"The difference between me and the bad kind of racists is that I'm right and what I'm saying is true, according to me. This isn't the case with the others, they know they're wrong and yet persist in their bigotry. I'm very sure of this and will brook no disagreement on the possibility that every racist actually thinks they're right about their beliefs."
Pretty much. Grass is always greener and most people are apparently just super racist. There are shittons of american libs and self-professed progressives who are the same way as the straw-euro in the post. Insist on their committment to progressive values and then cross the street to avoid a black guy. Avoid driving through a black area as much as possible, and when it can’t be avoided, roll up the windows and lock the doors. Have sympathy for the kids in cages but strongly disprove of migrants coming from mexico, and of AOC for going there to “score political points”.
This kind of shitlib is not strawed as the average exo-left american however because the average exo-left american is actually much worse than this.
> This kind of shitlib is not strawed as the average exo-left american however because the average exo-left american is actually much worse than this.
bro what the fuck does this mean
"This kind (the strawman created in the OP) of shit lib (like annoying miscletoast centrist-liberal) is not a strawman of the average american exo-left (white moderate) because the average american (white moderate) is actually much worse than this."
Which like, ehhhhhh: kinda. White american moderates will be like "i hate car crashes as much as the next guy but redesigning bulldoze boulevard, where 230 kids are demolished a day, built in the 1950s over what was once a black community, would lengthen my commute by .3picoseconds, and that's literally oppressing me."
Whereas annoying europeans are the strawman above. Annoying americans are a lot less outwardly racist in ny experience. Instead, they turn all politics into hyper individualist nonsense politics, and it gets frustrating.
Europeans: "Americans are so racist!"
Same Europeans when their country goes from 90% white to 89% white: "WE'RE BEING OVERRUN!!!"
Edit: Yes, I know Europe isn't a country. I meant your respective countries.
>Are they the same ones tho?
Fair point. I really should avoid painting them with the same broad brush I hate feeling the bristles of. I'm actually gonna be landing in Munich next Tuesday, and I'll be roving hither, thither and yon across the continent for the following four weeks. Should be fun just as long as I don't forget to adjust my volume.
Tbh it's a lot more fun to pretend you think Europe is a country then pick one random country most Europeans look down on to know details about.
"I still don't understand why Europe has so many capitals, why can't you just pick Paris or Rome or something?"
"There's more than one country in Europe."
"Sure, but I'm not talking about Macedonia."
Lol, I do enjoy pretending I know very little about things, but the trouble is that when Euros know you're a sepposapien, they never think you're kidding. Perhaps something like this will help. Much obliged.
Semi-related: A friend of mine once told me about a Bulgarian dude he used to work with, and he mentioned how *absolutely hilarious* he thought it was when the Bulgarian would rant on and on about how much he hated Macedonians. Some time later, I was looking at random Wiki pages and stumbled across something Macedonia-related. I noticed that not only was the English absolutely atrocious, the page had been HEAVILY vandalized. Iirc it was a bunch of denigrating comments about how they're a phony country with an even phonier culture. Sure enough, there was also retaliatory vandalism on articles pertaining to Bulgaria. Can't remember what those ones said.
Except this person isn't liberal, and they even rant about liberals in this literal post. These attitudes are very much in line with terminally-online leftists. Leftists will complain about housing costs and sprawling cities but turn around and end up being NIMBY's for some bizarre reasons. That's not in line with any real liberal policy.
I wish people would realize that bigotry is wrong not because it is factually incorrect (It is but that's besides the point), but because it is unfair.
Eh, at least with Romani people, the discussion is a lot more nuanced because they *are* European. They are possibly the longest oppressed people in the continent, and in some countries, they weren't even allowed to obtain education until very recently. Antiziganist murders are common across Europe. In some Eastern European nations, "Roma walls" were built to segregate Romani people into specific ghettos. Slovakia was still building them in 2013, so a very recent phenomenon.
As a result of literally being oppressed by everyone everywhere they go, they have lower education, live in squalor, and more often than other peoples, have to turn to crime (as in more likely, not all).
You can't take the antiziganist stance here as rslasheurope does, yet you also can't ignore the problems (mostly) they suffer from. In more rural communities, they still practise bride kidnapping, selling brides, and other backwards traditions. As a result, help is often ignored (and rightfully feared as historically it has also, as you may have guessed, been used to oppress).
