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I am curious how ignoring the connection between being a Roma and your likelihood of engaging in criminal activity is beneficial to anyone? It most certainly do

I am curious how ignoring the connection between being a Roma and your likelihood of engaging in criminal activity is beneficial to anyone? It most certainly doesn’t benefit the Roma.

yorwba 9y ago
You don't have to ignore it, but you need to take into account that a stereotype that's say 60% accurate is still wrong 40% of the time. That difference can affect the optimal course of action tremendously. E.g. if the appropriate response to seeing a criminal is to call the police, applying the "gypsy = criminal" stereotype would lead to the prosecution of many innocent people. Of course if you are able to accurately take probabilities and uncertainty into account when making decisions, you can make good use of observed correlations; but most people tend to be better at dealing with deterministic rules (I certainly am) and need to consciously remind themselves not to overestimate the accuracy of a stereotype.
- danieltillett 9y ago
  It seems like you are arguing against stupidity, not ignoring empirical evidence. Does anyone with an half a functional brain think all Roma are criminals or the alternative that if a dozen Roma children descend on them on the street that they are just wanting to say hello? I try to treat everyone as an individual, but when I don’t have the opportunity to do this I have no choice but to fall back on my life’s experience. Sometimes this means I avoid people I wouldn’t if they looked or acted differently, but I have no desire to be a victim to prove a point.
  - virgilp 9y ago
    People are stupid all the time. I am stupid. You are stupid. I'm sure even von Neumann was being stupid all the time. Do not over-estimate your own rationality - our instinctual responses are so frequent, that even if they're right 90% of the time, they still make us behave badly/stupidly far more often than we think we do. > I have no desire to be a victim to prove a point. This is not a dig against you. Humans - myself included - are incredibly flawed (while being incredibly awesome at the same time). I just find it helpful to keep this in mind. Personally, applying the stereotype as you say is a very reasonable (even "rational") choice. I do it too. But, at the same time, we should recognize the limitations of it - both you and I have probably treated a gypsy unfairly. That's ok, I'm fine with that, I've given up hope that I can be perfect - but, I still find that it helps to remind me that I'm not. And what I'm doing is not helping them. I don't know how I could _personally_ behave better (without harming myself) - but, that only means that I don't believe a solution can be found at the "personal" level. I believe "more of the same" will only work to reinforce the stereotype - so at a policy level, I believe that policies are needed to actively help them raise above their conditions (yes, maybe even positive discrimination is justified - at least, it's _something_ ), while at the same time working to fight against the symptoms (prevent the formation of "ghettos"/ their isolation in roma-only communities). But, I digress. This was about our own weaknesses, and how the stereotype, even when grounded in truth, can be harmful, because of the positive feedback loop it creates (which is very hard to break). In particular, a stereotype tells you that e.g. gypsies used to be petty criminals (in large proportions), but it does NOT tell you that they have to be so in the future. It does not tell you the "why" - maybe it's coded in their DNA. But what if (more likely, IMO) it's actually coded in our social norms? Because those, we can change! It takes effort, and time, but it's doable.
    - danieltillett 9y ago
