Stuff you hate

[Lord J Esq]

I think you make a legitimate point that some people of lesser character will react to the rebuke of being told their joke is sexist by intensifying their position--a hardening of the mind around the embrace of sexism. It happens sometimes. You have to judge the person in question, and the context of the situation. At the very least, you should withhold the affirmation of your laughter, smiles, and nodding of the head. If you feel you can productively say that you didn't think it was a funny joke, then go to that length. If they invite an explanation, give them one.

You will get better at it over time, as you learn why to say what you want what to say. With Faust's tutelage and your own study I'm sure you will make considerable strides if you want.

[Lord J Esq]

I thought you were making an overture of considerate conversation. It would seem the joke is on me.

Edit: It looks like tush deleted his post, for those of you wondering what this one refers to.

[ZeaLitY]

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/myqdy/why_do_europeans_hate_gypsies_so_much/

Oh, I don't hate the thread. It's an enlightening read for anyone (especially Americans) inexperienced with Roma who rush to their defense, unaware that typical racism and lack of privilege just do not apply with them. Utter trash. There needs to be forced relocation and seizure of children by the state, or chemical castration, or something. This is a nomadic culture in a world in which that shit no longer flies. It must be destroyed.

Sigh, idiots like this:

Bunch of fucking disgusting European racists in this thread... the same lingo has been used countless of times against the Jews, against Blacks in the U.S., hell, against any minority that is blamed for the ills of the society, and look at what those led to. Such marginalization and classification of people into 'us' as opposed to 'them' has always been and will remain the most crucial component of racist rhetoric. Pat yourselves on the back, Europe, good fucking job!

This person has obviously never had to deal with them.

[FaustWolf]

Ehhh, I don't know about chemical sterilization, but I am curious whether Romani children brought up in these roving camps even go to public schools? And are Romani children allowed in if they do want to attend, for that matter?

Besides the cultural factors, a few of the complaints I've read there so far remind me of complaints leveled at the poor right here in the US. The rowdy households, for example -- unless the Romani are trained in some kind of ululation technique, seems like all the shrieking in their households (assuming some are trying to make do in a sedentary lifestyle) could be a simple facet of poverty. What I mean to say is, I wonder how much of the problem is cultural, how much can be traced to poverty, and how those factors intertwine?

Until I learn more, it seems the best hope would lie in giving individual Romani an incentive to stick with a job and earn a decent living. Discrimination (e.g., during hiring interviews) could effectively prolong the problem -- a Romani tossed back into the roving band is just one more who might teach their kid all those pickpocketing tricks.

[Syna]

Yeah, I agree with Faust; it's hard to underestimate how powerful self-fulfilling prophecies become. The gypsies act that way because they're expected to, and people expect them to because they do.

Cultures change in the most effective ways through gradual means, and if they're antagonistic to the dominant culture, they won't learn from it. And I don't think we can underestimate the impact that centuries of oppression truly has... we literally, in a physical, genetic sense, inherit trauma from our parents, which makes questions of institutionalized discrimination especially tragic and tricky. (From what I understand it is unquestionable that Europeans did genuinely discriminate against gypsies for a very long time.)

Not that I know what a solution would be, really. It's a difficult question.

[ZeaLitY]

Until I learn more, it seems the best hope would lie in giving individual Romani an incentive to stick with a job and earn a decent living.

Better, more drastic things have been done. Roma have been given brand new apartments, employment opportunities, and schools, all at once. The kids were pulled out of the schools; the workers never showed; and inspectors found that most of the metalwork, wiring, and plumbing in the apartments had been ripped out and sold for scrap, with people regularly defecating on the floor or hallways.

[Truthordeal]

Until I learn more, it seems the best hope would lie in giving individual Romani an incentive to stick with a job and earn a decent living.

Better, more drastic things have been done. Roma have been given brand new apartments, employment opportunities, and schools, all at once. The kids were pulled out of the schools; the workers never showed; and inspectors found that most of the metalwork, wiring, and plumbing in the apartments had been ripped out and sold for scrap, with people regularly defecating on the floor or hallways.

