Brazil family in the news

Subject: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 02:53 PM

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article952861.ece

Those of you who don't read the British gutter press may have missed this -- I only saw it because of another internet forum I post on.

It seems that members of the Brazil family (one of the great traditional song-carrying families of these Islands) have bought a field near NuLabour's Tessa Jowell.

As the story says: -

'Tom Brazil, a 30-year-old father of three, said: "This has been a big rush job and we purposely chose the Easter holiday weekend so that we could get more done before anybody tried to stop us.

"There are 16 families here, each with up to three caravans, and we banded together to buy the land 12 months ago.

"We didn't let on that we were gipsies – nobody would have sold it to us if they'd known.

"I can understand that people living nearby will be upset, but they have got to appreciate that we have got children who need to go to school to get on in life.

"We are part of one big family who have been evicted thousands of times while on the road together over the past seven years.

"We just want a permanent home and have been looking for the right place to buy – and this is it.

"We did not know that an MP lives next door, but I would like her and her husband to come down and have a chat.

"Nobody here has a criminal conviction and 90 per cent of us are Christians. We just want to be good neighbours."'

Good on 'em, I say.

Those of you unfamiliar with the singing of the Brazil family could do worse than have a hunt around on the MT Records website, read the reviews and the booklet notes, and invest some of your hard-earned.

Lovely stuff.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 02:55 PM

Hats off to me for managing my first blue clicky, by the way.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 03:09 PM

Quite prejudiced bit of writing there. Curious if this gets written up in any other papers, perhaps in a more level way.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 03:14 PM

You're not wrong, kat. I was quite surprised the Sun journo bothered interviewing someone from the family, to be honest. Interestingly, if you look at the comments on the story at the bottom (and at The Sun's discussion forums) opinion is quite evenly divided between pro- and anti-, with a fair few gypsies posting on their themselves.

Be warned though, there are some fairly disgusting opinions expressed on there.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 04:31 PM

The only reason the press will give it any room, or any appearance of balance, is because any adverse reaction gives them the chance to stuff Tessa Jowell.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 05:18 PM

That'll be the Tessa Jowell, who was Secretary of State for Culture when the Licensing Act was passed....?

Kitty

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 05:22 PM

I wish they'd bought the field across the road from where I live.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Vic Smith
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 06:43 AM

This is just appalling! Can you imagine the political fallout if the headline in 'The Sun' had been
Black families hell for minister Tessa
or
Muslim families hell for minister Tessa

but because this is a really downtrodden underclass, they can somehow get away with it. What is the CRE's position on this?

What needs to be realised - by the folk music community as well as the public at large - is just how important The Brazil Family are to the folk culture of England. The recent triple CD release by Rod Stradling's Musical Traditions label of the Brazils is quite scintillating and the single most important release of traditional English singing this century.

Show your outrage at this by emailing the The Equality and Human Rights Commission by clicking here

Read on-line the fascinating booklet that accompanies the release by clicking here and show your support for the Brazils (and give yourself a mighty treat) by ordering the albums by clicking here
Vic

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 07:10 AM

The CRE has now been subsumed into the Equality & Human Rights Commission that you mention.

By the way, gypsies are classed as an "ethnic group," for the purposes of the Race Relations Act.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 07:17 AM

I'd echo what Vic says about the Brazil family CDs from Musical Traditions, too -- wonderful stuff.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Vic Smith
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 10:02 AM

As you would expect, this story gets a much more balanced telling in the pages of today's The Guardian, page 7, than it ever would in The Sun

You can read the article on-line by clicking here though to see the informative picture that goes with the article, you will have to buy the newspaper.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: jacqui.c
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 10:26 AM

In the UK I lived in an area that had a permanent site for travelers and, from my own experience, they were helpful and just as law abiding as the general population.

