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[Ogdibus]

I was under the impression that Straus had acknowledged the disparity in severity.  I never got the linked pdf to load, and instead looked at more recent information that relates to it.

[nenjin]

...there's no bias against them.

Yeah, going to agree with Vector that you're wrong here. People in the US don't need to know people's backstory to discriminate against them. And knowledge of gypsies would have come over on the boat with each successive wave of European immigration, at any rate. They're on our cultural radar, just not to the degree they are in Europe. It's true that when the US talks ethnic stereotypes, gypsies are not often mentioned. But nomadic people with different ideas about property rights is definitely something that would get an American's ire up, and we've got the same "gypsies steal children" stories that Europe does.

I believe a similar cultural group to the Gypsies is the Pikies of England?

[misko27]

Well that phrase wasn't correct perhaps, but there is a better point I'm trying to make: They do not face the discrimination they do in Europe, either social, economic, or anything. It is true that in the US Roma immigrants, fearing persecution, keep their ethnicity (?) to themselves, and gypsy as a profession has it's stigmas. But the key point is that they aren't living in god-damned shacks in the middle of nowhere. Many (I'd say most but there are no statistics) of them assimilate seamlessly into the US. So, the "Well the whole Europe hate them (and for good reasons)" thing we just heard don't hold much water with me.

And anecdotes don't count, sorry. You might have an aunt who hates Irish, but that doesn't mean there is widespread anti-Irish sentiment.

[Sheb]

Yeah, Straus acknowledge it in his .pdf.

Regarding the Roma, I'm going to point out that it's perfectly possible to have a law to apply to everyone but is still designed to discriminate against them. A ban on setting up camps for example.

However, it should be noted that the vast majority of Roma aren't nomadic anymore, and live pretty much like anyone else. With an added dose of discrimination. In eastern Europe, they are literally building walls around the Roma quarters of some villages.

However, integrating those that remains nomadic into society is hard. We're a sedentary society, and even if you can get around some of the problems (for example in France at least they get a kind of special passport that let them claim some benefits or health insurance), how can your scholarize the kids of nomadic people? How can you hold a job while constantly on the move? Roma used to specialize in stuff like silversmithing or horse raising that can be done on the fly, but those jobs went away, and while you could imagine them working as software programmer over the internet or something, you get back to the education problem.

[Orange Wizard]

...there's no bias against them.

Yeah, going to agree with Vector that you're wrong here. People in the US don't need to know people's backstory to discriminate against them. And knowledge of gypsies would have come over on the boat with each successive wave of European immigration, at any rate. They're on our cultural radar, just not to the degree they are in Europe. It's true that when the US talks ethnic stereotypes, gypsies are not often mentioned. But nomadic people with different ideas about property rights is definitely something that would get an American's ire up, and we've got the same "gypsies steal children" stories that Europe does.

I believe a similar cultural group to the Gypsies is the Pikies of England?

I'm pretty sure England has gypsies. I may be mistaken, however.

[Helgoland]

The way I see it, there's justified prejudice against 'traditional' (roaming) Roma, but the prejudice against the Roma as an ethnic group is unfounded - and, honestly, if a family of Roma settled down the street from my house it wouldn't be a big deal - until they start conforming to sterreotypes, that is...

[scrdest]

'Pikey' is, apparently, a term for people who live nomadically but are specifically NOT Gypsies, ethnically.

[aenri]

Regarding the Roma, I'm going to point out that it's perfectly possible to have a law to apply to everyone but is still designed to discriminate against them. A ban on setting up camps for example.

However, it should be noted that the vast majority of Roma aren't nomadic anymore, and live pretty much like anyone else. With an added dose of discrimination. In eastern Europe, they are literally building walls around the Roma quarters of some villages.

This is why I said for good reasons. I live nearby that wall and near another one in Michalovce. The walls are last resort measures against gypsies living in the vicinity. The people living in the flats there don't want to fear for their life everytime they go outside.

People don't get any help from government so they take the matter into their hands. The police are powerless against gypsy criminality, because they fear going into some of the more "rough" gypsy "villages". Nice example is the gypsy riots from 2004 when the Slovak government was forced to use army! and martial law to quell the looting gypsies.
You could say that living here in that time didn't make me any more trusting of gypsies.

