"[Roma] are the largest minority on the continent and their situation is deplorable in terms of lack of respect for their human dignity, human well-being, being targeted for hate, exclusion, and shoved to the edges of our societies," European Council commissioner for human rights Michael O’Flaherty told EUobserver in an interview.
Evil is not hereditary. There is no ethnic group of people who are evil.
It’s the so called travellers that are evil. Pretty much all travellers in some places are roma, but it seems increasingly few roma are travellers because I haven’t really heard much of them recently in my country.
Generally, travellers raise their children to be thieves at a young age. Once they break out of that isolated crime community cycle, they’re just people and blend into society.
Unfortunately in a lot of people’s eyes, roma people are still a travellers. Seems in my country they’ve mostly gotten jobs instead of stealing and telling fortunes though, so nobody really cares about them anymore.
Edit: A lot of people are not getting this apparently (and also many are). Travellers are pretty much equivalent to gangs, but in a way even worse (yet also significantly less violent, luckily). They don’t want their children to get educated, because they don’t want better lives for their children. So yes, the original (and generally still ongoing) cause is poverty and discrimination, but there’s an element of “we don’t even WANT to be part of society” here. They have entirely different values from most other people as such. As such, just treating Roma as equals isn’t enough. There’s a need for outreach programs to try to get them to even WANT to integrate in larger numbers. It used to be that basically all Roma were travellers, and a huge problem is that people are still so prejudiced that in at least some European languages, the word for traveller and Roma is the same (it being essentially a slur, such as gypsy). Also through no fault of their own, knowledge of the word “roma” or “romani” is not as widespread as it should be… And the word itself sounds a lot like we’re talking about someone from Rome or Romania.
This is just wrong.
Poor and marginalized people commit acts of desperation. Acts like raising their children to be thieves at a young age. Once they stop being poor and marginalized, they’re just people and blend into society.
Unfortunately Roma are poor and marginalized.
I mean they also refuse to let their children go to school, because they very much don’t want them to be part of society at large. They’re scared their children will get jobs and stop being part of their community. They’re very much “us vs them”. Those who aren’t into that “us vs them” mentality, make an effort to get out and, depending on country, have a pretty good shot at becoming not criminals.
Edit: My edit to grandparent comment goes further into depth than this comment does. Yes, obviously the poverty cycle and discrimination is the original cause and still an ongoing issue. But after all these centuries, many don’t WANT to be part of society at large. Which is why simply a lack of discrimination isn’t enough. To integrate them, actual social programs are needed.
It is more complicated than that, and it changes country by country. There are cultural/traditional issues that contribute to perpetrating the vicious circle of poverty. One such factor is preventing kids from attending schools. This makes some people unable to speak local language and functionally unemployable, paving the road to poverty and marginalization.
That said, at least in my country this issue affects a tiny minority of the Roma population. An even smaller minority is apolid, mostly coming from ex-Yugoslavia, which obviously causes several problems with the ability to work.
The main aspect though is that “solutions” proposed by many governments, like building “camps” when they can settle, are just ineffective from all points of view, prevent integration and foster the tendency to a conservative and closed culture.
Removed by mod
Insane how people just feel comfortable posting here about human beings the same way the Nazis spoke of “Untermensch”
Like this is hideous and disgustingly open racism.