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I agree that many Europeans are racist towards Roma and the other gypsy peoples. Much of what they say will be pure nonsense (e.g., they are stupid, not fit for

I agree that many Europeans are racist towards Roma and the other gypsy peoples. Much of what they say will be pure nonsense (e.g., they are stupid, not fit for work, etc), but other common statements you might hear also have some truth to them. For example, "they all steal" is of course a gross simplification, as many Roma are well integrated and live a regular life. However, if you are surrounded by a group of people clearly discernible as gypsies (women in long robes, etc) there is a high likelihood you're in trouble.

ithkuil 6y ago
> Roma and the other gypsy peoples I thought gypsy was the exonym for the Roma(ni) people. Are there other "gypsy" peoples?
- bigbubba 6y ago
  Irish Travellers are sometimes called gypsies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers
- de_Selby 6y ago
  Travellers could also be considered gypsies. They are mainly in Ireland and England and are regarded similarly. Part of the problem is that a nomadic lifestyle just doesn't gel with modern society so they don't integrate at all. For the same reason it's hard for these people to find work and a subset do often turn to crime. Culturally they also have very conservative and often misogynistic views which acts as another barrier to integration. In ways it is similar to the issues with Islamic migrants integrating into European society. It's too simplistic to just label it as racism and be done with it (not to say there isn't racism). There are real issues.
  - ithkuil 6y ago
    > Travellers could also be considered gypsies Yes I heard people use that label for all nomadic minorities. I wonder if it's improper use of the word.
    - ciceryadam 6y ago
      Well, in UK it seems that is either Gypsy or Irish Traveller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers#/media/File:Population_identifying_as_Gypsy_or_Irish_Travellers_2011.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers#/media/File:P...
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    > issues with Islamic migrants integrating into European society. As an American this always baffles me.
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    Interestingly, English and Irish travelers are unrelated to mainland gypsies: they are mostly of the same ancestry as regular English and Irish, they just live different lifestyle on the edge of society. On the other hand, most mainland gypsies are actually their own ethnicity with their own separate genetic ancestry.
- malkia 6y ago
  My "shallow" understanding is that "gypsy" seemed to be related to "egyptian", because of their looks. Others point to 13th-14th century ottoman invasion bringing troops from South Asia that were forced to move out from there, and used them as supporting troops later settling in Europe. Hell if I know. I'm bulgarian, and you can imagine how this was portrayed to me, by parents, school, friends, etc. This article actually opened my eyes. Not that I didn't know how it looked, but how would it feel...
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    Yes, the word "gypsy" comes from "Egypt". It's not immediately obvious why the term was applied to the gypsies. We know with certainty that the gypsies came from India, though we don't know the details.
jrochkind1 6y ago
Came here expecting to find this, because THIS is in fact what happens in every online discussion of Roma I see, not some other "pure nonsense", but just this. In America, if people say "The things people say about Black people are a gross simplification HOWEVER", it's usually something really racist that's about to follow. Say, "Sure many Black people are fine, but if you find yourself surrounded by Black people in the Inner City, you are in danger." I mean, I dunno.
- flyinglizard 6y ago
  Being surrounded by any one group in a foreign place could be a bit alarming, whether these are Roma in Bulgaria, Blacks in inner cities, or Whites in some rural town, or Arabs in Marseille.
- NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
  The reality is that people are not wrong when they act as if Black people in the U.S. are more likely to commit violent crimes. Black people are ~20% of the population, but commit ~55% of the murders, making for a per capita murder offense rate among Black Americans that is ~5x (yes, 500%) of the rate for the remainder. That said, people pay way too much attention to murder and violent crime in public discourse and in their private lives for the most part. Sure, Black people may murder at 5x the rate of non-Black people, but murder is really, really rare. What about we worry about, I dunno, diabetes? Education? Population growth? Climate change?
maest 6y ago
> a bit racist It's more than a bit. It's institutionalised and pervasive racism. One big difference from the US is that Eastern-Europeans don't even acknowledge there is any racism against gypsies so it's not even part of the public discourse. Much like how fish don't realise they're surrounded by water, so do Eastern Europeans not acknowledge that they live in a racist society. The tensions flaring up in the US are partly caused by the fact that the opressed category is trying to get equal footing in society. If gypsies were to start talking about how they should be treated equally, you can bet there would be a backlash from a big part of society. For comparison, look at how the US treated race relations 100 years ago. (To be clear, I'm not saying Eastern-European countries are backwards or more primitive just because they can be compared to the US in the past; it's just a helpful way to understand the context.) Source: I'm originally from an Eastern European country and only realised the racism in Eastern Europe once I lived abroad for multiple years and drew parallels with the highly mediatised US racial tensions.
- ardit33 6y ago
  Let's be honest, 90% of E. European were oppressed/repressed themselves. Unless you were in the 5% communist party elite, your life under communism was full of oppression everywhere. 'Race Relation' are a luxury of wealthier western countries. When you are struggling for food/heat/shelter yourself, it is hard to worry about other's problems. I think it will take at least one more generation for things to slowly change.
- ciceryadam 6y ago
  I think people always acknowledged it, but it's just that the majority was okay with it. Here's what the opposition said about the Czechoslovak law number 117 from 1927 that created a "gypsy ID card" for everyone older than 14 (ID with all the fingerprints, photo, list of kin, etc): "We are not satisfied with the fact that one nation keeps the remnants of another from birth to death under police surveillance, we know that the vast majority of the oppressed nation is innocent and irresponsible for the actions of their anti-social minority, whose actions are justified by the current social order ... that mud would be slung on the rest of the nomadic nation and that it be made lawless in such a way that all human rights, which, even according to this constitution, belong to every human being, are taken away from this nation only because its members are dark-skinned. " more details here: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&u=https://radiozurnal.rozhlas.cz/romove-za-prvni-republiky-8106743 https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&u=https:/...
petre 6y ago
> if you are surrounded by a group … It really depends. I've been in that situation in open air markets, at fairs etc and no, definitely not in trouble. Walk into a ghetto? Maybe.

