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Sunday 7 February 2016

Sun Racist Roma Smear Rumbled

Newspapers in the UK, even the more right-leaning ones, like to tell their readers that, while they are harshly critical of foreigners, they are not, repeat not, repeat NOT racist in any way. That one might be difficult to pull for the Murdoch doggies at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun after today’s articleInside the Roma Beverly Hills as it's revealed they send home £541m … TOTAL more than tripled in 2 years as communities visit to fund flash lifestyles back home”, where the hacks make some startling discoveries.
There is also some startlingly bad research: “ROMANIAN migrants working in the UK sent home an astonishing £541million last year, a Sun on Sunday investigation has found … Many are from the southern village of Buzescu where 90 per cent of the local population live in EU nations to fund flash lifestyles back home”. Very good, Sun people: Romania IS an “EU nation”. And the racist smears are all too obvious.

The total has more than tripled in two years, with gypsies among those who left their communities to come here and cash in … In the nearby town of Rosiorii de Vede, one Roma gypsy said: ‘I’ve been working in London for ten years and don’t intend to stop, no matter what the politicians say’”. “Gypsy” is a pejorative substitution for “Roma”. And is the Sun trying to tell us that work is some kind of crime if foreigners do it?

Readers are told that the Roma who work in other countries send money home and some of that is used to build houses. No, I don’t see anything criminal about that, especially when the Sun admits “This money is largely made up from earnings alone as new arrivals have to be in the UK for a certain time before they can claim benefits”.

So what is the problem? Lots of Brits work abroad and send money home - should the countries where they work be getting in a froth about that? Or is it only because the subjects of the Sun’s rant are Roma? Probably the latter: the number of times the racial slur “gypsy” is wheeled out makes that clear, as is the exaggeration: “A ROMA gypsy posed with his UK-plated Audi outside his three-bedroomed detached villa”.

THE CAR IS THIRTEEN YEARS OLD. You don’t have to be exactly minted to pick up a 52 plate Audi. There are several references to “The Gypsy Beverly Hills”. Who coined the name? The Sun. We hear about all the Roma coming to claim benefits, but the Sun manages to find just one who might do so. The hacks find another who talks about busking to make ends meet - but he is only thinking about coming to the UK.

The Sun talks of “Locals boasted of the fortune they earn in Britain”. They found only one working in Britain who would talk to them, and he didn’t live in Buzescu. The bloke with the 13 year old Audi has to share his UK house with three other families. He makes £60 a day, which most Brits wouldn’t get out of bed for. Yet readers are shown photos of large houses and told that SOMEONE is getting SOMETHING they DON’T DESERVE.

And SUN READERS are paying for it because of THE EU. And they’re GYPSIES and you know what THAT MEANS. Yes, I know what that means - it’s a crock of racist crap. It’s bigotry, hatred, Xenophobia, ignorance and dishonesty rolled into one. It’s also called Pretending To Do Journalism Under False Pretences. And it’s been rumbled.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I fucking hate the Sun.
I know personally - because I employ or have employed them - three Romanian families. The first family arrived here 10 years ago, leaving behind their (then) 4 month old baby with grandparents to forge a better life here for them all. I can't begin to imagine how hard this was, knowing your baby was hundreds of miles away. Missing her first crawl, her first tooth, her first tottering steps. But they did it for a year until unable to bear it any longer, the parents went back home to get her and bring her here. Since then, that family has had two more daughters. The second died, having been born at a shitty hospital in Romania as mum wanted her to be born there. Third baby was born here, all well, thanks to our fantastic NHS - paid for by the parents out of their hard earned NICs (before any more fucking racists jump on the Sun's bandwagon). Ten years they've given us here in the UK, ten years of bloody hard work doing menial jobs even though both mum and dad are as bright as they come. Teacher/lawyer/doctor/engineer material.
The other two families' experiences mirror that of the first. They work incredibly hard. They pay their NICs and taxes. They are raising their families here. I'm proud to know them all.
Add you know what else? They're all devout Christians. They go to church, they send their children to faith schools, observing fasting in the Orthodox church's Advent and Lent like no Roman or CofE I've ever come across (I'm practising RC myself), sustained by their faith and their families. Can't imagine many of the Sun's readers even know what Lent is.
And then these families have to read utter fucking lies about themselves in the Sun. I dont know how they cope with the sustained abuse and outright racism.
Fuck you Sun liars. Just fuck you.

Anonymous said...

Here's a thought:

How many Brits send home money (and how much) from the Middle East to fund "flash lifestyles" back home?

Doubtless Murdoch's rats will fall over themselves to unearth then publish this information........Well, okay, maybe not.

Mike said...

Another excellent demolition, Tim. Putting the spotlight on the Sun's bullshit and the Sun's motives is far better than snootily disdaining it and hoping it will go away.
Couldn't you get a regular spot in national media doing this stuff? There would be no lack of material.

http://www.thesocialshuttle.com/ said...

Have they ever run a story on the 100,000s of British pensioners living overseas who have their pensions sent abroad? No I thought not.

If there is a Roma who is on benefits and can manage to send money abroad and still pay the rent in the UK I suggest he/she should be put to good use as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

I suppose the fact the Australian /American Rupert Murdoch sends $$billions abroad to some dingy office in a tax haven is entirely unrelated.

Crispin Fisher said...

How much money do the owners of 'The Sun' send to Cayman island every year to avoid paying corporation tax in this country?

Andy McDonald said...

It's a sort of perverse Four Yorkshiremen mentality that takes over. Anything - literally anything - including the most basic necessities of life, is depicted as an item or service of unimaginable luxury and excess. "What, they're living in a pig sty? A WHOLE PIG STY? There are pensioners in Britain who would DREAM of being able to afford a pig sty! And it's got a ROOF! Unimaginable! And they're eating shit? What, good honest faeces provided by Joe Muggins the UK taxpayer, that's who! And I'll tell you what, we have to go out and collect ours from the park. Not them though, they get it hand-delivered to their door and posted through the letterbox! Skivers the lot of them!"