one examines the health statistics of the Traveller community, which, incredibly, are akin to those of a third world country! If ethnicity was recognised, these indices could not be ignored.
It is time for the Irish State and its citizens to face up to the tricky and ugly realities of inherent racisms; these are not terms to be simply swept under the carpet. – Yours, etc,