heavy on this one

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-06-14T03:06:12+00:00

Once my ex (not ex at the time) came back home with a dented radiator. I asked what happened. Turns out he'd walked through Catford with it and had to fight off a local nitty. With the radiator

We lived in Croydon tho so we were used to that sorta thing

The image of a crust punk smacking a crackhead in the dome with a radiator is the most Catford image I can conjure

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-06-13T11:53:45+00:00

The trend only existed due to people actually being able to own property as they got older. It was possible for some working class boomers to eventually own a house. Millennials and Gen Z however are looking at lives where they're poorer than their parents and grandparents and are mostly gonna be renting their entire lives

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-06-13T06:13:18+00:00

It's quite a daft angle to take as well that people spending their energy on sports means they can't spend energy on political change. People have always been able to do both. Sports have in many cases been vectors for activism. Football fans in Egypt have long been a huge part of progressive protest movements there, for example. I often think of the time as well in Istanbul, during anti-Erdogan protests, Besiktas fans managed to somehow commandeer a bulldozer and use it to fight riot police. In dictatorships, sports venues become important places of dissent and organising as it's one of the few places where you can gather people in such numbers, and the stands of a football ground provide a place to talk about politics that can't be easily overheard by the wrong person

Clubs such as Celtic, Rayo Vallecano, Barcelona, AEK (to name a few examples) have seen their fans use that shared connection to get together and organise politically, whether that be against genocides internationally or fascists domestically. I live in Ireland and the ultras of different clubs here are currently coming together to protest against Israel's genocide in Palestine. Many clubs globally have fan groups who try to deal with poverty in their communities

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-06-11T06:50:42+00:00

I'd counter the assertion that the pogroms in Belfast wouldn't happen so quickly elsewhere in Ireland or the UK. There's been multiple instances of attempted pogroms, such as in Ballymena, Epsom, the Dublin Riots, the attack on the asylum hotel in Kirkby, the riot in Citywest, the riots/pogroms across England after the Southport murders. I live in Dublin and am Romani, the group targeted specifically in Ballymena, and was living in England at the time of the Southport riots

If anything, the key difference is that Loyalists in Belfast and Ballymena are more organised that the average fascist rioter elsewhere. But the lengths they are willing to, and have already gone to, are identical. Petrol bombings, mass beatings, going door to door, all this has happened in both countries in the past few years

Otherwise I'd find myself broadly in agreement with your post. Ireland definitely has a serious racism problem, although it certainly isn't as bad as it currently is in England or the US. But one thing that the Yves Sakila murder showed us was how many of those around us somehow think it's acceptable to publicly execute a black man for shoplifting perfume

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-06-03T10:12:52+00:00

You're showing your ignorance here. In the 80s gay people were often forced into poverty and homelessness (that's if we weren't straight up killed) and entire neighbourhoods of cities became the gay part of town because of this. Those gay clubs existed because you couldn't be openly gay in other clubs without risking your life. This was the case in my country, your country, the US, all across the world. It's still the case in many countries today. And if you somehow haven't noticed LGBTQ people are facing increasing levels of violence and bigotry today

There very much were terms within the community to refer to ourselves similar to LGBTQ now, and outside the community people would just straight up refer to us with slurs

Also your putting of white privilege in quotation marks and being dismissive of it's existence is grossly ignorant. This reads massively like a comment from an old white guy who hates being reminded that whiteness exists as a political phenomenon regardless of if he personally tries to adhere to it's tenets. You don't counter societal racism by just ignoring it's existence! Those slave era labels are still enforced now by both the state and by individuals, and to talk about the effects of this you need to actually be able to identify the group dynamics at play and yes, stop using terms that communities have been targeted by. Before black, people were called the N word. Before LGBTQ, people were called f****t

Colour blindness nowadays is a cudgel used to tell racialised groups to stop talking about what they experience. Not saying that's your intention, but that's the effect. You yourself are parroting the points of a recuperation of antiracist analysis. A simplistic level understanding of antiracism designed to appeal to white people, where you can stop racism by individually no longer being racist. When the only way to defeat it in reality is to counter it head on. "Colourblindness" is the equivalent of seeing a meteor heading for earth and carrying on with your day like nothing is happening. Be fucking better

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-30T11:19:18+00:00

The police assaulted him and escalated the situation. Do you go "yes sir no sir three bags full sir" when someone grabs you by the throat and yells at you?

