4 ms·

I'm in the south of England and there's been a marked uptick in "Romanian" beggers and pick pockets over the last decade. [disclaimer: I don't know if they're a

I'm in the south of England and there's been a marked uptick in "Romanian" beggers and pick pockets over the last decade. [disclaimer: I don't know if they're actually Romanian] There's also a bunch of lovely people. One of the companies I worked with had a remote office in Romania, and onshored a fair amount of staff, and they were perfectly european culturally. The counter is obviously there's nothing wrong with Romanians ethnically, but there has been downsides of denying the negative consequences of immigration, which had helped fuel our absolute farce of removing from the union. With that said, from the little knowledge I have on the issues, many of these issues are the UK shooting itself in the foot, but my point is these are not black and white issues, but rather complex issues that are better fixed for an increasingly stable Europe.

sph 4y ago
If you don't know whether they are Romanian, why do you say they are?
- ownagefool 4y ago
  A couple of reasons. - timing of the influx - appearance - my wife is Ukrainian and see believes them to be Romanian. She likely has better insight than I. - She also talks to them sometimes. On that note, most recent case of pick pockets I came across were actually speaking Ukrainian in Norwich.
shrimpx 4y ago
[Leaving aside the implication that "Romanian" has become a sort of synonym for beggar or pick-pocket:] The thing is, Romanians are Europeans. They're all culturally European. It's just that some (mostly Western) Europeans dislike the grimier aspects of European culture and have redefined European-ness to exclude some European people. If I see a hobo from Alabama begging downtown, I'm not going to be like "this guy is not 'culturally American,' we should restrict Alabama's travel to the rest of the US." I see it as American culture, and we should fix it by improving quality of life throughout the federation. The "unified Europe" project is hilariously wrapped up in mindfuck games of who to exclude.
- ownagefool 4y ago
  You're right, European wasn't the right word, it was more a rich / poor thing. That's said, comparison to the US doesn't make sense, since it was only back in 2008 when Romania was added to the bloc. We're mostly on the same page, I just assume it's a process rather than pulling the plaster off.

sph 4y ago

If you don't know whether they are Romanian, why do you say they are?

ownagefool 4y ago
A couple of reasons. - timing of the influx - appearance - my wife is Ukrainian and see believes them to be Romanian. She likely has better insight than I. - She also talks to them sometimes. On that note, most recent case of pick pockets I came across were actually speaking Ukrainian in Norwich.

shrimpx 4y ago

[Leaving aside the implication that "Romanian" has become a sort of synonym for beggar or pick-pocket:] The thing is, Romanians are Europeans. They're all culturally European. It's just that some (mostly Western) Europeans dislike the grimier aspects of European culture and have redefined European-ness to exclude some European people. If I see a hobo from Alabama begging downtown, I'm not going to be like "this guy is not 'culturally American,' we should restrict Alabama's travel to the rest of the US." I see it as American culture, and we should fix it by improving quality of life throughout the federation. The "unified Europe" project is hilariously wrapped up in mindfuck games of who to exclude.

ownagefool 4y ago
You're right, European wasn't the right word, it was more a rich / poor thing. That's said, comparison to the US doesn't make sense, since it was only back in 2008 when Romania was added to the bloc. We're mostly on the same page, I just assume it's a process rather than pulling the plaster off.