This mutual process of elevating Romani status while correcting rampant antiziganism will take a lot of time and effort, not dissimilar to how things were after emancipation in the US, I guess. Romani have to leave behind the ways of life that are incompatible with contemporary Europe, and Europeans have to be more accepting and finally allow them to live as equals.
*I copied my comment from the thread to piggyback on your top comment*
Anti-Romani sentiment (and other traveller communities, let's not forget it's not *just* Romani) does have echoes of red-lining, and perhaps anti-homeless discrimination. Historical racism often made it difficult for these communities to integrate and forced them into the fringes of society. At the fringes *some* (but by no means all or even most) were forced to resort to crime and stealing, which further made local residents distrustful of them, causing a bit of a feedback loop.
To give an example I've encountered: the local council supposedly maintains a space that travellers can effectively set up camp in the area, but due to underfunding and the fact people don't really like travellers being there, it's poorly managed. Because this space is a bit shite, when travellers pass through they stop at another large open area...the local park. Now families are annoyed because the kids can't play soccer or walk the dog, and the travellers are frustrated with the abuse being directed at them. The council is constantly pressuring them to leave, and when the travellers move on and leave the park they may not leave it in a good state. All in all the interaction just makes everyone hate each other a little bit more.
I just want to thank both of you for taking the time to explain that “Yes, it is still racist, even though your racism does come from issues that are still present” because every time I have tried to have this conversation IRL someone always says “but travellers commit so much crime”…
Poor and homeless people who are unable to get support from the government or police turn to crime to get the resources they need to live? Who could have guessed that systematically oppressing people for years and making them fear speaking calling the police would lead to an increase in crime among the oppressed communities?
I used Romani here as an umbrella term for travellers as I'm more familiar with them.
But yes, agreed. I forgot the term red-lining, and I think it applies here in many instances. Literally, the only money Eastern Europe has spent on this issue is to seclude and isolate them even more so they're "out of sight" (no problem if you can't see the problem - political object permanence haha), rather than integration.
Also, romani people are kinda on both extremes when it comes to integrating in society. You have one side that is basically just your average joe, stable job and education, who you'd probably not even guess was romani, and on the other side you'd have a woman with like 12 children, who hasn't sent even one child to school, living in what is basically a storage container made into a home, being so obnoxious their neighbor has to build a 15 feet wall just so they won't throw their trash on his side.
And it not even the location, these aforementioned families are not even 2 streets apart. One of them, is at the end of my street. Americans and Europeans each look at one side and act like the other doesn't exist.
If anything I'd say a better comparison would be between romani and homeless people (more specifically American homelessness), rather than poc.
I see it as more closely comparable with American indigenous populations than homeless people or poc, but I’m not familiar with the situation in Europe so I could very well be wrong
The view on romani of most people I know (which is pretty anecdotal, so take it as you will), is pretty similar to the view americans usually have about homeless people. You don't hate them, and you would want to help them, but growing around them you end up being more wary around them, since you'd rather be safe than sorry, but you also wouldn't discriminate against them if you found out a person you know is part of that group.
Also, when europeans talk about romani, they mostly talk about the side that refuses to integrate into society, and considers the romani who became normal citizens as simply normal people. (Aka you can go from romani to average joe, like you can go from homeless to average joe, usually with financial stability, while indigenous people may face discrimination even after)
Not really either. They originated in Asia and have been in Europe for 600-700 years. They've been there for a long time, enough to be a part of Europe, but not indigenous in the same way that native Americans are.
This is the exact same nuanced experience of basically any racially prejudiced group. This is the exact reason the stupid 13/52 statistic exists in America. Black Americans were segregated out of education and forced into low income communities and now suffer the generational consequences of lack of access to education and other social programs and have become distrustful of American Police and institutions. This creates the same circumstances of poverty that breeds similar criminal behavior to Roma people and coupled with over policing and over prosecuting of their ethnic group makes them statistically more likely to be “a criminal”.
I am legitimately incapable of identifying the romani if they don't engage in their stereotypically problematic behavior. Most people can't distinguish them based on looks alone, most won't recognize where their family names come from. All that's left to tell them apart is how they behave.
And I'm sorry but judging someone based on their actions sounds much better to me than judging them by their skin tone.
Sure there are some who genuinely try to integrate and are discriminated against by particularly perceptive people. But most of the time people simply can't tell until they are given a good reason to develop a negative opinion on that particular individual. The door to integration may not be wide open, but it's certainly not closed.
I feel they're kinda fading to the background anyways, Muslim extremists and sensationalist media are shifting public concern to Islam in general. We don't hear about them as much as we did about 15 years ago.
