Madonna booed in Bucharest for defending Gypsies

Yahoo ^ | 08/27/09

[Borges]

BUCHAREST, Romania - At first, fans politely applauded the Roma performers sharing a stage with Madonna. Then the pop star condemned widespread discrimination against Roma, or Gypsies — and the cheers gave way to jeers.

The sharp mood change that swept the crowd of 60,000, who had packed a park for Wednesday night's concert, underscores how prejudice against Gypsies remains deeply entrenched across Eastern Europe.

Despite long-standing efforts to stamp out rampant bias, human rights advocates say Roma probably suffer more humiliation and endure more discrimination than any other people group on the continent.

Sometimes, it can be deadly: In neighboring Hungary, six Roma have been killed and several wounded in a recent series of apparently racially motivated attacks targeting small countryside villages predominantly settled by Gypsies.

"There is generally widespread resentment against Gypsies in Eastern Europe. They have historically been the underdog," Radu Motoc, an official with the Soros Foundation Romania, said Thursday.

[a fool in paradise]

No, you can check “all that apply”. There is no distinction drawn between european and non-european hispanic. As if people from Spain were more put upon than Italians, Poles, or Irish.

[kabar]

When you have 70 to 80 percent unemployment and no education, it is difficult to survive. Hence their involvement in crime. I don't agree with your generalization that only a "few" are involved in crime. We can discuss the reasons why they are, but to deny that there is a widespread problem is not the answer.

I wonder how hard the Roma have tried to assimilate into the various countries where they live. Do they want to assimilate? Are they allowed to assimilate? It is a complex problem in much the same way as trying to explain why black on white crime is so much higher in the US than white on black even when accounting for the population differences.

[TomOnTheRun]

Rather bizarre statement....enjoy your stay

Ahahahah. Yes. See. This is what I mean. I was trying to be technically precise there and my words were made of fail. Is this better?? - sometimes you can be more clear by being less technically precise because the other person is not as familiar with the precise words. PLus - English is not new to me but I grab the wrong word from my toolbox enough already. I try to use what the other person seems to understand.

And thanks for the welcome!

[kabar]

Yep, they still perform. And I am very old, which is why I went. They were performing at a local college.

[TomOnTheRun]

I hesitate to talk about some things that you mention because most Americans are really really really neurotics about race. (I’m thankful I escaped some of that by travelling as a child.) It’s not just the liberals either. It’s obviously been traumatic to the country as a whole - and with slavery, jim crow, the 70’s I can understand why. For America I think the answer is a little different than anything I would ever normally suggest... I think this is the time to let some things lay low and just not poke at them. I think after a few years people will kinda “wake up”, shake their heads, ask “WHAT was that all about?”, and be ready to talk sensibly about it. Some wounds are very fresh and some are old - but we need to stop picking at the scabs for all of them for at least a little while.

[Mamzelle]

re: They are denied housing - they are denied medical care. Who wouldn't be bitter and distrustful of outsiders under those conditions? It's not that I'm trying to be PC - its that they are in very real danger of pogroms and massacres again.)))

As are we all. But I fear you put the cart before the horse. As I have said, it is a cryptic culture. There is a cultural imperative in the Rom to deceive and rob outsiders. You think such behavior is automatically wrong according to your western values, and you also assume this behavior emerges from how they are treated rather than the other way around. Overtures to the Rom are problematic because you will always bump into their cultural imperatives, which go back hundreds of years in Europe. They are isolated in large part because they choose to be. You don't really know them because they have intricate social mechanisms to avoid being known. There's no Junior League Gypsy Recipe Cookbook.

And the ethnicity is also problematic. You saw that I jumped to the conclusion that a blonde, green-eyed Gypsy was part of the Irish bands that you come across in the rural US south. The culture of the Gypsies, the underground thieves and deceivers, wore off on some Irish and they brought it with them to the US. They don't have some of the religious (there again is a mystery of the Gypsy) culture, are often Catholic, but the clannishness and some other peculiar habits are the same. And I have to give them credit that they are not a "grievance group" like minorities are in the US, executing elaborate shakedowns of business under pain of being called "racist" like Jesse Jackson, et al. They do not engage in Rainbow Coalition extortion rackets, they prefer their own traditional cons.

