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International Blog Against Racism Week: Central European perspective
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ibarw is on again, and after the recent kerfuffle (or does anyone remember it in the wake of the Boldthrough?), I've been thinking along the same lines.One issue I often see in racism discussions is the Europe/America divide. Racism in America is something special, yes, but I think it's mostly because of how much it's been fought against and for, there. I wonder if it wasn't for the better: if Americans aren't perfect, at least they have the instinct to respond to an accusation of racism with "No, I'm not." Too often in Poland, the response is "So what?"
And I'm not talking about the usual angle, the black/white divide, though that one makes the news on the football field. Not even about Asians, though there was a recent stellar example of a big bazaar being shut down, then given an extension - "But only for the white merchants, because the Asians are all illegal immigrants". And no, the guy didn't lose his - ministerial - post over it.
The thing is, in Europe it's hard to say "white", and our racism problems aren't the ones that make big fandom debates. When did you last read a post railing against discimination of the Roma? Or Romanians even - in Poland, those two are often lumped together and passed off as thieves and beggars. Or the Ukrainian affair, which goes back centuries before there were either blacks or whites in what is now the US of A. And that's not even touching on the big bogeyman.
To apply standard American measures of political correctness to Poland would be to have a heart attack over every fridge magnet of a Jew counting money. It's a financial good-luck thing, on the lines of the Irish leprechauns with their beer and pots of gold (and somehow, the Irish sell them themselves), but put it next to the tele-evangelist who promises not sulphur, but the Jews coming to take everything away if people don't pray hard and give him money, and it starts being frightening. This is the country where accusations of Jewish blood are thrown in political debate as the highest insult.
This is the country that used to have three million Jewish citizens, once. Once.
So forgive me if I don't overlook these issues, if I don't close off my creativity in a garden where I pretend race doesn't matter at all, just because "it's an American issue". I'm too hot-blooded for that, too prone to overthinking to ignore the fact that if something conforms to the usual tropes because it's easier, it reinforces them in the reader, the watcher.
Mixing Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish blood probably wasn't one of my ancestors' brightest ideas.
(As an aside, I've also been thinking about the issue of writing about race or other discrimination from the point of view of a character with a cultural background and ideas different from my own. Would anybody be interested in reading something like that?)
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That's because the Roma that have emigrated from Romania are usually up to no good wherever they go. It's not that there aren't respectable Roma... it's because they don't want to change and adapt to society. Right now in Romania, I think 60% of the Roma population is employed; but their numbers are rapidly growing (and gods, do they have us Romanian nationals beat at natality rates ^^;;;) and about half of the criminal elements in our society happen to be of Roma nationality. Don't ask em why that is - maybe it's in their genes, or maybe they've gotten away with it so many times in the past that they will not change.
But then, they go abroad, and because they are Romanians, it's what they are called in the media. Let's face it, "Romanian citizen of Roma nationality" is a mouthful - so let's just call them all Romanians, shall we. This, in turn, causes discrimination against any Romanian person going abroad by sole virtue of a well-known and acknowledged fact: "Romanians are thieves and criminals, and we don't want them in our society".
It's the same way that we (Romanians as a people) look at Bulgarians as car thieves, and at Hungarians as nationalist extremists. But I won't get into the Hungarian nationality issue, because it's still a sensitive topic here and frankly I don't think I can approach it without being biased... and sounding like I'm discriminating. Which, in truth, I would be (we have perfectly nice Hungarians as well as the other category).
OT: Did you get my envelope yet, or do I bite off some Post Office heads next week?
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It sounds like you are rehearsing anti-Roma stereotypes, with a healthy dollop of racism, in the comments to a blog post for International Blog Against Racism Week. You are asserting negative things about a group of people without any proof and then suggesting that it's possibly genetic. I am frankly pretty horrified that you don't even hear this as racist.
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Yes, I can see why you would accuse me of being a racist. Perhaps in a way, we all are - only toward a different set of people (like U.S. citizens against Latin American immigrants). You were not born and raised here, and therefore you probably have a different set of values. And I'm okay with that. Be as horrified as you like.