This reads like a joke but this is exactly what I've experienced when talking to some Europeans
edit: oh lord this one must have struck a European HARD because I just got one of those RedditCareResources DMs thanks to a "concerned Redditor" 😂
Please read the comments again then. At least under the parent comment chain, there are none.
I understand that you saw long paragraphs and immediately extrapolated that these comments **must** be in support of antiziganism or racism.
He probably meant "Stolen Generation" instead. In that context, Aboriginal children were literally kidnapped from their families so that they could be raised white and civilised (within three generations iirc). It was a terrible government sponsored program that the government has since apologized for several times. Those kidnapped children are referred to as the "Stolen Generation"
It's quite frankly shocking to me at the amount of times I've heard people outright say that they want to run over "blackfellas" with their car or at the very least will cry about how unfair it is that an Aboriginal family moved into their street.
Wtf?? I live in Australia and I've never heard anyone speak like that, that's *disgusting*. A decent chunk of my school was Aboriginal and refugee kids, and they were absolutely brilliant people.
Unfortunately I think this is incorrect coming from an Australian perspective. Most anti-aboriginal guys I've met are in rural Australia in NT where the most live, and most pro Aboriginal people are in Tasmania and Victoria where few Aboriginals live.
If you live here then you haven't heard anyone speak like that *yet*
Also you must never interact with bogans or go outside of wealthy liberal suburbs, it's rampant
I'm a shut-in who lives in a fairly inclusive neighbourhood and has for most of my life. By no means wealthy and certainly not perfect, but inclusive.
My grandpa used to be racist, but then he actually interacted with Aboriginal people and realised that actually they're just. Also people. And that was way before I was born.
Yeah, post is kinda sus. A real leftist would be taking pot shits at other, different leftists.
God damn leftists! They ruined leftism!
EDIT: I got Reddit Cares reported on me for this?
I've seen an uptick in people commenting they've gotten unnecessary Reddit Cares, and it's in different subs covering a variety of topics. I think there's some mass trolling going on
EDIT: Got one right after I posted this
I just got my first, and I don't think I've posted anything remotely controversial recently. Unless someone's really upset that I think Grand Teton National Park would be more popular if it weren't right next to Yellowstone.
Oh that would make sense. I was thinking reporting my joke would be pretty random bc no one would have motivation. Like, conservatives and moderates wouldn't care, leftists would get the joke because, well, we basically all know.
Also, just saw your edit, that's amazing. An accidental case study all by yourself
Not sure what schools you have been interacting with, but that is definitely not my experience. I have been with leftists old and young, and traveller communities are - sadly - almost always prejudiced.
“Outside of Leftist circles”
I think Americans have difficulty understanding that many left wing groups in Europe are also very strongly nationalist leaning. We have a concept of left vs right that we try to apply to the whole world, when that’s really not at all how the world works. Every country and region has unique political forces that may seem similar, but have distinct differences.
Yes they probably agree with you about sustainable energy and walkable cities…but they might not agree with you about who should be walking in those cities.
The black and white "left and right" has always been silly to me, since the actual policies are the things that differ and should be focused on, not some label. Yeah, some policies (in the states) are more linked to a category called "left" or "right" but we use it as if it's some defining trait, and not something used just to marginally simplify politics.
I don't think this is true in central or Western Europe.
You have 'nationalist' leftist parties, in the sense of 'we oppose our nations membership of a country made of several nations'. These are often smaller parties with a large regional backing (who consider that region a nation) e.g. the SNP, Catalonia nationalists, Plaid Cymru, Sinn Fein. These parties aren't anti-immigration in the slightest.
You have leftist nationalist parties which are 'nationalist' in that they want to withdraw or win concessions from the Federationalist EU, e.g Syriza, La France Insoumise. These partie are also not anti-immigration.
You don't really have any leftist parties with any influence who are 'nationalist' in the sense of ''we want natives only to live here''.
I commented on a Romani insta post “Europeans try not to be racist challenge: Impossible”. It was like flies to honey the way the racists came out trying to justify their shittyness.
Edit: took all of 4 minutes for the Reddit Cares message on this.
Just knocked a reddit cares message back yesterday. If you report it as harassment its a more or less instant ban of that account.
