The Largest Gypsy Ghetto in Europe – Stolipinovo, Bulgaria (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Largest Gypsy Ghetto in Europe – Stolipinovo, Bulgaria (2016)

#161

Post by yumraj » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 2:49 AM UTC

kostarelo wrote: post #94

I was bored and raised In Thessaloniki, Greece where there’s a big community of Roma but also it’s a common understanding that lots of them from Bulgaria are constantly driving to Greece. In the community that I grew (Evosmos, West Thessaloniki) there were many of them. I’ve met a few that were integrated in the community, managed to finish school etc. But their culture is just nothing about that. Women in dirty clot…

Sorry, but you're just showing your own ignorance. Rather than accept, or be open to the fact that they are poor and discriminated against, you are just passing judgement on their entire culture.

To be fair, modern Greek culture is nothing but a shadow of its ancient past.

Re: The Largest Gypsy Ghetto in Europe – Stolipinovo, Bulgaria (2016)

#162

Post by 3np » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 2:52 AM UTC

EB-Barrington wrote: post #16

Post author here. Stolipinovo is one of several European Roma communities that I have visited over the years (several times now), and it's the largest that I'm aware of. The photos in the post are representative and true of how the area actually is, and I'm happy to answer any questions (forewarning, I'm not an expert). If I were to emphasize any one take-away - it's the friendliness I experienced from the locals. So…

The first thing that stands out to me is the choice of the word "gypsy". While many Roma are perfectly fine with it and even use it themselves, there are also many who find the word offensive and it has historically been used as a racial slur. Why not drop the word alltogether and fall back to the (at least to my understanding) neutral "roma"?

Re: The Largest Gypsy Ghetto in Europe – Stolipinovo, Bulgaria (2016)

#163

Post by rsync » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:08 AM UTC

umvi wrote: post #2

I have quite a few European friends on social media and they always seem perplexed whenever racial tensions flare up in the USA. Some even have openly asked "why do Americans find it so hard not to be racist? It's not that hard." I always respond by pointing out that the citizens of almost every country are naturally xenophobic and/or racist, just not necessarily against people of African descent. In the case of Euro…

"I always respond by pointing out that the citizens of almost every country are naturally xenophobic and/or racist, just not necessarily against people of African descent. In the case of Europe, I usually point to the Roma ..."

I think Roma are the least interesting example of this.

In 2020 I had the pleasure of reading the Nobel Laureate Sigrid Undset's Magnum Opus _Kristin Lavransdatter_.

For those that don't know, _Kristin Lavransdatter_ is the Norwegian _Anna Karenina_ ... but longer. Recommended.

In the book, among other things, it describes that Norwegians in the fourteenth century thought that Finnish people were basically sub-humans. They were treated like animals and could be killed (!) without legal ramification.

Let that sink in for a bit ...

Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Handt Hanson considered Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Eli Halla to not even be a human being.

I think there may be some deep conclusions to make about the nature of division and difference in human societies. Could it be that there will never not be an out-group ?

Re: The Largest Gypsy Ghetto in Europe – Stolipinovo, Bulgaria (2016)

#164

Post by Bost » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:12 AM UTC

petre wrote: post #108

vicpara wrote: post #55

It's so easy to speak of something one has only a superficial understanding of. If one really wants to get a better understanding go and try to live like a normal person in the vicinity of their community. Pose as a foreigner or journalist and they'll tell you how much they have to endure. Pose as a neighbour minding your own business and you'll see what happens :)) I guess this will be an amazing article. The gypsie…

Integration does work but not when you segregate a minority into ghettos. The Germans learned this and they stopped segregating refugees. Everywhere else the refugees end up in a 'camp'.

On one hand, Germans try hard to avoid ghettoization. On the other hand they LOVE order. That means meticulously inspecting every bolt and nut, finding differences and putting them, with great pleasure, to different boxes. Like: These two bolts are of the same size. Yes but they have different color.

Imagine a policewoman, from 2nd or 3rd generation of a guest worker family, considering herself to be "rather turkish". And actually that's a sign her of flawless integration - completely in line with the way how the "German" Germans think of her. Because she has dark eyes and slightly, really just a tiny bit darker skin, even if she behaves like a typical German police(wo)man.

Re: The Largest Gypsy Ghetto in Europe – Stolipinovo, Bulgaria (2016)

#165

Post by sorenjan » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:24 AM UTC

This looks a lot like the camps they set up when they come to Sweden to beg as well. Take the camp in Malmö called Sorgenfrilägret for instance. From empty industrial lot to illegally occupied shanty town full of trash: https://victorpressfeldt.com/2015/11/01/lagret-pa-sorgenfri-...

In a TV news segment they showed a portable toilet that somebody had given them, and it was unusable because of how filthy it was. When asked why the people living there said it was because nobody came there to clean it for them.

Here's another camp outside of Stockholm. Again, why so much trash?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532716/The-rubbish...

Re: The Largest Gypsy Ghetto in Europe – Stolipinovo, Bulgaria (2016)

#166

Post by CydeWeys » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:25 AM UTC

rsync wrote: post #163

umvi wrote: post #2

I have quite a few European friends on social media and they always seem perplexed whenever racial tensions flare up in the USA. Some even have openly asked "why do Americans find it so hard not to be racist? It's not that hard." I always respond by pointing out that the citizens of almost every country are naturally xenophobic and/or racist, just not necessarily against people of African descent. In the case of Euro…

"I always respond by pointing out that the citizens of almost every country are naturally xenophobic and/or racist, just not necessarily against people of African descent. In the case of Europe, I usually point to the Roma ..." I think Roma are the least interesting example of this. In 2020 I had the pleasure of reading the Nobel Laureate Sigrid Undset's Magnum Opus _Kristin Lavransdatter_. For those that don't know,…

It's always been easy to justify racism against people that don't speak your language. That's a hell of an outgroup.