And that happened 100% of the time. Always.

So we need to go ahead and sterilize all of them. While we're doing that, let's take away all of their legal rights. If they keep pickpocketing others, or even if they look like they're about to, we should be allowed to shoot and kill them. Better yet, let's take them all and put them on farms and make them work to solve the world hunger crisis. And we should build a high, barbed wire fence, with guard towers and snipers in everyone. Every time one of them gets lazy on the job the snipers can take them out, and get rid of the excess population. If they end up being too much of a handful, we can just erect massive furnaces and...

You all get where this line of thought is going. I call it my Ultimate Answer to the Roma conundrum.

[xcalibur]

Until I learn more, it seems the best hope would lie in giving individual Romani an incentive to stick with a job and earn a decent living.

Better, more drastic things have been done. Roma have been given brand new apartments, employment opportunities, and schools, all at once. The kids were pulled out of the schools; the workers never showed; and inspectors found that most of the metalwork, wiring, and plumbing in the apartments had been ripped out and sold for scrap, with people regularly defecating on the floor or hallways.

the truth is that cultures are a very resilient thing. there are certain patterns among peoples that have maintained themselves for generations. Certain peoples have excelled in certain areas and not others across great lengths of time and space. some groups have been more industrious or militaristic, others have been "middleman minorities" (shopkeepers, bankers etc.).

As for the Roma, they are nomads. for centuries they've wandered around, stealing, hustling, fortune-telling, and doing odd jobs. numerous attempts by europe in past centuries didn't change them. the holocaust, in which they were targeted, didn't change them. neither did communist repression. and neither has modern attempts at reconciling them to society.

as a people, the Roma will continue to be exactly who they are. and there's nothing racist about saying that - I can pull up facts and statistics to support the German excellence in farming and military command, the Jews success in economics, and the Scots success in modern medicine.

[Lord J Esq]

I would encourage you against maintaining that position, xcalibur. You are mistaking ethnic persistence for race, and, though you are clearly sensitive to the charge of racism since you claimed that your comments are not racist, they are, in fact, racist. The Romani peoples are beholden to their culture; it is not easy to improve their circumstances from without while affording them self-control over their own affairs. It has little if anything to do with the genetics of the people themselves.

[ZeaLitY]

Until I learn more, it seems the best hope would lie in giving individual Romani an incentive to stick with a job and earn a decent living.

Better, more drastic things have been done. Roma have been given brand new apartments, employment opportunities, and schools, all at once. The kids were pulled out of the schools; the workers never showed; and inspectors found that most of the metalwork, wiring, and plumbing in the apartments had been ripped out and sold for scrap, with people regularly defecating on the floor or hallways.

And that happened 100% of the time. Always.

So we need to go ahead and sterilize all of them. While we're doing that, let's take away all of their legal rights. If they keep pickpocketing others, or even if they look like they're about to, we should be allowed to shoot and kill them. Better yet, let's take them all and put them on farms and make them work to solve the world hunger crisis. And we should build a high, barbed wire fence, with guard towers and snipers in everyone. Every time one of them gets lazy on the job the snipers can take them out, and get rid of the excess population. If they end up being too much of a handful, we can just erect massive furnaces and...

You all get where this line of thought is going. I call it my Ultimate Answer to the Roma conundrum.

Ah, Godwin's Law in action. "Arguing for Dummies" should be a single-page book with "USE A NAZI ANALOGY" and nothing else.

[Truthordeal]

Ah, my apologies. I should've known you wouldn't appreciate my Nazi inspired language.

Instead, why don't we rent out some space in Siberia or another suitably cold place to relocate them? Or we could use machetes and communicate logistics to each other over the open airwaves?

It's your presumed ethnic cleansing dude, use whichever historical analog you're most comfortable with.

