| Comment | It’s not their culture at all, of course it isn’t.
The issue here is one of poverty. But poverty is complex and multifaceted. The housing situations are a result of slum landlords, poorly maintained homes, poorly paid work (and sometimes trafficking), education, lack of support from/engagement with services etc etc. But tackling these all require thinking, time, effort, and money. So it’s easier to just blame ‘culture’.
Let’s name this; people are thinking of the Roma population here. You could find a postcode in Glasgow which has high alcohol and drug use; we wouldn’t just brush it off as ‘culture’.
Edit: Poverty and poorly paid work has been in Govanhill for a century. There’s a van that takes folk to the Albert Bartlet potato factory each morning and you can still get a bus to Ireland. If this sounds like something that happened 100 years ago it’s because it was. |
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