International Blog Against Racism Week: Central European perspective

[winter]

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?)

Comments

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

I agree with other posters that American racism is very much aware of itself (most of the time). That is one thing that can lead to improvements, as being conscious of a problem is often the first part to fixing it.

I had interesting experiences in American vs. European racism when I was in Spain this past semester. Racism there is blatant in a way that would not be allowed in the U.S. Most of my group was white, but two or three of my classmates were black, and they were often stared at when in public. One girl was very annoyed by this, but she was more sensitive in general; the other two mostly ignored or laughed at it.

I think in Spain much of the mentality is "different means bad." I don't know how large the Jewish population in Spain is, as all the Jews were either kicked out or forced to assimilate in the late 1400s, and Spain is still primarily a Catholic country, even though many people are not baptized and do not attend church regularly.

The Roma there are called Gitano, and are looked down upon as dangerous and poor. Much of this mindset is due to cultural differences that have centuries-old roots. It is true that some of the Gitano function only as pickpockets, but others follow laws as much as you and me. Again, appearance comes into play--one day a person told one of my classmates that she "looked like a Gitano" because she has darker coloring.

Spain also has an enormous immigrant issue. At this time most of the immigrants are from northern Africa (ex. Morocco) who come over in poor excuses for rafts and boats. Some of them are legal, but many are not. They have their communities everywhere, even under bridges, and have the jobs that the Spanish do not want, such as farm work during horrible heat. On the one hand, many Spanish fear that the immigrants are taking their jobs away. On the other hand, the birth rate in Spain is going down and there was a study done showing how many millions of immigrants would be needed to fill all the jobs that there are not enough Spaniards for.

As for me though, I cannot offer many personal experiences, as the majority of my family came to the U.S. over 100 years ago from countries such as Sweden and Germany. We're WASPs (with the exception that I am a White Anglo Saxon Pagan, not Protestant!)

I very much enourage the idea of writing from the viewpoint of a person with a different background that yourself. I know that it's tricky to pull off, and it satisfying when it works. I hope that you'll post it when you're finished.

[sukeban.livejournal.com]

I had interesting experiences in American vs. European racism when I was in Spain this past semester. Racism there is blatant in a way that would not be allowed in the U.S. Most of my group was white, but two or three of my classmates were black, and they were often stared at when in public.

As an Spaniard, I would like to point out that as recently as ten years ago we didn't have much of racial diversity, and many people have not digested the *extremely* sudden increase in immigrant population. We've gone from an imperceptible amount to over a 10% immigrant population in just a few years.

I don't know how large the Jewish population in Spain is, as all the Jews were either kicked out or forced to assimilate in the late 1400s

Oh, *worse* than that. People of Jewish ancestry, even when converted, were the most important target of the Inquisition: if your neighbours noticed that you didn't eat pork or rested on Saturdays, you'd be carted away, tortured and executed or sent to galleys. Moreover, "blood cleanliness" was a requisite for government positions and pretty much any other good job. There isn't much that the Nazis did that we didn't do four centuries earlier.

The Roma there are called Gitano, and are looked down upon as dangerous and poor.

In the past 30 years most of the gypsies have integrated in society, and it is not uncommon now to see them in college or in "regular" jobs. The gypsies you see begging in the street or wiping car windshields come mostly from Romania (and, frankly, when I went to Transylvania I was shocked at the level of casual racism thrown at them), while our gypsies are more likely to have shops in flea markets or drive a van around the countryside selling clothes or food in villages.

Some of them are legal, but many are not.

There have been two massive legalisation processes in the last 4 or 5 years, and nowadays most immigrants are legal, they have their own associations that provide legal counsel (e.g. ATIME is the association of workers from Morocco), and can avoid the most blatant type of exploitation. There are still cases of farm workers living in appalling conditions, but they are often denounced in the media.

The irony about Spanish discrimination of immigrant workers is that many of the older generation migrated to Germany in the 60s for the same reasons that people from South America or Africa are coming here now. It just makes the stupidity of this all more clear.

If you are interested, The New Spaniards from John Hopper is a very good book, and updated to fairly recent events, with a whole chapter devoted to immigration. I recommend it earnestly to anyone who wants to get Spanish society.

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

I learned about this a bit in my classes, but not much, because our school isn't very good. I do remember hearing about the legalisation processes you mention.

The irony about Spanish discrimination of immigrant workers is that many of the older generation migrated to Germany in the 60s for the same reasons that people from South America or Africa are coming here now. It just makes the stupidity of this all more clear.

Exactly! It's a cliche, but history really does repeat itself. When we were learning Spanish history our teacher made a point of telling us all the countries people migrated to for better jobs, getting away from the Franco regime, etc. Along with the African immigrants, there was a bar near my apartment that I went to regularly where almost all the employees were from various South American countries, and the owner is French.

Thanks for the book recommendation. (I read entirely too much.) Nice to meet you! I like your Hellsing icon.

[alice_montrose]

The gypsies you see begging in the street or wiping car windshields come mostly from Romania (and, frankly, when I went to Transylvania I was shocked at the level of casual racism thrown at them)

As a person living in Transylvania, I might have an explanation for this. Discrimination is thoroughly bred into the non-gypsy population from a very early age. It's even worse in the rural areas, where most of the poor are Roma. A few years ago, most had no jobs, a herd of kids which made it possible for them to live off the state-granted allowance, and the literacy levels were low. They still are, but it's steadily improving.

Of course, the Roma aren't the only ones we (as a nation) discriminate against. There's the Hungarians, and the sexual minorities, and all those aspects of society that Communism fought really hard to cause the disappearance of. Things are changing, but it's a very slow process, and most of the older generations are unlikely to embrace this.

I am not trying to make any excuses. I know I definitely discriminated against people, and I like to think I'm one of the open-minded individuals around here. I try my best... but sometimes those notions they bred into me get triggered and before I realize it, I've done it again. I feel bad about it afterwards, but... yeah. *sigh*