[xcalibur]

I would encourage you against maintaining that position, xcalibur. You are mistaking ethnic persistence for race, and, though you are clearly sensitive to the charge of racism since you claimed that your comments are not racist, they are, in fact, racist. The Romani peoples are beholden to their culture; it is not easy to improve their circumstances from without while affording them self-control over their own affairs. It has little if anything to do with the genetics of the people themselves.

I'm not talking about genetics or race. I'm discussing embedded cultures of certain ethnicities or peoples (a term I prefer). culture can be a flimsy veneer, but it can also be deep-rooted. people live in certain ways and tend to practice certain professions in accordance with long-term patterns. clamping down on them or giving them new tools and opportunities doesn't necessarily change them, unless they are receptive to it. these deep-rooted cultures CAN change gradually, but that's about it. All-out genocide would probably be easier than remolding a people.

I don't think the Roma are racially inferior, even though they've maintained their genetics very well (they've been traced back to India, btw). but they have a deep-rooted nomadic culture, which is demonstrated by them approaching life the same way for a very long time through radically different circumstances. there isn't much you can do about that, aside from lending a hand to Roma individuals who want to be something different... unless you're willing to get your hands bloody. Which leads me to...

Ah, my apologies. I should've known you wouldn't appreciate my Nazi inspired language.

Instead, why don't we rent out some space in Siberia or another suitably cold place to relocate them? Or we could use machetes and communicate logistics to each other over the open airwaves?

It's your presumed ethnic cleansing dude, use whichever historical analog you're most comfortable with.

Various regimes have moved people around and scattered them for control. Two examples I can think of are Stalinist Russia and the ancient Assyrians.

but there's a problem with this, and even moreso with genocide. Aside from the obvious moral concerns, they require tyranny. You simply can't maintain a free and democratic society while doing ruthless purges and pogroms.

The Roma may cause social problems, but the costs involved in obliterating them are much too high.

[ZeaLitY]

Ah, my apologies. I should've known you wouldn't appreciate my Nazi inspired language.

Instead, why don't we rent out some space in Siberia or another suitably cold place to relocate them? Or we could use machetes and communicate logistics to each other over the open airwaves?

It's your presumed ethnic cleansing dude, use whichever historical analog you're most comfortable with.

Did you even read the reddit thread? As long as you neglect your sources and keep taking plays out of the right-wing radio host playbook, you're going to lose. And I thought you'd improved.

[tushantin]

I hate the hating. 'Nuff said.

[Truthordeal]

Did you even read the reddit thread? As long as you neglect your sources and keep taking plays out of the right-wing radio host playbook, you're going to lose. And I thought you'd improved.

I did. What I read there wasn't surprising to me, as the Czech friend that I've mentioned on here a few times told me more or less the same thing. Originally, I'll admit, I saw the similarities between how the Roma were treated and how urban blacks are perceived down here and figured it was exaggeration. But I looked up some sources on them after someone on here posted a story about Madonna asking for tolerance for them at a concert she was doing. It seems like a lot of Europeans really do have some tragic horror stories coming from these people. This is probably the only case I've encountered where the people doing the hating have a legitimate rationale for generalizing their hatred. I can emphasize with that, and I probably wouldn't be as kind to them policywise as Syna and FaustWolf were. I have no desire to defend them from their own actions.

But even with that, wanting to wipe out a whole group of people based on race or ethnicity is a bad thing.

And before you say that I'm misrepresenting your viewpoint, I'll quote exactly what you said about the Roma previously in this thread.

Utter trash. There needs to be forced relocation and seizure of children by the state, or chemical castration, or something. This is a nomadic culture in a world in which that shit no longer flies. It must be destroyed. (emphasis mine)

That is the definition of "ethnic cleansing." Literally:

eth·nic cleans·ing
Noun:   
The mass expulsion or killing of members of an ethnic or religious group in a society.

What makes this different from your earlier "salt mines" statement that a few took umbrage with is that this one is eery and frighteningly specific. This seems like a laundry list of policies rather than a hyperbole expressing your hate of some idiot. It seems serious, in other words, and that you really meant it this time. And that's...bad.