Skip to main content

Not exactly equal is it?

Romanian family's window broken



Another Romanian family in Belfast, this time in Ballyhackamore in the east of the city, has been attacked.

The bathroom window of their home, on the Upper Newtownards Road, was smashed at about 2300 BST on Wednesday.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is where things are clearly out of balance. Don't get me wrong here, quite awful for the Romanian families involved and despicable behaviour from those causing the trouble but ...

Where are the national news headlines about the countless gay people who have their windows broken and are taunted near daily? We still get it here, the second home in Northampton we have lived. In comparison to our Thorplands home things are a lot better here as we have had no smashed windows. But, as the weather gets warmer so the homophobic comments and attitudes emerge loud and proud.

Last weekend we were all but harassed out of our own garden by local lads who kept starring in through the fence at us. They did not do it to anyone else sitting in their garden, it was just here. I am no longer bothered by such things, I see it as 'normal' shit I have to tolerate like rain. But, why should that be?

James, I am told, is now as homophobic as you like. All his woes are due to the poofs he used to live with, doesn't have a good word to say about gay people and his little gang of buddies like nothing more than to take the piss out of gay people, gay is the new black.

So, why does a brick through the window of a Romanian family make the headlines yet every window of a gay persons house being broken repeatedly does not? It is answers on a postcard time for that question. I am guessing that racism in any form is now totally unacceptable whilst homophobia remains acceptable or, the unspoken prejudice. Everyone knows it happens but, as gay people really are not overly visible, it is far easier to detach from. Most people do now know someone from an ethnic minority, many have no clue they know any gay people. Until a situation arises where more people are openly gay, and that's unlikely whilst we are still so vulnerable, attitudes will not change because society feels they don't need to.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You Bloody Idiot

I had a really enjoyable time in Meltham with Stan and Pete, even that walk against the wind up the pub on Saturday evening in a blizzard was fun. On the way there I thought it’d be fun to take some pictures of the car in the snow. I had not realised just how windy it was, I seriously thought my door was stuck when I tried to open it but it was just being pressurised by the forces outside. I am lucky really the wind had not been behind me else the door would have been ripped off. On the way back on Sunday I paid a visit to Sue in Sheffield. I like Sue and she is a great conversationalist. The journey was not without incident as the satnav kept failing and crashing and just became useless. I eventually tracked the problem down to the loudspeaker connection for the mount and once I’d removed that it was stable and guided me well to Sue’s door. I am really happy to report that the steroid injection I had last week as helped ease my pain. I still have the pain but it is not restricting me ...
Read more

2 Weeks in

Amazing as it seems I am two weeks through my visit here. Some might be getting a little confused about why I am here. There is only one important reason and that is to be with Dennis. This isn’t a vacation to me, it’s just about having to travel to the Philippines because it is where Dennis happens to be. I’m still in very regular contact with home dealing with daily issues, the council, social services and so on. I am geographically away from it but technically still connected. Obviously it’s cool to wander into Manila and see the place, travel in a Jeepney and so on. Wandering around the malls is fun but it is who I am with rather than where I am that matters most to me. Highlights for me, apart from every second I spend with Dennis have to be meeting family and friends.         Veronica and her family and Imee of course who has kept me entertained for hours with conversation about anything and everything     Ireneo too tries real hard wit...
Post a Comment
Read more

Not a good day

Today is a very emotional one for me. I have no idea why that would be the case but apparently it is. For a day that had nothing pre-arranged this one has turned out quite busy. First, I agreed to take Matt for breakfast though I wasn't really hungry. He was being quite argumentative in the morning about some thing or other, I don't recall what exactly but some matter of politics where he was going to argue the toss whilst knowing little or nothing about it. But, even so, I was quite upbeat as Jermaine had gone to school on time ... no, scrub that, i was upbeat until I yet again had to tell Zoey to get her arse out of her room, downstairs, do her chores and get to school, that is when this day started to go downward. I spent way too much money on a new doorbell, true, we needed one but not one that cost nearly £50! This too has not helped. I went to see a garage that can fit parking sensors to my car, all well and good but they needed me to supply paint to match the circles up ...
Read more