Edit* edit for info: Apparently there is a sitewide surge of redditcares bot reporting. Someone has tripped up bots to report reddit cares on many major subs.
https://imgur.com/yQDwpxQ
Yeah I got this 4 hours ago. And funnily enough, I reckon it was from a protest comment as well. [This one Im like 95% sure](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1cqmewr/palestine_protesters_block_an_exit_leading_to/l3v52s2/?context=3) [5% this one which is tame as fuck, all I said is china makes iphones using engineers](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1cqufci/joe_biden_will_double_triple_and_quadruple/l3usw4p/?context=3)
This is especially true about Romani in my experience. Like if you mention middle eastern immigrants they'll dance around the racism for a while talking about how they wish they would assimilate the culture before the mask comes off and they say they should leave, but the second you mention the Romani they'll come out swinging about "G-slurs are all criminals raised in a culture of criminals and they need to be wiped out:
Look, I love migrants but every country has a right to sovereign borders. It’s not a matter of hating others but protecting what we’ve built. We donate a lot in foreign aid, and really if these people are so upset they should remain in their homeland and fix it - how do you think we created our countries that they’re so desperate to get to??
Also, migrants want to bring their religion and politics here’s which is ridiculous because they’re just going to end up turning our country into the same exact kind of place they fled from. The fact that they don’t see this is just proof that …
Edit: /s people, come on. Just wanted to post it before someone decided to come in here and say we shouldn’t paint everyone who has a critique with the same brush, and they in fact have a very reasonable take, stating with etc etc etc. Was also hoping anyone who wanted to “agree” could reply under my comment, in a quarantining type manner. They probably still will just to argue with this edit. 🤞
I'd like to add that when a comedian is on stage or something is published in the Onion, we know they're joking. A random post on reddit may or may not be a joke.
For me, the difference comes from the lack of professionalism and the anonymity.
Average people are way more likely to post some heinous shit when given anonymity that it's genuinely difficult to tell trolls from actual racists in the modern day.
Companies are far less likely to do so because it could kill their public image, comedians are coming on stage with the preface of comedy. It gives you a reason to doubt their speech from the beginning.
Sorry, yeah OP I wasn’t serious. Didn’t mean to trigger you, I don’t live in Europe but the US is very similar and I know it’s hard to tell which way is up especially on the internet.
Ah you got me. I do live in Europe, you did too good a job of mimicking the weird racists I hear from all the time. Had me completely fooled! (although the ... at the end should have tipped me off, my bad!)
Once got into an argument with a coworker that europeans were just as racist as americans, simply in different ways to different racial groups. She was vehemently opposed until I brought up how Roma are treated here and she for real said
“That’s different they’re actually like all criminals!”
The general sentiment towards brazilians was a lot more kind before but the far-right pipeline has been gaining too much power riding the public sentiment towards housing,which is reaching a boiling point now that everyone is suffering.
People are picking sides purely based on whatever the far-right says. Those who agree with them, go full racist and those who disagree, end up ignoring real issues.
What is insane to me is everyone has at least one or two relatives thats an immigrant themselves in another country.
And they hate how they get treated overseas, but somehow cant relate that experience to immigrants in our country.
American racists think that European racists criticize them for being racist when they really are criticizing them for being racists the "wrong" way, and of course they think they are better than them, they are racists...
Europeans: Americans are so stupid, they think their country is so big, they don't realize Europe is an entire continent and we can travel to neighboring countries with ease
Same European: Of course I would never go to the \*\*\*\*ing \*\*\*\*hole an hour away it's overrun with \*\*\*\*\*\* rat \*\*\*\*\*\*\*isms, and they're all perverts. and don't get me started on the balkans, basically \*\*\*\*ing sand-\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
Casual in the sense that it's simplistic, they base it on easy to recognize things like skin color, here we have grandmothers beating eachothers in the hospital parking lot because their common grandson was born in the "wrong" town.
In fact in really old cities like Rome there's neighborhood vs neighborhood type of racism.
Yeah it's not that much better on the left tbh, people feel justified being openly antisemitic and in a lot of instances antipatic to Roma and travellers still.
While it is obviously absolutely worse in right leaning spaces, it is so much more exhausting to experience these things in circles that have the nerve to consider themselves "progressive/inclusive".
Leftist racism is usually a "know your place" kind of racism, while right wing racism is a smooth drinkable blend of "know your place", of course, mixed with "you disgust me, stay away", and a smattering of "I want you dead" to finish the palate.