      Lots of people with good (and bad) intentions have tried to “solve” the Roma problem with very little success. I don’t have any useful suggestions other than the observation that when Roma immigrate to countries like the USA or Australia they completely changed their culture and have been absorbed into the general population.
      - euyyn 9y ago
        Might have to do with the number of people. E.g. in Spain there are fewer black people, proportionally, than in the US, and a "black neighborhood" is unheard of: black, white, people are just the same culture. Same with Asians and Chinatowns. There are gipsy communities and neighborhoods, though, with a distinct culture. And in France there are muslim neighborhoods, which I haven't seen in Spain nor the US.
      - alexasmyths 9y ago
        "I don’t have any useful suggestions other than the observation that when Roma immigrate to countries like the USA or Australia they completely changed their culture and have been absorbed into the general population." You cannot be a Gypsie/Roma in North America! Their culture involves roaming in caravans from town to town, possibly doing bits of labour, but mostly running scams. Kids don't go to school, they live their lives as they please. In France, I saw a Roma Caravan pull up on a local farmers property my French friend indicated that if the farmer complained - he would get a physical threat on his person and property (though I am aware that property rights / routes are different in Europe). Can you imagine a caravan pulling up on a Farmer's property in rural Alabama? And threatening violence? They would be shot by the owner, or instantly run out of town by the local cop who could give a rats behind about whatever their 'cultural status' might be. The EU institutionally and systematically enables the 'Roma culture' - which is in and of itself nearly impossible to make civilized in the terms that we understand. (Not necessarily saying anything against the culture other than we don't know how to 'make it work' as the previous commenter observed) How does the EU provide for the education of Roma children as they roam through Europe? Health care? Taxation? Etc. etc.. I understand the impetus for the EU to protect culture, and also - you know - history Nazism and all that - but the cultural situation may be 'implacable'. Dissolving their cultural identity and putting them into a suburban school getting accounting degrees might be the only way we know how to 'fix the problem'. Which of course comes at the cost of cultural dissolution.
  - mpweiher 9y ago
    What you describe is exactly what the research shows: people aren't stupid. They use stereotypes (=generalizations) along with other information to assess situations and act as best as they can.
rdtsc 9y ago
> It most certainly doesn’t benefit the Roma. Not as a society or culture in general. Ignoring prevalence of poverty, crime, prejudice, illiteracy of one's own group (and note an individual belong to multiple group and some choose to identify with one or more in particular) is usually not beneficial. But it will benefit an individual if they say are not involved in crime and want to apply for a job, school or move up the corporate ladder or interact with a neighbor, and others don't automatically apply stereotypes to them based on their skin color, race, nationality, language spoken etc.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  At whose cost? Remember that someone is being stolen from or cheated on this case, on average. (If your percentages are correct.) What the paper actually argues is to measure accuracy of the stereotypes instead of calling them wrong. If it is say 90% accurate it is not on the person hiring to fix this perception. It it's similar with black people in tge US and crime, however there are known institutional causes of it, not really a self fulfilling prophecy either. (They also apply to so-called white trash and result in the same, but in different states and therefore it is only a specific subgroup that is stereotyped instead is skin colour. Similar about Puerto Ricans or Mexican immigrants.)