The bad reputation seems to come from the itinerant bands of so called travelers who have a habit of descending on a local area, staying for a short while and then moving on, leaving the area a total mess for the local authorities to clean up. Generally that mess included human and animal waste as well as articles of junk that could not be used. I used to travel past a site abandoned in that way and it took the local authorities about a week using front loaders and trucks to clear the detritus.

A police acquaintance of mine commented that, when a group like that came into the area, the crime rate went up considerably, particularly for break-ins and car theft. These are the people who give all other travelers a bad reputation since no-one seems to want to differentiate between those who just wish to lead their traditional lives and those who are basically looking for pickings.

From looking at the photo in the Sun this site looks no worse than a regular building site and I wonder just how much dismay there would be if the site had been sold for a new housing development with all the mess and disruption that could cause. I have every sympathy with the Brazils if they have been ignored by local authorities when trying to solve their housing problem and, given the prejudice here, can quite believe that this would be the case.

As with all communities it is the small group of wrongdoers that get the publicity and so people start to believe that all of the community are alike. The media, on the whole, do not help either.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 10:33 AM

"The bad reputation seems to come from the itinerant bands of so called travelers who have a habit of descending on a local area, staying for a short while and then moving on"

ummm...isn't that what travellers do?

What is a "so-called" traveller? I only ask because the concept of "real" travellers (salt-of-the-earth types) and "false" travellers (itinerants and thieves bent on mischief) goes back to the Victorian period, and has been used as an excuse for the persecution of traveller communities for generations.

There's good and bad in all communities, but I don't think romanticised stereotypes are particularly helpful in addressing genuine social problems.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 10:34 AM

Anyone wishing to complain to the Press Complaints Commission about The Sun's coverage (or that of any other newspaper) can do so here: -

http://www.pcc.org.uk/index2.html

The online form asks which bit of the Code of Practice you think is being breached -- I put article 12, which deals with discrimination.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: jacqui.c
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 10:42 AM

Ruth - paraphrase the whole paragraph, not just the first bit. there is a difference. I have experienced, in my local area, both of these examples and there is a major difference in the way in which they affect the local community. I suppose it comes down to respect for the land and their neighbours on the whole.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,Black Hawk
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 10:51 AM

The amount of building work they got through in a short period puts the 'normal' construction contractors to shame.
Belies the perception of travellers as a lazy, shiftless lot.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: jacqui.c
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 05:42 PM

Exactly Black Hawk. That's what is so bad about lumping all traveling people together.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 07:11 PM

OK Ruth - let's do away with romanticised stereotypes, but we still need definitions. As a number of my travelling relatives live just down the way from the Brazils, I guess I know the first definition. As to the rest, how does "band of itinerant criminals" grab you? 'Cos I for one am sick of them and the harm they do to the travelling community. I know of unofficial travellers' camps in Kent, established for years, where the police call regularly - for a cup of tea. I have friends and family who are storytellers, musicians, showmen, horse traders, used car dealers and in all probability the biggest rogues unhung, all making a living without much harm to their fellow man. I also know of falsely registered motor vehicles, theft, intimidation and communities feeling threatened by mobile criminals. One size of persecuted minority does not fit all. The real crime is that things like planning permission seem to be automatically denied to the likes of the Brazils, principally because we still haven't learned that housing of whatever description should be about people's needs rather than investment and speculation. Oh, and prejudice.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,Sapper on UTU4 in Paisley Loop
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 07:37 PM

Nicely put Vulgar.
I used to wonder what the fuss was about "gypsies," until '85 when I regularly had to walk pass a "tarmac gang" encampment near Eastleigh Airport station. I then saw the amount of crap, real and figurativly, they left behind them.
Not only that, but when the council did provide a couple of skips for them to place their rubbish into, the skips vanished after less than a day.
I do realise that a lot of the Travelling Community do not cause problems and do not deserve the victimisation they receive. But if ever a section of a victimised community could be claimed to justify that victimisation, regrettably, some groups of Travellers do just that.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 05:35 AM

Some Travellers make a mess. So do the rest of us when we leave Football Stadiums, Folk Festivals and Glyndebourne. Not to mention plastic bags in the Ocean