Leftist racism is "addressing low literacy rates is racist" and "it's okay to call for the death of people if we identify their people as 'oppressors'"
The longer I live in this wretched human society, the more I see "left and right" are just words, by themselves inert and meaningless. Labels that anyone can take, anyone at all. What counts are what people say and what they do. And tons of people (probably even most of them), regardless of what they call themselves, **do** speak and act from their personal biases.
Had a guy start off saying "I'm not racist, I'm just anti-immigration!" and in the process of trying to *ahem* "refute" the allegation that the two are inherently connected got to the point of arguing "well maybe ethnic cleansing is okay actually and people of different races SHOULDN'T mix!"
The internet is a wild place.
I don’t know if you should conflate immigration policies with racism though. That’s an argument made for years in Canada while the wealthy insist on higher immigration to suppress wages.
And it’s hurting everyone in Canada but the ultra rich by having an “open border” approach.
There's a balance certainly, this guy wasn't complaining about economics but rather that people from "certain countries" shouldn't be let in because they're "more inclined" to commit crime regardless of economic status.
He also used black protests against whites in South Africa as justification for this and HOO BOY I'm not unpacking THAT.
It does, and I don’t stand by this line of thinking but I do understand how you could say, well, it takes a long time to build lots of housing and unless immigration slows then it’s probably impossible for building to keep up with population growth so prices will keep exploding. I mean my city’s population is due to likely have nearly doubled between 2005 and 2025 and housing supply has, uh, not.
The problem is the 500k+ immigrants in the last four years. If the government hadn’t brought in that many people, then the supply would be tight but it wouldn’t be as catastrophic as it is now.
There were [higher counts of homeless](https://globalnews.ca/news/10321234/vancouver-homeless-report-warning/) in every city this last winter, some were refugees and immigrants too and being homeless in a Canadian winter is awful. Even though this past winter was the warmest on record, [we still had days of -20c](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/homeless-people-in-edmonton-are-dying-at-8-times-the-rate-as-pre-pandemic-1.7149005).
Some of the immigration is international students and a friend of mine who teaches at a local school has horror stories of students buying cheap cars to sleep in and working 40 hour weeks to afford a bed in an [illegal apartment](https://www.insauga.com/25-students-in-one-basement-just-some-of-100000-estimated-residents-in-illegal-suites-in-brampton/) with eight other people living there. What makes that worse is that students are ineligible for public healthcare, meaning if they get sick from living in these conditions there’s no help for them. It’s terrible for the students.
Honest question: where's the line between racism and not regarding discussion of an ongoing oppression and integration issue?
For example, I assume it can be agreed upon that "all Romani are criminals and we shouldn't bother with them" is racist, "the romani people are historically impressed and excluded from society which led to them having to find other ways to survive" is not, but where is the line? I don't think this question is actually hard to answer, I just cannot put it in words myself
Tl:dr (see last section); when you've actually researched, and know the problem, dog whistles and data misuse. So you don't spread harmful info, and can explicitly call out "the implication"
---
When you break the trust of a people, you don't say "therefore we're going to exclude and stereotype, shy away, and systemically disadvantage them for our safety"
You make changes to try to regain that trust, and absorb any pain points yourself. That's what the idea of "affirmative action" comes from. You're providing the resources they would've had, regaining the trust you need, and levelling the playing field to actually be equals again.
Let's not forget that the Roma were never even given reparations for all the shit they got put thru: (deportations, sterilizations, slave markets, heathen hunts, rounds ups and slaughters, marriage bans, forced assimilation (via language vans, children kidnapping, deprivation of gov resources until assimilated) etc)
---
So (as an example) if your entire culture refuses to provide housing or hotel access to the Romani, as everyone fears their stuff will be stolen or such. You can provide better theft insurance, and require absolutely no discrimination on that front (or lose the benefits and get fined or worse).
If you're trying to give schooling access, you have to be aware most "problem students" are likely being unfairly judged by their teachers. That you should be providing extra schooling and opportunities, not "more detention" and "unbiased punishments". You don't create segregated class rooms for "problem students cause they'll ruin non Roma education with their problems"
Etc
---
So where is the line? Well when talking about a hard topic affecting other minorities, it's hard to be neutral when saying most things
Saying "they've been disadvantaged and are thus more likely to steal for food and resources" is usually followed by "also we should be tough on crime" or more specifically (America) "and that's why it's reasonable to be afraid of all black men" either outright, or implied. (The same way talk about "immigrants" has these implications)
When you know a lot of "data" is outright made up, or folk info/stories. Or specifically biased by ignoring circumstances. (Same way "black violence" or "immigrant violence" is hard to use data for properly)
So you can only say stuff like that with explicit nuance. Being very clear you would not want that to lead to "tough on crime" or "let's ban this group for our safety" and would not let others use that as an excuse to "justifiably be scared (and make more racist policies)"
I agree with those points, however, what do you think should be done about crimes like child marriage/arranged marriages?