I am curious how ignoring the connection between being a Roma and your likelihood of engaging in criminal activity is beneficial to anyone? It most certainly doesn’t benefit the Roma.

yorwba 9y ago

You don't have to ignore it, but you need to take into account that a stereotype that's say 60% accurate is still wrong 40% of the time. That difference can affect the optimal course of action tremendously. E.g. if the appropriate response to seeing a criminal is to call the police, applying the "gypsy = criminal" stereotype would lead to the prosecution of many innocent people. Of course if you are able to accurately take probabilities and uncertainty into account when making decisions, you can make good use of observed correlations; but most people tend to be better at dealing with deterministic rules (I certainly am) and need to consciously remind themselves not to overestimate the accuracy of a stereotype.

danieltillett 9y ago
It seems like you are arguing against stupidity, not ignoring empirical evidence. Does anyone with an half a functional brain think all Roma are criminals or the alternative that if a dozen Roma children descend on them on the street that they are just wanting to say hello? I try to treat everyone as an individual, but when I don’t have the opportunity to do this I have no choice but to fall back on my life’s experience. Sometimes this means I avoid people I wouldn’t if they looked or acted differently, but I have no desire to be a victim to prove a point.
- virgilp 9y ago
  People are stupid all the time. I am stupid. You are stupid. I'm sure even von Neumann was being stupid all the time. Do not over-estimate your own rationality - our instinctual responses are so frequent, that even if they're right 90% of the time, they still make us behave badly/stupidly far more often than we think we do. > I have no desire to be a victim to prove a point. This is not a dig against you. Humans - myself included - are incredibly flawed (while being incredibly awesome at the same time). I just find it helpful to keep this in mind. Personally, applying the stereotype as you say is a very reasonable (even "rational") choice. I do it too. But, at the same time, we should recognize the limitations of it - both you and I have probably treated a gypsy unfairly. That's ok, I'm fine with that, I've given up hope that I can be perfect - but, I still find that it helps to remind me that I'm not. And what I'm doing is not helping them. I don't know how I could _personally_ behave better (without harming myself) - but, that only means that I don't believe a solution can be found at the "personal" level. I believe "more of the same" will only work to reinforce the stereotype - so at a policy level, I believe that policies are needed to actively help them raise above their conditions (yes, maybe even positive discrimination is justified - at least, it's _something_ ), while at the same time working to fight against the symptoms (prevent the formation of "ghettos"/ their isolation in roma-only communities). But, I digress. This was about our own weaknesses, and how the stereotype, even when grounded in truth, can be harmful, because of the positive feedback loop it creates (which is very hard to break). In particular, a stereotype tells you that e.g. gypsies used to be petty criminals (in large proportions), but it does NOT tell you that they have to be so in the future. It does not tell you the "why" - maybe it's coded in their DNA. But what if (more likely, IMO) it's actually coded in our social norms? Because those, we can change! It takes effort, and time, but it's doable.
  - danieltillett 9y ago
    Lots of people with good (and bad) intentions have tried to “solve” the Roma problem with very little success. I don’t have any useful suggestions other than the observation that when Roma immigrate to countries like the USA or Australia they completely changed their culture and have been absorbed into the general population.
    - euyyn 9y ago
      Might have to do with the number of people. E.g. in Spain there are fewer black people, proportionally, than in the US, and a "black neighborhood" is unheard of: black, white, people are just the same culture. Same with Asians and Chinatowns. There are gipsy communities and neighborhoods, though, with a distinct culture. And in France there are muslim neighborhoods, which I haven't seen in Spain nor the US.
    - alexasmyths 9y ago
      "I don’t have any useful suggestions other than the observation that when Roma immigrate to countries like the USA or Australia they completely changed their culture and have been absorbed into the general population." You cannot be a Gypsie/Roma in North America! Their culture involves roaming in caravans from town to town, possibly doing bits of labour, but mostly running scams. Kids don't go to school, they live their lives as they please. In France, I saw a Roma Caravan pull up on a local farmers property my French friend indicated that if the farmer complained - he would get a physical threat on his person and property (though I am aware that property rights / routes are different in Europe). Can you imagine a caravan pulling up on a Farmer's property in rural Alabama? And threatening violence? They would be shot by the owner, or instantly run out of town by the local cop who could give a rats behind about whatever their 'cultural status' might be. The EU institutionally and systematically enables the 'Roma culture' - which is in and of itself nearly impossible to make civilized in the terms that we understand. (Not necessarily saying anything against the culture other than we don't know how to 'make it work' as the previous commenter observed) How does the EU provide for the education of Roma children as they roam through Europe? Health care? Taxation? Etc. etc.. I understand the impetus for the EU to protect culture, and also - you know - history Nazism and all that - but the cultural situation may be 'implacable'. Dissolving their cultural identity and putting them into a suburban school getting accounting degrees might be the only way we know how to 'fix the problem'. Which of course comes at the cost of cultural dissolution.
- mpweiher 9y ago
  What you describe is exactly what the research shows: people aren't stupid. They use stereotypes (=generalizations) along with other information to assess situations and act as best as they can.

rdtsc 9y ago

> It most certainly doesn’t benefit the Roma. Not as a society or culture in general. Ignoring prevalence of poverty, crime, prejudice, illiteracy of one's own group (and note an individual belong to multiple group and some choose to identify with one or more in particular) is usually not beneficial. But it will benefit an individual if they say are not involved in crime and want to apply for a job, school or move up the corporate ladder or interact with a neighbor, and others don't automatically apply stereotypes to them based on their skin color, race, nationality, language spoken etc.

AstralStorm 9y ago
At whose cost? Remember that someone is being stolen from or cheated on this case, on average. (If your percentages are correct.) What the paper actually argues is to measure accuracy of the stereotypes instead of calling them wrong. If it is say 90% accurate it is not on the person hiring to fix this perception. It it's similar with black people in tge US and crime, however there are known institutional causes of it, not really a self fulfilling prophecy either. (They also apply to so-called white trash and result in the same, but in different states and therefore it is only a specific subgroup that is stereotyped instead is skin colour. Similar about Puerto Ricans or Mexican immigrants.)