This 100% accurate. Even the most mild mannered and kind people turn into full fascists when talking about Romani people. If you do not live in Europe you can’t realize how pervasive it is.
Worse you can say and do the most heinous shit to them and it will never be seen as racism. If something happens to them everyone just assumes they deserved it anyway because they must have done something for it. And when their communities try to push back a bit and revolt against what they are inflicted, the state uses all tools at its disposal to repress them. Just a few days ago on reddit there was a post about farmers spraying shit on their camp in a field and everyone was cheering. Of course no mention was made that they were not a threat to anyone and that municipalities do not build spots for them to stay with their mobile house even though they are required to build them by law.
When I was a kid, I was repeatedly told not to trust or approach them, that they would steal everything in sight and scam me, that “it is how they are”.
Fortunately some Romani organizations in French speaking countries are slowly getting some time to speak mostly in the decolonial and anti-racist movements. They do a lot for their communities and also take time to do some conferences to educate us leftists on their struggle.
municipalities do not build spots for them to stay with their mobile house even though they are required to build them by law
Some Irish travellers recently took over a car park near me for the same reason, and someone at work was complaining about it so I had to explain that the road is literally called “G*psy Lane” because it used to be where travellers stayed.
Yeah and we’re not even talking about the people who are now sedentary (a majority) and hide their Romani identity due to “shame” or fear of discrimination in their lives.
The Romani are the reason I don’t trust Europeans. Even among Americans growing up as a Muslim, I’ve never seen the same vitriolic racial hatred as what I see thrown at the Romani. Even other Americans whom I know are more bigoted have winced at the level of undue malice these people receive when I show them the statements of Europeans.
It’s the thing that leads me to have no hope for Europe unless it’s forcibly restructured. Like, the reasons I’ve seen people give to justify their attitude towards “g*psies” is utterly baffling. It’s like I’m hearing a Nazi race scientist spout the most inane bullshit imaginable, yet I’ve seen enough European forums that show no diversity of thought on this issue.
That’s truly shocking because some of the ways Americans talk about black people, Latino people and Muslims is some of the most repulsive garbage I’ve ever heard. And it isn’t just from MAGA chuds but liberals too.
Stalin truly didn’t go far enough West.
Maybe I’m just desensitized to American style racism. It’s crass nature makes it almost easy to ignore. But so much of the “enlightened” attitude that European liberals especially pull off is just skin crawling to me. I have similar reactions to American liberal bigotry but European liberals feel as if they are still using eugenics while American liberals come off smug and while being absurdly ignorant.
It’s kind of easy to catch am American liberal in their bigotry and get them to rethink things if you do it correctly, or at least make them look racist to a public audience. But with European liberals in my experience they just say unhinged things that presuppose too many racist presumptions. Again especially with the Romani. The stuff about Muslims reads similar but it’s so disgustingly apparent with Romani.
That’s true. I’m not European and I’ve never been there so I really have no grasp of liberal European attitudes towards the Romani.
“But unlike black people in America, Romanis actually love doing crime!”
I’ve heard this unironically from Europeans.
I was inspired to make this post because I saw one on r/MapPorn about European opinions on Roma People. The entire comment section was filled with people calling them sub human and that they deserved the racism. I’m not joking. It is unreal the amount of hate they get.
I saw that too! Like ironically saying that they cheered when a romani house got blown up during the ukraine war. Truly sick.
But you’re the warmongering redfash tankie for wanting the slaughter in Ukraine to end
warmongering means not supporting western warmongering.
Europeans treat refugees and Romani the same way Americans treat immigrants and blacks. Truly, we learned from the worst.
Well they also treat immigrants, even post first gen, bad.
I dated a Romanian woman who hated the Romani people, she said they made her ashamed to speak the same language. We didn’t really work out in the end.
Another Romanian woman whom I met a few times, upon hearing this went “lol why were you together with a racist”. Fair question, honestly. We didn’t work out either, but for different reasons.
Romanian≠Roma
Do you mean you dated Romani women?
Given they differentiated between romanian perople and the romani people in the post, I doubt it
Yeah I read it again
No, Romanian. The majority of Romani people here are however from Romania, hence the connection
Gypsies, tramps and thieves! I heard from the people of the towns, they’d call us gypsies, tramps and thieves, but every night all the men would come around and lay their money down…