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: jacqui.c
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 07:57 AM

Les - not to the degree that some unofficial sites are left in when they leave, and the site owner then has to pay the cost of removing that mess from his land. I doubt that any of the events you mention result in human and animal faeces being left in large quantities as well as all the detritus of human occupation and useless scrap that can't be sold. I know, from living in such an area, that it can take months, if not years, to bring a site back up to pre-occupancy safety.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 07:59 AM

"The real crime is that things like planning permission seem to be automatically denied to the likes of the Brazils, principally because we still haven't learned that housing of whatever description should be about people's needs rather than investment and speculation."

Amen to that! The planning laws in this country are a disgrace! Anti-democratic and loaded in favour of greedy developers.

And as for litter. Perhaps the middle class joggers who cover my local nature reserve with their empty plastic mineral water bottles should be held accountable for a change.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 08:13 AM

There is a car boot sale on the council car park in Halifax town center every Sunday morning, LOTS of large litter bins provided, most of the car booters leave their litter where their car was parked, on the ground, it's a bloody disgrace, and these are mainly Halifax residents, no gypsies at all.

eric

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Folkiedave
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 10:26 AM

I was at the Bottle Kicking and Hare Pie at Hallaton on Easter Monday. Those who were there left enormous amounts of litter over fields and roads, pavements and gardens. A lot of it empty beer cans and bottles.

These weren't travellers - just ordinary people. Had they been travellers just think of the uproar that would have been caused.

http://tiny.cc/yheeY

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 11:06 AM

Les, LOTS of plastic bags in the ocean! I was listening to a piece on NPR, yesterday, which said the big garbage dump floating in the Pacific Ocean, mostly ALL plastic, is larger in mass than the United States and all came from humankind.

A little off the subject, but one thing we have done is switched to a water bottle made entirely of corn with its own built in filter for chlorine, good for up to 90 uses. Plus, the bottle biodegrades, harmlessly, within 80 days.

Thanks Vic, for the music links!

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 11:51 AM

Good point Kat,

I think those of us who voice support for groups who suffer prejudice and discrimination have to recognise genuine problems generated by the traveling life. But we who live in one place, and some who live in two, contribute to habitat destruction and climate change on a much greater scale but it is taken away into some other backyard.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 03:53 AM

Ruth Archer hits it right on the button.
There is a danger of raising your voice because the people concerned happen to be singers or musicians - this is happening to ALL TRAVELLERS.
Here in Ireland the persecution of itinerants has reached 'ethnic cleansing' proportions and those who are not supporting this are ignoring it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: the button
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 04:18 AM

You're dead right, Jim. This is an issue I feel strongly about, and I wanted to raise it on these boards in such a way that it wouldn't end up in "BS."

I've had an acknowledgement of my complaint to the Press Complaints Commission, by the way. Doubt if anything will come of it, but we'll see.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 02:03 PM

Typically what happens with travellers is that they get moved on, which doesn't make it practical to tidy up before going, and must remove any motivation to try to do so.

Where approved stopping places are provided and provided with services they are typically looked after well by people who intend to come back again in the future.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: irishenglish
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 02:43 PM

I'm in the US, so a lot of the finer points of this are probably lost on me. It does bear to mind, the lyrics of a song off Oysterband's recent Meet You There, Bury Me Standing.

"Another home we could have made
Another home we have to leave
I'm tired of their permissions
To use what should be free
Tired of heavy voices
Telling me what I should be."

I'm just curious because I read the Guardian article linked above, what is the actual size of this property? And forgive me for not knowing this, but short of wanting to build a 30 story building on this site, once you own property, aren't you allowed to do whatever you want within reason? A family member of mine has owned a decent plot of land in Donegal for 25 years, but has never done anything with it, she just owns the land. If she wanted to set up a tent on her own property, and have a fire pit to cook on, isn't she entitled to do so? Again within reason, aren't these gypsies entitled to the same rights since they own the property?

