5 ms·
> 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 acknowle
by 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 agoLet'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 agoI 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:/...
- Bost 6y ago> 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. I've been having exactly(!) the same "only after I lived abroad" experience.