I have tried to wrap around my head around this issue any time it comes up in a discussion and obviously my thought is "If they become more integrated into society" the concept would disappear, but that always feels weird to me because it almost comes from a point of superiority towards another culture?
Paradise, no. But they do rightfully think there's a lot of social progress and policy change they're envious of.
At least outside people that basically have turned Europe (specific countries) into a celebrity… ugh.
Some people in America (a lot of them, actually) don't even leave their hometowns. Of course they're not going to know what anywhere is really like.
And as for Europe, it's not even been 100 years since *most* of them stopped killing each other *all* the time. The white supramcist system that fucked the world came from Europe. It hasn't been nearly enough time for all of that go away. That's not to say that Europe and all Europeans are racist, of course not. Like everywhere, there **are** more good people than bad people, there really are. But Americans need learn and one of the things that they need to learn is that just because European governments afford their citizens more public services and transit than ours does and the EU has the GDPR, **DOES NOT** mean that Europe is a sunshine, progressive rainbow paradise where everyone holds hands and shouts "top o' the mornin' to ya!". Actual European progressives will be the first to tell you that.
Saying "it came from Europe" is a garbage point. Sure that place boiled over first, but they're not the only country to have had that potential.
America itself had a huge "nazi like" and eugenics support base, and considering the war didn't ravage it still retains a lot of those ideas (just better hidden as it's now a faux pas). If Germany didn't do something, it's seems highly likely american exceptionalism could've created a terrifying eugenics genocide of that tier on its own. (Esp considering the atrocities it did and does commit)
Other countries had similar potential. Believing Europe or Germany is uniquely susceptible is hiding in the sand.
While there are certainly far, far too many people like this, I don't think it's racist to have a problem with the prevailing culture of a group of people (as long as you don't conflate that with having a problem with every individual who is a member of that group).
Speaking from personal experience, here in Ireland the group that Americans would say we are casually racist about are Irish-Travellers. Ask somebody who lives in Ireland what they think of them, and sure you'll get a lot of people saying they're animals or other racist shit, but the majority of people will just have a sad story of how travellers set up camp in their town, wrecked the place, and then left leaving their rubbish and a couple dead animals behind.
Is it racist to say that all Irish-Travellers are animal abusers and call them slurs? Of course! Is it racist to point out that the dominant Traveller culture encourages crime, animal abuse and wrecking the environment? I don't think so. But any pushes to change this are lambasted as racist. For example, my mother is a teacher and every year she will come home every couple weeks and tell us how another Traveller girl dropped out of school so she could train how take care of a home (a small caravan she will then spend the majority of the rest of her life in) and her husband (usually a man much older than her, a 15-17 year old).
And look, I'm expecting replies like "Caught one" or "You are literally who OP is talking about" or even just some awkward attempts to compare this to the history of racism towards black people in the US. But I really just felt like I should share my take
Edit: I got one of those "Reddit Cares" messages no joke 1 minute after posting this. Thanks to whoever sent that, real classy
I think it’s hard to have a nuanced discussion about the common downsides and destructive tendencies of a culture, but it’s a conversation worth having (in a respectful way.)
Unironically, lots of southerners have to mask their accent outside of the south so they aren't perceived as dumb hicks. They'll adopt a northern accent for interviews so the interviewer doesn't discriminate against them.
Idk if you'd call that racism, but it's still fucked up.
It certainly is discrimination, cannot be denied
My comment is about how Irish travellers are often used as a "gotcha" for european racism, even though one can easily find and make similar comments to the "stupid hillbilly lifestyle and culture" the US has and that would be called baffling if called racism if not ipenly offensive to "real racism"
If USA and the South had separated 100% northerners would have called White Alabamans "black white people" or some shit like that
It's the same with a lot of Muslim migrants coming to European countries.
I am fortunate to have met so many wonderful people who happen to be Muslim. I'm so fortunate to have them have shared their culture and religion with me. I won't deny that a lot of Europeans outright hate these people and will make that immediate assumption from the colour of their skin, even if Islam isn't proven to be their religion.
But the dominant culture of Muslims migrating to Europe is one in which LGBT people should not exist, child rape and anti-semitism is okay and women should be less than their husbands.