ithkuil 6y ago

> Roma and the other gypsy peoples I thought gypsy was the exonym for the Roma(ni) people. Are there other "gypsy" peoples?

bigbubba 6y ago
Irish Travellers are sometimes called gypsies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers
de_Selby 6y ago
Travellers could also be considered gypsies. They are mainly in Ireland and England and are regarded similarly. Part of the problem is that a nomadic lifestyle just doesn't gel with modern society so they don't integrate at all. For the same reason it's hard for these people to find work and a subset do often turn to crime. Culturally they also have very conservative and often misogynistic views which acts as another barrier to integration. In ways it is similar to the issues with Islamic migrants integrating into European society. It's too simplistic to just label it as racism and be done with it (not to say there isn't racism). There are real issues.
- ithkuil 6y ago
  > Travellers could also be considered gypsies Yes I heard people use that label for all nomadic minorities. I wonder if it's improper use of the word.
  - ciceryadam 6y ago
    Well, in UK it seems that is either Gypsy or Irish Traveller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers#/media/File:Population_identifying_as_Gypsy_or_Irish_Travellers_2011.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers#/media/File:P...
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  > issues with Islamic migrants integrating into European society. As an American this always baffles me.
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  Interestingly, English and Irish travelers are unrelated to mainland gypsies: they are mostly of the same ancestry as regular English and Irish, they just live different lifestyle on the edge of society. On the other hand, most mainland gypsies are actually their own ethnicity with their own separate genetic ancestry.
malkia 6y ago
My "shallow" understanding is that "gypsy" seemed to be related to "egyptian", because of their looks. Others point to 13th-14th century ottoman invasion bringing troops from South Asia that were forced to move out from there, and used them as supporting troops later settling in Europe. Hell if I know. I'm bulgarian, and you can imagine how this was portrayed to me, by parents, school, friends, etc. This article actually opened my eyes. Not that I didn't know how it looked, but how would it feel...
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  Yes, the word "gypsy" comes from "Egypt". It's not immediately obvious why the term was applied to the gypsies. We know with certainty that the gypsies came from India, though we don't know the details.

jrochkind1 6y ago

Came here expecting to find this, because THIS is in fact what happens in every online discussion of Roma I see, not some other "pure nonsense", but just this. In America, if people say "The things people say about Black people are a gross simplification HOWEVER", it's usually something really racist that's about to follow. Say, "Sure many Black people are fine, but if you find yourself surrounded by Black people in the Inner City, you are in danger." I mean, I dunno.

flyinglizard 6y ago
Being surrounded by any one group in a foreign place could be a bit alarming, whether these are Roma in Bulgaria, Blacks in inner cities, or Whites in some rural town, or Arabs in Marseille.
NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
The reality is that people are not wrong when they act as if Black people in the U.S. are more likely to commit violent crimes. Black people are ~20% of the population, but commit ~55% of the murders, making for a per capita murder offense rate among Black Americans that is ~5x (yes, 500%) of the rate for the remainder. That said, people pay way too much attention to murder and violent crime in public discourse and in their private lives for the most part. Sure, Black people may murder at 5x the rate of non-Black people, but murder is really, really rare. What about we worry about, I dunno, diabetes? Education? Population growth? Climate change?

maest 6y ago

> a bit racist It's more than a bit. It's institutionalised and pervasive racism. One big difference from the US is that Eastern-Europeans don't even acknowledge there is any racism against gypsies so it's not even part of the public discourse. Much like how fish don't realise they're surrounded by water, so do Eastern Europeans not acknowledge that they live in a racist society. The tensions flaring up in the US are partly caused by the fact that the opressed category is trying to get equal footing in society. If gypsies were to start talking about how they should be treated equally, you can bet there would be a backlash from a big part of society. For comparison, look at how the US treated race relations 100 years ago. (To be clear, I'm not saying Eastern-European countries are backwards or more primitive just because they can be compared to the US in the past; it's just a helpful way to understand the context.) Source: I'm originally from an Eastern European country and only realised the racism in Eastern Europe once I lived abroad for multiple years and drew parallels with the highly mediatised US racial tensions.

ardit33 6y ago
Let's be honest, 90% of E. European were oppressed/repressed themselves. Unless you were in the 5% communist party elite, your life under communism was full of oppression everywhere. 'Race Relation' are a luxury of wealthier western countries. When you are struggling for food/heat/shelter yourself, it is hard to worry about other's problems. I think it will take at least one more generation for things to slowly change.
ciceryadam 6y ago
I think people always acknowledged it, but it's just that the majority was okay with it. Here's what the opposition said about the Czechoslovak law number 117 from 1927 that created a "gypsy ID card" for everyone older than 14 (ID with all the fingerprints, photo, list of kin, etc): "We are not satisfied with the fact that one nation keeps the remnants of another from birth to death under police surveillance, we know that the vast majority of the oppressed nation is innocent and irresponsible for the actions of their anti-social minority, whose actions are justified by the current social order ... that mud would be slung on the rest of the nomadic nation and that it be made lawless in such a way that all human rights, which, even according to this constitution, belong to every human being, are taken away from this nation only because its members are dark-skinned. " more details here: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&u=https://radiozurnal.rozhlas.cz/romove-za-prvni-republiky-8106743 https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&u=https:/...

petre 6y ago

> if you are surrounded by a group … It really depends. I've been in that situation in open air markets, at fairs etc and no, definitely not in trouble. Walk into a ghetto? Maybe.