yeh ,and many teach their children to be pick pockets
and that IS a fact

they 'work' in groups
they will try to distract you while the others(s) grab your purse or whatever
[Edited 8/29/09 2:55am]

Many gypsies in Europe who claim "to stick to their traditional values" lead a ridiculous lifestyle. For example, some gypsy children in kindergartens are not allowed to share the same space, because the "clans" have issued bans on each other (yes, there have been death threats). There was also a bomb threat recently at my mother's work place due a situation like that too. I really don't see why something like that should be tolerated. I don't even want to think about how many times I've been listening to gypsies on the train speaking about stabbing somebody, beating their women or other inexcusable shit like that.

Racism isn't a word that can be applied on just about anything that concerns ethnic generalizations. Sure every individual should be given a fair chance. More nomadic lifestyles aren't just automatically going to fit in the modern world - which tends to lead to crime as there's no stable income that's required these days. Being a criminal and threatening other people is nevertheless not "indigenous behaviour". It's a problem in the communities themselves, but it's highly unlikely that it can be rooted out that easile, since the communites themselves aren't necessarily that closely associated with each other.

Madonna has a right to speak out, but it's pretty clear she has no idea what the situation can be like especially in Eastern Europe. It's not either really comparable to the racism that African-Americans have had to deal with - the gypsies are themselves the ones who resist the integration to the rest of the population. Which of course from one perspective should be reserved as their right as well. So in that sense, it's just one of those things that the modern societies cannot deal with and will find themselves being on an inevitable crash course with.
[Edited 8/29/09 3:53am]

Marrk said:

I never met gypsies. Where do they roam?

Marrk said:

agreed, sadly enough.

I think a lot of people talking in favor of gypsies never really met them.
[Edited 8/29/09 4:49am]

Two words: Eastern Europe.
Need I say more?

novabrkr said:

There is racism against romas in Europe especially in the former-communist countries of Central Europe. It is not the same type of racism like the blacks in the US however. Gypsies are discriminated upon based on prejudice, colour and lifestyle. Someone said they refuse to integrate. That's bull. For example in Greece they do go to the first classes of primary school but when you are living in absolute poverty, without electricity and running water, without the state providing any meaningful type of help to them (as it should for any person living under the poverty line) and when u have the parents of the ethnically Greek kids refusing to send their kids to the same schools as the romas, then how can u expect those children to stay at school and succesfully integrate to the workforce later on? Let's not forget that the romas are growing up speaking a different language at home than the national language so they have already lower chances to enter the workforce. I do not know exactly the situation in Romania but I do know that the situation in Greece and Serbia for example is pretty similar so I would assume that it is more of the same in Romania.

Further north is even worse. Yes in the Balkans the romas face discrimination but at least for the most part hating the romas as an ethnic group is not an idea the average person would state publicly without feeling embarassed. Not so in Hungary, Slovakia and other countries. There the average person would admit (at least 10 years ago when I was living there) that the romas are thieves and they bring all the troubles to themselves. But would anyone hire a roma? No. So how should they make a living? I remember back in the 90s the Slovak government was actually encouraging and paying money to their roma citizens to immigrate mostly to Scandinavia which eventually led to many EU countries demanding visa for Slovak citizens in general to travel to their territory. Plus there is the problem of violent racism in those countries. Yes, skinheads do not attack only romas but also gays and foreigners but simply romas are the most vulnerable group to be attacked because of poverty and colour.

As for the clan problems and other problems u mention (for example that the roma girls are getting married on average around the age of 14 and have babies soon after), while true, it is still a matter of education and law enforcement. Many countries (including mine) for example tolerate those clan problems as long as they remain strictly within the roma community and those marriages at a young age as a cultural phenomenon. But by tolerating those practices basically they make sure that the roma people as a whole will remain uneducated, underdeveloped and poor for the years to come. U cannot exempt a whole ethnic group from the laws governing a country and then blame them for the situation arising partly as a result of that. That's a form of racism too.


That said, I find kinda superficial of Madonna to give lectures about a complex and highly differentiated problem (depending on the country) in a pop concert. If I was a Romanian I wouldn't like it either because the roma issue is not an issue only in Romania but throughout Europe (especially in Eastern and Southeastern Europe) But is there a racist problem against romas in Europe? U bet there is.