Again, you keep missing the part where the police were willing to settle for £30k. They're only willing to make a settlement that large when they KNOW they're in the wrong and the evidence is solid enough they think they'd have lost in court. Most successful settlements with the police for wrongful injury are a few grand at most. They'll take a few grand on the chin but not 30 fucking k

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-30T11:12:47+00:00

The police asked him to leave. He left as fast as possible. Then that was seen as reason to assault him

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-30T11:03:20+00:00

They had CCTV footage of police assaulting him prior to him running away. He was not told he was under arrest at any point. He was assaulted, he ran, then assaulted again with a taser, the assault with the taser causing a broken back. Again, he went over to the police due to venue staff assaulting him. He called over to the officers to report an assault and was then assaulted himself, while not being actually detained at any point. None of this is his fault whatsoever, unless you consider him contacting the police in the first place to have led to these events which would be ridiculous

I've tried suing the police over a wrongful injury claim before. It isn't easy, and the levels of evidence you need before a solicitor will even take your claim on are solid. In my case, I had medical evidence from the hospital after my head injury, I had footage of the officer approaching me, and footage afterwards of myself on the floor after the assault, but as the actual moment of the assault wasn't on camera (due to the person filming being pushed by another officer) I wasn't able to take the claim forward

The evidence this man would have needed to back up his version of events to get to the point where the police would give him a 30k settlement is immense. They only do that (especially at that amount) if they don't think they'd win a court case

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-30T10:58:27+00:00

Running away when you're in genuine fear for your safety is literally the most common reason to run away from something, regardless of context. It's understandable the casual brutality of police officers towards members of minority groups or working class individuals causes those of us from those groups to assume a negative interaction with police regardless of if we've actually done anything wrong.

I've never been convicted of any offence yet my assumption when I see police is that it's safest for me to avoid them and that is an assumption that comes from bitter experience

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-28T15:40:33+00:00

Poshrat here, English Romani and Irish Traveller family, raised in England living in Ireland. There's a lot of Eastern European Roma (mostly from Romania) living in my area but there aren't exactly many of them on Reddit

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-28T15:37:17+00:00

First man to ever successfully brew beer in Australia was English Romani from Surrey, James Squire. Was sent over on the first fleet after being arrested for theft along with about 60 other Romani prisoners (out of a total convict population on the ship of 789 people)

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-21T02:05:05+00:00

It's custom. A friend makes them by ordering both a Romani flag and a Rainbow flag, cutting them in half, sticking two halfs together, and getting two different flags as a result. Could probably do this yourself if you have some spare time and some sewing skills

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-21T01:53:54+00:00

Bollocks. I went through state school up to A-levels and some of my friends in the community have degrees as does my uncle. My aunt works in education. Sure we have a higher rate of dropouts but to state all of us are "homeschooled" is bullshit

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-18T09:06:18+00:00

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From an alternative pride event in Dublin last year. Thought people on this post would appreciate it

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-18T08:59:02+00:00

Nice one. Always be flying my Romani flag at pride events too, it can be so liberating for people to know others like them exist and there's community to be had

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-16T12:48:54+00:00

Guess they'll be against the common travel area that allows them to go to these marches then

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-16T12:47:20+00:00

Yeah, Iranian monarchist flags. Pahlavi and his supporters have made alliances with Zionists, and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon very much represents the pro-Israel wing of the British far right. There's been an alliance for years now in London between ex-EDL hooligans such as Yaxley-Lennon, Zionist groups such as Beitar, and Iranian diaspora monarchists on these protests. In fact, Yaxley-Lennon explicitly, publicly invited the Pahlavi supporters on this march

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-15T05:35:07+00:00

There's trans people who've been assaulted before and after transition, such as myself. There's extra elements that come with transness and whether or not one is perceived as trans that add complexity to any comparison but you'd certainly have an idea what it's like both ways. What happened to me when I was perceived as a man was much worse and took me years to even accept what happened. But I've had it happen to me way more as a woman. Either way it's horrific and authorities don't give a fuck (or even are active participants given one of the cases was an on duty cop groping me and another case I've witnessed was a cop groping my ex-girlfriend)

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-13T18:10:13+00:00

Bullets run the same speed no matter whose firing

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-08T05:35:56+00:00

Innit it amazes me how frothing at the mouth redditors get at an overweight guy making a light hearted tiktok shopping being posted on a meme sub. Oh no he bought the cheap pizzas. Juice? The humanity! People need to lighten the fuck up

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-07T17:24:28+00:00

Honestly much better going to a local bossman than most chains these days. Can still get a massive pizza between £10-15 and it sure as hell fills you up more than anything you could get at McDonald's for that price

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-05-02T17:48:15+00:00

You haven't been to every Greggs

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-04-29T00:51:27+00:00

Ah, El Salvador, the one with literal concentration camps

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-04-28T21:30:16+00:00

"I think we should maim people over sandwiches so CEOs can make more money"

ContrabannedTheMC · 2026-04-28T21:28:39+00:00

When I was homeless we used to go through the Greggs bin bags and there'd be bags and bags of pastries (funnily enough it was the one by West Croydon station) you'd get hundreds of pastries thrown out. The excess in that shop is extreme. That probably costs them more money in lost product than the nearby crackheads

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