[kabar]

Sound familiar?

Victim Mentality: I loathe it from the left. It’s sad and pathetic. I’m biased enough to be modestly more tolerant of it from the right although it’s getting over the top right now. Count the number of threads in a conservative forums (admitted - FR is better than most) where somebody isn’t complaining about being an oppressed minority. If I don’t like hearing it from sad aging hippies why should I like hearing it from my own?

[eddie willers]

Not guilty.

[Las Vegas Ron]

And thanks for the welcome!

Posted no such thing, get lost troll

[TomOnTheRun]

You think such behavior is automatically wrong according to your western values, and you also assume this behavior emerges from how they are treated rather than the other way around.

No. I don't. Flatly wrong. But I do believe that such conditions make it almost impossible for those who wish to settle down and associate in a reaosnable fashion with others to do so. Attackers have also sought out whole families in their homes, or whole communities in some cases, and disrupted them violently. Communities which are just beginning to establish themselves after both Nazi and Soviet persecution. This violence is being directed at them without distinction - adults, the elderly, and small children. It's goal is to physically remove the presence of Roma in towns and cities in several European countries. Why would they play by the rules under those conditions.

[TomOnTheRun]

*grin* And I’m not complaining about being an oppressed minority. I’m not a member of that group. But I can still find it objectionable when somebody consigns an entire ethnic group to the dark side. Their words BTW - the dark side. *shrug* I think that’s evil.

[TomOnTheRun]

Posted no such thing, get lost troll

If I wrote "the above was a joke" in my tagline would it be too subtle?

[FoxPro]

Not guilty.

I bought her those green contacts.

What memories!

[eddie willers]

I bought her those green contacts.

Her best feature!


As far as I can tell. :o)

[Mamzelle]

The "hobo code", as you put it, comes from the Gypsies during the Depression when more contact was made between the traditional travelers and the newly homeless. There are a lot of Gypsy-isms in the theatre, in homosexual slang, and of course Carnies, where wider culture came in contact with Gypsies. What is curious is how very little evidence there is of contact, when you look at how new ethnicities affect our popular culture, language, cuisines. I'm thinking mostly of the Gypsies in the UK, Ireland and US.

[kabar]

As long as we have people who play the race card, including the current occupant of the WH, we will have a problem. And our current laws, e.g., affirmative action and minority business set asides, etc. are divisive and discriminatory. That said, America is the most tolerant country I have ever lived in and that includes living abroad for almost 25 years of my adult life in nine countries and visiting more than 60 others.

By 2023, half of the children 18 and under will be minorities as classified by the USG. And by 2042 half of the country will be minorities. Unfortunately, blacks and hispanics have the highest out of wedlock birthrates, 68% and 50% respectively, and the highest school drop out rates. This is the pathology of failure in this society and I can see a large underclass populated by blacks and Hispanics and a more affluent class comprised primarily of whites and asians. I can see some coming social friction and discord akin to what happens in the third world where there exists such disparities in wealth and education.

And we continue to import poverty thru our immigration policies with 87% of the 1.2 million legal immigrants are minorities and most of whom are poor and undeducated. I see the problem getting worse, not better.

SAT Scores Fall as Gap Widens; Asians Gain

[TomOnTheRun]

We do walk a fine balance. It is good to see somebody willing to speak reasonably about these things. I wish I had more time but my phone battery dies as I tap this. You are very correct about tolerance in America. This is one reason why I think that people can relax for 2-5 years on that matter and let every take deep breathing and count to 10. I would never suggest this any place else. The levels of tolerance are not there. I already expressed worry about anti-Romnia massacres here. There are many other targets around the globe as well. Here things are better and we can afford to go about things calmly.

[Verginius Rufus]

I know of one university where the foreign language department was able to count some faculty members born in Spain as “Hispanic” for affirmative action purposes...I doubt that was a unique case.

[denydenydeny]

What Gypsies do with their children (train them for crime) would be considered child abuse in this country.

In Romania, they mutilate their own children to make them more pathetic looking for better begging. Peter David noticed this when he was making a Trancers movie there and among other things he noticed some children whose backs had been broken in such a way that they had to walk backwards on all fours, like crabs.

[Las Vegas Ron]

I see you’re proving my point....Slider, you stink