Re: The Largest Gypsy Ghetto in Europe – Stolipinovo, Bulgaria (2016)

#167

Post by chefandy » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:26 AM UTC

nickpp wrote: post #120

pmoriarty wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But their culture is just nothing about that. Women in dirty clothes carrying a trolley all day and going through garbage cans collecting dumps. Kids 5,6,7 years old with no shoes and no clothes on are walking around main streets.." Riiiight. It must be their culture? You think that if you give them clean clothes they'll throw them away? You think they prefer a meal picked out of a garbage can to one from a restaura…

It’s the culture. They’d let the clean clothes get soiled black rather than wash and keep them clean. They’d rather eat stolen food from garbage rather than have to work for a restaurant meal. My mother was a primary school teacher in a Gipsy village and saw this first hand: small kids being encouraged to beg or steal instead of study by their own parents, abandoning school for the street lifestyle their family lived…

Read the above comment about how locals would refuse to patronize a restaurant staffed by a Romani worker. If you're living in an environment where people go out of their way to make sure you don't have any economic opportunity no matter what you do, what the hell is the point of preparing your children for a workforce that is guaranteed to reject them? To try and gain respectability among people who are steadfastly committed to never respecting them, because some day the dominant culture might decide the underlings are actually human beings? Why should they be disinclined to steal or beg from people who guarantee their entire community will continue to fail?

Re: The Largest Gypsy Ghetto in Europe – Stolipinovo, Bulgaria (2016)

#168

Post by NoImmatureAdHom » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:31 AM UTC

titanomachy wrote: post #101

kostarelo wrote: post #94

I was bored and raised In Thessaloniki, Greece where there’s a big community of Roma but also it’s a common understanding that lots of them from Bulgaria are constantly driving to Greece. In the community that I grew (Evosmos, West Thessaloniki) there were many of them. I’ve met a few that were integrated in the community, managed to finish school etc. But their culture is just nothing about that. Women in dirty clot…

To be fair, that behaviour is probably more associated with poverty than their "culture". North America also has people "wearing dirty clothes, carrying a trolley, and going through garbage cans" but it has nothing to do with their ethnic or cultural background, it's due to a lack of better options. In some places, like Andalusia, the Romani people flourished and developed a distinctive and globally appreciated cultu…

It's both poverty and culture. The two can't be separated. You end up with a chicken-and-egg scenario: people surrounding the Roma know that the Roma they encounter are disproportionately likely to be the people who e.g. commit street crimes. This makes them act accordingly, by doing things like avoiding groups of Roma. This makes it harder for Roma who aren't committing crimes, whose behavior is not reflected in that estimate, to improve their culture or escape it. The non-Roma estimating that the average Roma is too likely to be violent to be worth interacting with think that for a reason, and we may call it "racism" or "bigotry" but it isn't unfounded.

My sense is that it's very popular to point to external causes, causes that aren't blame-producing. "It's because they're poor"...well, maybe it's true that "If not for being poor..." but that's not the world we live in. By many accounts their culture (that is, the set of learned things they inherit) is set up to produce more poverty, crime, and social isolation. There are many groups of very poor people who do not have this problem, and who thrive in different circumstances. Accepting that there are things about their culture that would be better if changed or removed both reflects empirical reality and sets you down the road to finding a workable solution.

Re: The Largest Gypsy Ghetto in Europe – Stolipinovo, Bulgaria (2016)

#169

Post by NoImmatureAdHom » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:39 AM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #145

nickpp wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the culture. They’d let the clean clothes get soiled black rather than wash and keep them clean. They’d rather eat stolen food from garbage rather than have to work for a restaurant meal. My mother was a primary school teacher in a Gipsy village and saw this first hand: small kids being encouraged to beg or steal instead of study by their own parents, abandoning school for the street lifestyle their family lived…

The same racist swill has been slung at nearly every minority and immigrant group. People of Asian descent were accused of being dirty, so were black people, so were Irish and Italian immigrants, Mexicans, Indians, and of course Native Americans. Their poverty was thrown in their face, as so was their lack of education (which was often mandated by law or other forms of discrimination). Now in the US Irish and Italian…

> This kind of racist, bigoted, xenophobic libel leads straight to lynchings, pogroms, and gas chambers.

Ehh...I think this is hyperbolic. It doesn't usually do that, it mostly just kind of simmers at the edges of society. And it's not "every minority and immigrant group", it's the poor ones.

Re: The Largest Gypsy Ghetto in Europe – Stolipinovo, Bulgaria (2016)

#170

Post by Spooky23 » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:42 AM UTC

umvi wrote: post #2

I have quite a few European friends on social media and they always seem perplexed whenever racial tensions flare up in the USA. Some even have openly asked "why do Americans find it so hard not to be racist? It's not that hard." I always respond by pointing out that the citizens of almost every country are naturally xenophobic and/or racist, just not necessarily against people of African descent. In the case of Euro…

They are ignorant of their history and don’t understand that a lot of work had to be done in terms of education, acceptance and making peace to make that possible.

Europeans spent centuries coming up with creative ways to kill each other in the name of god, country or race, and was able to move on to better things only after having been on the precipice of annihilation.

The American condition shouldn’t be whitewashed and is a story that is still evolving. But people are people, and the stories of America or Europe or some subdivision are more about people than country.