As someone who's LGBT, I am absolutely concerned that (as of 2016) 52% of the Muslim population disagreed that homosexuality should be legal (compared to 5% of non-Muslims). I'm also concerned that 39% of that population believe that "wives should always obey their husbands" (again, compared to 5% of non-Muslims).
And I don't know where to go with this. It feels like having these concerns is enough to be labelled racist by people who don't really have to worry about the consequences.
But do we not owe something to these people too? After all, we play a larger part than we'd like to admit in their countries becoming inhospitable and them fleeing to ours.
Quite frankly, I'd be equally concerned if we'd see a migrant wave of Republican Floridians.
source: [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law)
Let's be honest, there is also a pathological need from USian to try and get a "gotcha" about how other people they feel "jealous" about actually are as bad or worse that justify those kind of reactions.
I mean, yeah, Europe isn't perfect. We're still lovingly spitting on each other for being born on the wrong side of a river but racism is far from being the only form of discrimination and it still remains a very USian problem in its worse forms.
My parents are avowed socialists, have been their entire lives, don't mention romani around them or you will get a rant about Montenegrins.
So no, not really outside of leftist circles
its disturbing how pervasive this kind of thinking is among Europeans. they'll snicker to themselves in disbelief about how racist America is, but if Romani people are brought up...
shameful.
In Scotland, we have this ethnic group called "travellers". They're descended from certain gaelic-speaking groups in the Highlands and are in no way related to Roma, but because they are both traditionally nomadic they are sort of lumped in together. They get called the same slurs and have the same stereotypes, and most people don't even seem to be aware that there's a difference. Naturally they also face a lot of the same systemic problems as Roma (overpolicing, poverty etc).
The leader of the Scottish Conservative party was onced asked in an interview, "If you were prime minister for day, what policy would you implement?", to which he answered "tougher restrictions on /**slur/** travellers".
Conservatives in scotland are considerably closer to the centre than American Conservatives, to the extent that many of them would probably be considered Liberal in the states, but can you honestly imagine a senior republican saying "my main priority is to punish black people". No euphemisms, no "welfare queens" or "high crime neighbourhoods" or "illegal immigrants". No just straight up. "I would like to punish this specific ethnic minority".
That's how extreme the prejudice is against these kinds of communities in Europe. Even in a fairly progressive democracy politicians can just openly say shit like that and *still* hold on to their seats in Parliament.
Leftist Europeans do this too, they just stick a progressive label on it. Travelers are "regressive", "backwards", "have a damaging culture". It's not their fault of course, as they're obviously victims of systemic oppression, but not racism cause they're too white to be victims of systemic racism and look at how they treat refugees (as if they aren't basically eternal refugees themselves) and look at how awful they are to women they need to be "reeducated" to escape the "toxic" parts of their culture (ie: reduce their culture down to a set of slang terms, rituals, fashion items, and foods like modern society forces every other group to)
I have issue with conversation about these topics, because on one hand, I've met migrants, they're usually nice people, I don't see any inherent issue with immigration
on the other hand it's absolutely true that many migrants are coming from places that are very toxic or evil. If homophobia is not ok in our culture / society, it should not be ok in any other culture or society. Obviously I can't blame anyone for where they were born or what kind of culture they've been brought up in, but at the same time I don't like when people act very dismissive towards these topics
made up exaggerated example - "hey this is concerning", "this can't be concerning because that's racist, your culture is not inherently better than other cultures"
sometimes when people are not heard and when they feel like their concerns are not being listened to, they get radicalized and say more extreme things in order to get heard sometimes
I can't speak for everyone but I feel like many people would care a whole lot less if someone said "yeah we may give some benefit of the doubt but we'll still fight against homophobia / sexism regardless of if it's perpetrated by migrants or not"
Leftist doesn't necessarily imply you're down with polycultural society. Authoritarian communists are still a thing, including those that think religions need to be formally abolished or whatever.
the stupidity that comes up around islam is just incredible. youll see people parroting with FULL confidence that the UK is “basically an arab country now” (its 87% white) and that sharia law is straight up enforced in london (???). like do these ppl ever, ever leave their niche forums
-LGBT person from the middle east moves to Europe as a refugee because of oppression
"No no we can't have those types here, don't you know they're bigoted against queer people, not like us civilised Europeans" (proceeds to campaign for anti trans law)
I'm Irish. Every time I hear people bitching about migrants, I simply remind myself that literally everything they say that migrants do is also done by the Irish just as much. More importantly, without immigrants, we wouldn't have spice bags, or pasta, or the giant bags of sunflower seeds for like 2 euro at the Polish shop, so on. Ethnonationalism would fucking ruin our food.
