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

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251–258 of 258 posts

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

#251
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I hired three of them to build me a fence last year - following an online ad that they had, we talked on the phone and settled for the next day. Good for me that I have cameras in my yard because they jumped me to pay double at the end of the job quoting some bs numbers that we didn't discuss. 4 of them getting in my face at night. I already knew how it is going to go down from the moment I saw that the car of worker…

As a fellow Bulgarian here, I think that you're wasting your time trying to explain the situation to people from distant countries who haven't experienced the same first hand. It's always cute to see and read how from their high horse, westeners point fingers at us for being racist and what not when they have no idea what it is like to live near or have to deal with gipsies for all kinds of matters.

In the village where I live, we have neighbors from the UK, Germany, France and even the US. When they moved here at first, they were being exactly the same as the poster that you're replying to. Criticizing the locals for being racist and not giving poor gipsies a chance to prove their virtues to society. Well, guess what, a couple of years later, those foreigners that had moved here from the West now behave in more racist ways that us mere locals. I guess the minority in question has succeeded beautifully to prove their "virtues" to the naive people from the West. ;)

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

#252

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…

You use the word "gypsy" a lot. The Roma I've met consider it very offensive, almost n-word level offensive. Is that not the case in Europe?

It depends. Sometimes, older people will call themselves "Gypsy" and may even correct you if you call them "Roma". But younger people have been taught that "Gypsy" is an offense, so they will get offended if you use the word.

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

#253
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Racism is not that obviously immoral behavior depicted in Disney movies when ugly people misjudge good people for frivolous reasons. Racism is when a group of people consider another group as inferior / less worthy for some reason conflated with their biology or culture (of which most often than not very little is actually known). Racism is exactly the thoughts you have just expressed. Upvoted for your honest contrib…

> biology or culture Sorry, no; racism is just about biology, by definition. Culture is not race. Discrimination based on culture has other terms like xenophobia. Discriminating against some culture may be justified. For instance, to some extent it is justified to discriminate against a culture that tolerates theft and vandalism. If you assume that someone with a certain physical appearance automatically belongs some…

> Sorry, no; racism is just about biology, by definition. Culture is not race.

Unfortunately, some people have redefined "racism" to mean dislike of anything related to another ethnic group. Biology, culture, religion, whatever.

I agree with you here. Blaming the culture is the opposite of blaming the biology. But the meaning of "racism" has expanded from "blaming biology" to, well, "noticing anything negative about anything". The only non-racist behavior is to say the differences don't exist at all, or blaming them 100% on oppression.

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

#254
post #25

I ask myself quite genuinely if under the same circumstances I would live like that. It's really very hard to imagine that I or anyone I know would just accept living in trash like that. We would surely all agree to get some shovels and at least clean up the sidewalk in front of our house...right? What stops them from doing that? It seems like a choice.

You perceive the sidewalk in front of your house as something that is related to you, and you know people in your culture would judge you if the sidewalk is dirty. But this is a cultural concept. You could also have a cultural concept that only things inside your house reflect on you, and the sidewalk is... just a random part of universe. Then there is no reason why you should go and clean up a random part of universe.

You probably don't feel that it is your duty to go and clean up garbage everywhere in your city. At some distance, it's simply not your problem anymore. This is the same, but the distance ends at the threshold of your house.

Any norm makes sense, internally, if you know that this is the norm others will use to judge you. Most people don't go beyond what is required of them.

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

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> biology or culture Sorry, no; racism is just about biology, by definition. Culture is not race. Discrimination based on culture has other terms like xenophobia. Discriminating against some culture may be justified. For instance, to some extent it is justified to discriminate against a culture that tolerates theft and vandalism. If you assume that someone with a certain physical appearance automatically belongs some…

> Sorry, no; racism is just about biology, by definition. Culture is not race. Unfortunately, some people have redefined "racism" to mean dislike of anything related to another ethnic group. Biology, culture, religion, whatever. I agree with you here. Blaming the culture is the opposite of blaming the biology. But the meaning of "racism" has expanded from "blaming biology" to, well, "noticing anything negative about…

Racism is not about noticing patterns, it's about erroneous generalization and the prejudice they comes with it.

In Bulgaria where gypsies live in poverty, many thieves are gypsies, therefore all gypsies are thieves, therefore not hiring gypsies.

Compare with: many thieves are gypsies because poverty lead to antisocial behaviors.