P.S. And yes, I have met romas in three different countries so I am not just talking theoretically. I am sure the person who talked about caravans etc probably has seen but never met romas in a meaningful way (for example interacting and having conversations with them)
[Edited 8/29/09 7:20am]

I don't really disagree with anything you said, except for the fact that gypsy population here in scandinavia do not according to my observations want to integrate. I can't personally demand that from any group of individuals however, because their choice is theirs. In fact, an entirely homogenic society would be an abhorrent of course - the gypsy population still stick to some of their original values, which is not what you can say of most Eastern Europeans or even of African immigrants (even if that doesn't in some cases stretch out to anything else than clothing and perhaps some more traditional music etc.).

Systematic racism is never acceptable. It's just a matter of what you would like to emphasize in the long run. I personally view everyone as an individual - take everyone as an individual - and I'm sceptic of anyone who does not show a sign of questioning their own community's most skewed values. Sure you can blame bad education, unfortunate childhood and whatever, but in the end you will just have to take each individual for what they are and judge them on the basis of the choices they make themselves. There's only a certain amount of exceptions one can make in that regard.

Over here, it's hardly about whether they can get their electricity or water bills paid. We do have a welfare system, and since having a certain percentage of people living even on that alone is not going to make the government go bankrupt, I really don't mind. If it's relatively common for a certain ethnic group to e.g. steal from private properties and small family businesses then I will personally have a bit of a problem with them. It's really not that hard usually to see which percentage of a certain group are acting suspiciously in a certain setting, so resorting to "we should give everyone a benefit of a doubt" -line of thinking at every case is just sheer stupidity. Having said that, I have personally had far much more trouble with my "own kind" (which would be Finnish males of my own age) than with any members of an ethnic group living within our own borders. Don't get me wrong about that.

But really, ethnic trouble at a kindergarten?

novabrkr said:

Yes it happened. Not kindergarten but primary school and not by the kids but by their parents. They were demanding that they set up a different class for the romas and not to let them be in the same class with their kids.

I think looking for percentages of crime within whatever ethnic group is done in order to identify what's causing the problem and try do something about it and not in order to categorize a specific ethnic group (I am not saying that is what you are saying).

Yes there is personal responsibility but, as you probably know, there was a time when a black American couldn't find a decent job, no matter how qualified he/she was just because he was black. I can assure you that the same mentality exists against the gypsies in many parts of Europe. I am not talking about Finland because I have no idea about the place, I am talking about countries I know about. So u can't always put down everything in personal responsibility.

You mentioned that u had more troubles with your own ethnic group. You know when a serious crime happens by a person who is of the dominant ethnic group within a country a generalization will not be made since it is well known that the whole group is not criminal. If a serious crime will happen by a member of a non-dominant group (be it romas, other ethnic minorities, immigrants or whatever) against whom some prejudices always exist, a generalization usually will be made in the form of: Hey son/daughter be careful of these or the other people. That's how stereotypes are formed and then re-inforced.

Also it is not a question of demanding integration or not. It is a matter of creating the conditions for a person to be able to integrate if he wishes to and such conditions are currently just not present in many European countries. State help is also a problem. Even though it is meant to help sometimes it doesn't, it just traps people in the sidelines of society when it is small enough not to push them to improve themselves but big enough not to let them starve. This is not the case for the romas in many countries but it might well be in Scandinavia because u have the best social safety nets in the world. Here in Cyprus we have a very large number of arab refugees who receive around 600 euros a month but don't work. Those people are marginalised and for sure in the future will be the roots of trouble as it already happened in the French suburbs. But that's another discussion altogether.


Of course systematic racism is not acceptable but racism is by definition systematic and also it is a human characteristic. People are born with the fear of the others (people who look, act or behave different) and racism has been one of the driving forces of nation-building along with war. It is not natural for people not to be racist in some extent, it is part of the evil in our genes. It takes effort to minimize it. The romas are just the latest of a long list of ethnic, religious or sexual groups to face racism around the world (the stories of such groups are well documented in Europe, North America and elsewhere).
[Edited 8/29/09 8:57am]