And here you can read about our most famous gypsy settlement - Lunik IX. Long story short - in socialist Czechoslovakia there were many attempts to integrate gypsies with majority population. This is one of the most spectacular failures of that approach. The gypsies illegally moved in their entire families (think about 15-20 people living in 2 room flat) and removed all non gypsies from the buildings. After that they sold everything that had any value from flats (think about metal heaters torn out for recycling money). Now after years of their "administration" the city needs to raze some of the buildings, because their structure is damaged and that is a great danger to people living inside. You can find some nice pictures from this gypsy "village" on google.

[Reelya]

I just read that post, you kind of described it a little prejudicially: it doesn't *quite* say what you said it says. Like it says the Slovaks left of their own accord because they didn't like the Roma, not they were "removed" by the Roma, which makes it sound like they were kicking doors in, unless you have other sources which state that.

To be honest that sounds like the situation for every disadvantaged ethnic group on the planet, along with the "they just don't want to get educated or work" thing. This same pattern occurs worldwide wherever you have a particular minority heavily discriminated against to the point where they can't find work (including native Australians, native Americans, African Americans in some areas), and the government creates special accomodation to round them up together - it becomes a black hole of crime, disease and poverty. But that's everywhere, and every ethnicity, when dumped into that same situation.

I kind of doubt it's something intrinsic in all those native/ethnic populations rather than brought on by their environment. Note, also that it states the problems only really began after the fall of communism. Communism at least provides full employment. It's good for the most poor group, definitely, if they're going to have no work, no income under capitalism: guaranteed work under communisim, is better than starving or just handouts under a free market system. After the country went free market, this government-created Roma village ended up resembling other government-created slums in other free market countries. That can't be a coincidence.

i.e. there's nothing especially "Roma" about how that village fell apart. It's just like a housing estate in Australia or the UK. Plenty of English and Irish descent white people act worse than that here in Australia in the slum suburbs - the ones where they built giant complexes to concentrate the poor people together., and they have no "Wandering" history. Government-created slums always end up like this - that's what you get when policy dictates you cram all the poor people into one location.

[Reelya]

-ignore-

[palsch]

The gypsies illegally moved in their entire families (think about 15-20 people living in 2 room flat) and removed all non gypsies from the buildings.

This is extremely misleading.

Roma families were literally tucked in from other settlements which were then bulldozed.

Social engineers who made decisions from their desks without the slightest knowledge about the community placed groups of Roma into flats located next to each other not knowing that these particular groups could never meet each other in the streets without a fight. The engineers parted families and made enemies into neighbours. What else could be the end of this, if not the Lunik IX as we know it now?

“First, Roma came to completely equipped and furnished flats from a settlement at the old brickworks. Wardrobes, beds, cupboards, even the lino from the floors were donated by working people to their compatriots of Gypsy origin. The Gypsies didn’t go voluntarily. One day they were loaded onto trucks and moved to new blocks of flats. Immediately after, their shacks were pulled down by bulldozers...

Basically you take a group of people from a completely different context, with no consideration for group dynamics or culture, and dump them into a (segregated, incomplete) settlement that they have no context for you are going to have problems.

Worth noting that education and most housing was segregated from day one, and no medical centre was established till after 1989, at which point employment collapsed and Roma were denied jobs elsewhere. This is textbook ghetto bullshit.

Also, please people, outside very specific contexts, Gypsy is a slur. If talking about the Roma, call them that. If talking about travellers in general (including the Irish travellers sometimes derogatorily called Pikies) then call them travellers. But unless you are specifically talking about an organisation that refers to themselves as Gypsies, stop calling them that.

[nenjin]

Yeah, I was going to say, you could substitute "African Americans" for "Gypsies" in those sentences and it'd describe typical prejudicial attitudes in America pretty accurately.

[Dutchling]

Considering there is a "king of the gypsies" I'm not so sure about that slur part.

[GiglameshDespair]

I've heard 'gypo' as a slur, but I've heard anyone claim 'gypsy' is a slur here in Britain either.

[Sheb]

Depends of the use. Everyone speaks of gipsy music rather that romani music or what have you.