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

#256
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sorry, no; racism is just about biology, by definition. Culture is not race. Unfortunately, some people have redefined "racism" to mean dislike of anything related to another ethnic group. Biology, culture, religion, whatever. I agree with you here. Blaming the culture is the opposite of blaming the biology. But the meaning of "racism" has expanded from "blaming biology" to, well, "noticing anything negative about…

Racism is not about noticing patterns, it's about erroneous generalization and the prejudice they comes with it. In Bulgaria where gypsies live in poverty, many thieves are gypsies, therefore all gypsies are thieves, therefore not hiring gypsies. Compare with: many thieves are gypsies because poverty lead to antisocial behaviors.

[deleted]

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

#257
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Bulgaria and Romania are racist, we beg you, please, take home our gypsies and treat them with respect. They've been integrating into Europe since the 15th century with no measurable success. The Communists tried that hard, too; they gave them free housing, many privileges like they could get into any university without exams. Yet, it would help if you watched documentaries of what they turned those apartment buil…

First of all, I'm not calling Bulgarians and Romanians racists. I'm calling _you_ racist. Secondly, I've tried my best not to bash you nor your countrymen. And I do not even disagree with many things you have said: indeed, some gypsies consider it fair game to steal from tourists, some have no respect for property, etc. Sure. The same could be said of many other discriminated minorities, and I'm pretty sure we've all…

I don't care what _you_ call me because that's your personal disoriented _opinion_ and nothing more. Unlike you, I did propose solutions that will work. By calling people racists, you solve no problems - the solution is to root out the reasons for profiling, and this is very much what MLM said about the ghettos in America, too! Most of the issues need to be solved from inside first - you cannot expect people to tolerate systematic and widespread unlawful behavior because some Westerners are victimizing them without bothering to look into the centuries of goodwill efforts! Compare the level of hate crime in Bulgaria to some Democracies in Europe! Yes, we may be pretty blunt about what we don't like about the majority of that minority is doing (yes, this are not empty words, there's a lot of statistics although much of it's not reported because in Bulgaria a theft is considered if something is worth at least a minimum wage and also many Bulgarians don't report these, because they know nothing will be done anyway and that later the criminals will terrorize them much more). I have two relatives who died directly from gypsy terror! They kept terrorizing my grandmother daily and my father later, too, stealing everything, breaking daily in their homes when they were out, and so on. At night, they were attacking my grandmother's house, and she died from a heart attack from this terror, as they kept vandalizing her home, trying to steal everything they can find use in them or sell them for change. It's easy to judge others when you don't have to experience this daily - from the comfort of your home here. I am not saying gypsies are bad people or that all are thieves - not sure where you draw that conclusion from, but that they are allowed to commit crimes, they always claim they are being discriminated against, they regularly attack the couple policemen in small villages and towns, and, yes, they are victims, but victims of their own heritage. Before we talk about human rights, we need to talk about laws and responsibilities as rights build upon a social contract foundation. The liberal view that everybody is a victim, so they are not responsible for what they do simply does not work. And that's why in Italy and France, there are double standards, and gypsies are treated differently, too! So, again, given gypsies are not a racial issue, as Indians live in Bulgaria and nobody profiles them although morphologically their look similarly and belong to the same race - it's the "culture" that people cannot accept and be silent about! If we can live well with Turks, who for 500 years were killing us and terrorizing us under the Ottoman Yoke, why do you think we are so loud about the gypsies? It's because Turks, Armenians, Jews, Russian obey the social contract, and gypsies don't! Although you called me _racist_, I'm working to help greatly a project [0], which is the only solution, and multiple Western organizations back it. It's very much aligned with my vision on how to solve this problem. If you want to learn about it and not just talk empty words, go check it out!

[0]: https://amalipe.bg/en/home-2/

P.S. I forgot to mention that some Protestant churches got into the ghettos, and they educated the gypsies about theft being a bad thing. They are hugely successful, too. So, again, this is another proof that the negative heritage should be rooted out. There's a lot of negative heritage in Bulgaria, also! For example, some pagan rituals, which predate Christianity, such as dog spinning [1]. Should we keep it, because it's heritage! Of course, not!

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_spinning

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

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Bulgaria and Romania are racist, we beg you, please, take home our gypsies and treat them with respect. They've been integrating into Europe since the 15th century with no measurable success. The Communists tried that hard, too; they gave them free housing, many privileges like they could get into any university without exams. Yet, it would help if you watched documentaries of what they turned those apartment buil…

How can slavery be called integration? Having Roma slaves was a thing much longer after 15th century. The fact that Romani people successfully integrated in US might indicate that there exists a bigger cultural divide in Europe.

Slaves of Bulgarians or slaves of the Ottomans? Because Bulgarians were Ottoman slaves, too! In fact, gypsies came to Bulgaria through the Ottoman Empire. And I cannot talk about Western Europe and how it treated gypsies as I've never studies it; I can only talk about Bulgaria and we never had slavery, so, can we quite extending Western guilts to Bulgaria?
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