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 03:10 PM

'As you would expect, this story gets a much more balanced telling in the pages of today's The Guardian, page 7, than it ever would in The Sun'

the definition of balanced would probably depend on your political leanings me thinks.

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 03:25 PM

Where would the Daily Mail or Express lie?

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 04:00 PM

"Where would the Daily Mail or Express lie?"
Page one, two, three. four, five six, seven....... how long is a piece of string?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 04:38 PM

Thanks Jim.

I used to buy a pint of milk for work in a paper shop in Wythenshaw. Everyday I would read the headlines of those bastions(?) of truth. The Express did about 14 days against Asylum Seekers including the front page headline:

"Asylum Seekers ate my Donkey"

Oh Joy

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 04:45 PM

I personally don't read either of the aforementioned papers, I was simply making a logical statement with no politcal bias one way or the other.

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 04:46 PM

Not a matter of politics. The Guardian is a newspaper. The Daily Telegraph is a newspaper too, with very different politics - here is its version

The Sun is a waste of newsprint and a waste of rime.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 06:05 PM

Lets not muck about here, the Sun, the Mail and the Express and a number of others are evil.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Thompson
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 06:40 PM

Curiosity: are these Irish(-origin) Brazils (pronounced BRAZZle) or otherwise?

We humans are really good at walling ourselves off from each other. I wonder whether it comes from some useful genetic tendency.

A friend found a baby magpie being beaten to death by three other magpies the other day. Presumably an orphan who'd strayed into their territory. Perhaps the human anti-other tendency is from the same kind of background.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 04:55 AM

Les,
I'm from Liverpool and I will never forget how 'The Sun' metaphorically urinated on the dead of Hillsborough.
Wythenshawe - I lived there once and helped re-wire part of the Council estate (no major fires I hope)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 06:23 AM

They still speak of you Jim. I trust the paternity claims have ceased now

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 07:02 AM

Ah - good days!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 01:16 PM

"Lets not muck about here, the Sun, the Mail and the Express and a number of others are evil"

and there are those who would say the exact opposite...either which way it's a personal opinion and a personal preference in newspapers. After all isn't the way the news stories are presented all about who can get the largest readership base, regardless of how "classy", or not, a newspaper is perceived to be?

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: bubblyrat
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 01:45 PM

Is that the Brazil family as in Lemmy (Lementina ? ) Brazil, composer of eponymous melodeon tunes ??

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 01:48 PM

"and there are those who would say the exact opposite...either which way it's a personal opinion and a personal preference in newspapers. After all isn't the way the news stories are presented all about who can get the largest readership base, regardless of how "classy", or not, a newspaper is perceived to be?"

errrm...no. Happily, other priorities do prevail. Otherwise we wouldn't even have broadsheets in this country - just red-top comics laughingly referring to themselves as newspapers.

I know people who still won't buy The Sun because of Hillsborough.

From what I remember you're in Canada, Charlotte. I think you have to live in the UK to understand that one's "personal preference" in newspapers is a more significant political signifier in the UK than it is in North America. And that the political slant provided by respective newspapers about things like travellers, and immigration, and a host of other contentious issues, tends to be drawn on quite clear and specific political lines.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 01:51 PM

Bubblyrat: yes.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 01:55 PM

Just find front pages to The Mail and The Sun etc.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 05:18 PM

This isn't the BBC so let's stop being so 'even-handed' - the Sun, the Mail and the Express ARE evil!! After all didn't one of these filthy rags engage in the the public humiliation and mental 'torture' of the parents of a missing child and have to publicly apologise for it?

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 05:15 AM

Spot on Shim.

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 07:11 AM

The Observer, in a reasoned article, points out that the 1968 Act that obliged local authorities to provide spaces was repealed in 1994. I guess the then government thought the "Market" would solve the problem. And in a way it might?

Subject: RE: Brazil family in the news
From: Thompson
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 07:47 AM

What did the Sun have to say about Hillsborough?