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And I shall not get into that ridiculous tradition of them marrying off said offspring at ages starting from 10. Because I know that news went across the world a few years ago.
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I have indeed heard about the age problem, I think that should be treated as a separate issue.
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You read an entire essay by someone you like that asserts that racist attitudes are common and deplorable only to say "well, of course we discriminate against this racial minority, would you like to hear my stereotypes about them?" Twice?
Roma and Sinti are not major minority groups in the United States. From an outsider's perspective, it looks like you have a racial minority who are 2.5% of the population whom you have accused of half of the criminal activity. Yes, that sounds familiar to me as someone from the United States! Though, as you say, our racial bias is against different groups. You blame the Roma for not succeeding in schools where, Roma representatives claim, their children face discrimination. Hey, it only takes a little Googling to find out that 50% of ethnic Romanians surveyed in 2004 thought Roma should be forcibly sterilized. (See here (https://www.irr.org.uk/cgi-bin/news/open.pl?id=7315)--I wanted something more detailed and recent, but this was what came up.) That's a pretty frightening statistic if you're a Romanian Gypsy. Especially knowing that in neighboring Slovakia Roma have been forcibly sterilized.
It never makes sense to compare discrimination, in the sense of deciding who has had it worst. But it does make sense to compare the biases of another society against the biases in your own society. It can make you see them.
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You'd think that experiencing discrimination like that as a Romanian,and how wrong people are in how they group people like yourself, you'd think twice about the racist things you are thinking and saying about the Roma, Hungarians, and Bulgarians. Turn around what you're saying, and think how it would feel to be Roma and reading what you're saying right here--how would that feel? Do you even care?
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And you have no idea what things are about with the Hungarian extremists in Romania. I'm not talking about all Hungarians here. And I have good Hungarian friends too.
So the next time you decide to call people racist, think about your own country's attitude toward Latin American immigrants. And THEN start calling people things, alright?
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No, I'm not thinking your comments are racist because you're explaining a general attitude in Romania. I'm calling your comments racist because you are perpetuating that majority racist opinion instead of resisting it and trying to change it and make things better--you have that choice.
I happen to have gypsy friends that I get along with just fine, and there's no discrimination involved.
You know, this is a trope people accused otf racism bring up all the time to try to deflect from an examination of their racist attitudes--the "some of my best friends are x, y, z," line. Have you spoken to your friends the accusations you are making here about the Roma--and how did that go over?
But do expect me to hide the fact that a good part of our criminal elements are Roma, and that most of them seem resilient to change? That some still live off child support? Why should I do that? It's true that things are changing, slowly, but you're not the one living here are you now.
It's true I'm not living there, but the rhetoric you are using against the Roma--"they are criminals and they are living off child support"--is exactly the kind of statements white racists in the US make about our racial minorities--blacks and latinos in particular. To make these statements is racist. Because, you know, other Romanians need child support as well--so why make needing child support an accusation against a minority ethnic group? Other Romanians steal--why make that an accusation against the Roma in Romania? I am not living there but I have been following reports of the discrimination the Roma face in Europe at large. There are groups on LJ even, for and by the Roma and others who wish to support, where you can learn more about their side of these issues if you wish. I doubt your Roma friends feel welcome talking to you about these things.
And you have no idea what things are about with the Hungarian extremists in Romania. I'm not talking about all Hungarians here.
Understood. No, I don't know the issue at all--is there a part of Romania that a group of Hungarians are trying to claim? It's just the context in which you stated this--combined with calling Bulgarians and Roma criminals--sounded like you were making a statement about the entire ethnicity/nationality and I only have your words here and you were using them broadly and unqualified about ethnic/national groups.
So the next time you decide to call people racist, think about your own country's attitude toward Latin American immigrants. And THEN start calling people things, alright?
Oh, absolutely--I do call out the racism against Latinos and the hypocrisy of Americans who rail against Latino immigrants--it's my duty to work against racism in my country--there's sure unending work to be done here--including the internal work I need to keep doing in myself. That doesn't change that you are expressing racist attitudes that I think you need to be fighting against as well.