While a person who is not Roma only needs to send two messages to a landlord or real estate agent before they can view a rental property in Hungary, a member of the Roma community has to send nine. This is true even if they work as a dental technician. Researchers from CEU and ELTE conducted a representative study on discrimination against the Roma in the Hungarian rental housing market.
Spent quite some time at my grandmas growing up in hungary. I remember how that otherwise sweet and openminded lady started to hold my hand so hard that it hurt when she saw sinti/roma on the street. She really thought they would kidnap me in broad daylight on the street. But from what i was told much later my grand-grandfather was beaten to a cripple by sinti/roma because he caught them stealing from his field. But idk how true that story is.
As an adult my personal experience is that eastern europeans are often just pretty fucking racist in everyday life and they dont even recognize the lowkey racist shit they say when they’re in a more progressive(as shitty as this sounds) setting.
People don’t want to understand that the ones who are dangerous are those who set themselves apart and have their own culture and traditions, a different concept on the meaning of property and strong clan type of belonging and thinking. The conflicts are as much with each other as with the local laws.
Bleeding hearts don’t want to accept that in this case, stealing as needed or wanted is a matter of glory and pride. It’s something worthwhile for them.
To them specifically as individuals or fractured groups within the entire collective of what it means to be roma, the rest of us are only seen as a source of wealth. Anything outside the clans isn’t an equal and doesn’t have rights, while among the clans respect is earned through wealth amassed and the threat of violence.
If anyone doesn’t understand that type of thinking and goes anywhere near such a clan’s enclave/territory, they will quite likely lose their life. It is that dangerous. It is that scary. It’s not propaganda, it’s not mindless fear. The Roma people are not a single entity and most are regular people who just want to live their lives in peace. But the roma clans are comparable to amateur Mexican cartels in scope of threat and danger to the rest of Roma people and others alike.
There is a lot of racism against them, but it’s not without cause. At its base is genuine fear, created, exacerbated and maintained by the few who take their differences to extreme and adore this state of separation on both sides of the electrified fence.
Ps: That probably did happen to your great-grandfather as there were a lot of issues during that time period and a lot of instigators. It wasn’t uncommon as those kind of stories happened or were spread (intentionally) by word of mouth almost everywhere. Thefts did happen and so did violence, but who started them and who kept it going remains up for debate. Profiteers have existed since the dawn of civilization, much to the suffering of innocents.
Exactly. The racism is still wrong, because the majority of ethnic Roma do not follow that life, but the fear is not baseless.
It’s like being cautious of men if you’re a woman alone at night; of course they aren’t all going to assault you, but if you don’t treat them with a bit of caution, you are at more risk.
ffs my mother says the same thing about black people and anyone under 18