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

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

#191

Post by fierarul »

3np wrote: post #162
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"?

Such a silly choice. If some people really hate a group won't the new self designated word become a racial slur too? What then?

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

#192

Post by fierarul »

1024core wrote: post #189
chimen wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if the public found out a Gypsy was working in the kitchen, most people would never dine at that restaurant" - I don't dig that, it's a lie. I live just two hundred miles north in Romania and we have our own communities here - bigger even. The reason they don't get hired is because it is always a gamble doing that. They either steal or avoid work whenever possible. Most criminal gangs are by gypsies and most stealin…

> The reason they don't get hired is because it is always a gamble doing that. So if you don't let them make an honest living, how the hell will they survive?? You claim they're all thieves and they don't want to be integrated, so you deny them any job prospects. And then you turn around and wonder why they steal!! How else will they feed their families or afford the basic necessities, man? I'm not saying they're all…

There's no comparison to how blacks were treated in America, we are not barbarians. There's no colored bathrooms and stuff like that.

They have all the legal right as any citizen to own propert, start companies, hire others, etc. Further more there a lot of positive discrimination by guaranteeing them seats in Universities, etc.

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

#194

Post by bootcampwhere »

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…

I would love to (have) see(n) a map of the area. Reading through I kept wonder how the community was arranged and how big it was.

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

#195

Post by reducesuffering »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #171
chefandy wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, you put your finger on it. I think the central issue really is a chicken-and-egg issue: the people who live around them put causal force on the Roma's anti-social behavior, the Roma put it on their rejection / exclusion by the people around them (or maybe they don't?). Nobody wins until somebody backs down. Whoever backs down pays costs. If the surrounding people back down and start treating the Roma well, the R…

Hmm, who better to bare the brunt of "backing down?" The wealthier group, or the group that if they did would starve and suffer in more squalor conditions than they already are? And for an unknown period of time, could be decades?

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

#196

Post by bootcampwhere »

fierarul wrote: post #191
3np wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

Such a silly choice. If some people really hate a group won't the new self designated word become a racial slur too? What then?

Yeh, it's retarded.

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

#197

Post by adrianN »

fierarul wrote: post #191
3np wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

Such a silly choice. If some people really hate a group won't the new self designated word become a racial slur too? What then?

You get what is commonly known as the "euphemism cycle", or the "euphemism treadmill": https://www.jstor.org/stable/3087798

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

#198

Post by dang »

s9w wrote: post #188
dang wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flamebait will get you banned here, especially on racial/ethnic topics. We don't want the predictable and toxic material that leads to. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules, we'd be grateful. Note this one: " Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. " Most comments in this thread, even the ones with a negati…

Your assessment doesn't hold any water. It's a bunch of Americans virtue signalling about how good they are, talking about a problem they don't know. Hence my inquiry about that. Because as a European, I know that the things said in this thread are objectively not true.

Even assuming all that is true, the comment broke the site guidelines and is not ok to post here.

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

#199

Post by bluepoint »

chimen wrote: post #185
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…

"if the public found out a Gypsy was working in the kitchen, most people would never dine at that restaurant" - I don't dig that, it's a lie. I live just two hundred miles north in Romania and we have our own communities here - bigger even. The reason they don't get hired is because it is always a gamble doing that. They either steal or avoid work whenever possible. Most criminal gangs are by gypsies and most stealin…

Thanks for saying what needs to be said. My impression as well is that they just mind their own business and they do not want to be integrated, but merely prefer to coexist in a parasitic form and tied to their own community more than anything else. They have their own culture and traditions which they vigorously isolate from whatever place they live in. Framing the issue as just racism and discrimination does not capture the point at all even though they definitely exist in both sides. We are talking about a community of people that appears in Europe in the 9th century and they keep their cultural identity ever since and the rest of us are scratching our heads trying to understand why.

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

#200

Post by throwawayxyz987 »

p2detar wrote: post #109
maest wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But criminal Roma networks are a reality nobody can deny. True, but that doesn't mean there is no racism. If anything, this would support the fact that racism exists, since conflict tends to make people think in terms of in-group/out-group. A follow-up question is whether the racism is justified. An even more important question is whether the conlfict stems from a failure to integrate different cultures and whether…

Actually, I think his comment was a spot on: > They have a tight sense of community and most of them never assimilate wherever they go and barely make effort to speak the local language. This has been my impression as well. The Roma seem to first identify themselves as part of their community and only then, part of the common folk in the country they reside in. Many also follow some internal social group laws that ar…

> Is that good or bad, I honestly don’t know

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/07/13/kidnapped-slav...

BUCHAREST, ROMANIA—Dozens of vulnerable men and boys were kidnapped, chained, whipped, fed scraps and forced to work or fight each other for entertainment over an eight-year period in rural southern Romania, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Three men and two boys aged between 10 and 12 were found chained up and were rescued by police Wednesday in the mountain town of Berevoiesti during searches at the homes of suspects — members of an extended Roma family. Organized-crime prosecutors said the investigation involves some 90 suspects who they say exploited around 65 people with physical and mental disabilities or who were very poor, making them log wood, beg or look after animals.

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