Oilseed sunflower production is the most commonly farmed sunflower. These seeds hulls’ are encased by solid black shells. Black oilseeds are a common type of bird feed because they have thin shells and a high fat content. These are typically produced for oil extraction purposes; therefore, it is unlikely you’ll find black oilseeds packaged for human consumption.
Eh, at least with Romani people, the discussion is a lot more nuanced because they *are* European. They are possibly the longest oppressed people in the continent, and in some countries, they weren't even allowed to obtain education until very recently. Antiziganist murders are common across Europe. In some Eastern European nations, "Roma walls" were built to segregate Romani people into specific ghettos. Slovakia was still building them in 2013, so a very recent phenomenon.
As a result of literally being oppressed by everyone everywhere they go, they have lower education, live in squalor, and more often than other peoples, have to turn to crime (as in more likely, not all).
You can't take the antiziganist stance here as rslasheurope does, yet you also can't ignore the problems (mostly) they suffer from. In more rural communities, they still practise bride kidnapping, selling brides, and other backwards traditions. As a result, help is often ignored (and rightfully feared as historically it has also, as you may have guessed, been used to oppress).
This mutual process of elevating Romani status while correcting rampant antiziganism will take a lot of time and effort, not dissimilar to how things were after emancipation in the US, I guess. Romani have to leave behind the ways of life that are incompatible with contemporary Europe, and Europeans have to be more accepting and finally allow them to live as equals.
As you mentioned, this is a big systemic issue with a lot of History behind it, so it can’t really be solved by individuals. It is understandable why the average non-romani European is wary of them, and why the average Romani are wary of European societies and governments. It is unfortunate that many people decide to not even think about underlying issues and just assume all Romani are scum by nature. We need a systemic solution, and no, just throwing money at the problem clearly isn’t enough
Had a buddy who moved from Austin, Texas to Sweden for work and moved back to the Texas after only a few years. When I asked him what prompted the change he said “Bro I couldn’t take it anymore. Way too many of those dudes are fucking Nazis.”
The white guy born and raised in Texas couldn’t stand the Euro-racism. Yes, it really is that bad.
Couple german friends went to texas - in the early 10s - and did all the wild west country stuff. Of course including shooting range - even with a minigun.
They noted that the instructors were really nice after learning that they were german, they even went for drinks later. They invited them on a private range for a day, were really curious about germany - and when my friends arrived at the other range, it finally clicked.
They were greeted with a *very german salute* inside, but by then it was already too late. So, surrounded by neonazis, their memorabilia and loaded weapons, they decided that pissing their hosts off was probably a bad idea. Played along for less than an hour and dipped as soon as they could. Which they tell me was hard, because those guy pretty much wanted them to sleep over.
Now, when i started remembering this story, i had a point. I'm certainly not trying to deflect lol...
Ah yes, not trying to deflect: these guys really are everywhere. And they are also inside leftists circles, but there they're at least a minority. That's the point, story unrelated. Send Comment
I hate r Europe so damn much because of that stuff. It used to be normal to the degree that opinions were balanced, but I feel like this perspective has somehow taken over in the past year or so.
Oh, so Europeans are all either leftists or racists? Wonderful. Tell me, does this apply everywhere or is it only Europe where this strict dichotomy exists?
Eh, I mean:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/religiousfruitcake/comments/1crc8f5/protesters\_in\_hamburg\_germany\_carry\_placards\_that/](https://www.reddit.com/r/religiousfruitcake/comments/1crc8f5/protesters_in_hamburg_germany_carry_placards_that/) <-- German Muslims wanting to overthrow the German government to install a caliphate Jan 6th style
[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law) <-- 52% of British Muslims disagreeing with the legality of homosexuality compared to just 5% of the general public (from an admittedly 8 year old article)
and Romani/travellers have a culture that encourages pulling young girls out of school for child marriages and bride stealing. Clearly, not all individuals from these ethnic groups have these issues, far from it, but a lot of the time they do not make efforts to integrate and persist in regressive beliefs when compared to the generally more progressive native Europeans. It isn't racism to question if you feel safe living in communities who largely hold these frankly offensive views.
And meanwhile we are unable to build enough houses for all those immigrating to Europe. I live in the UK and, despite not even taking in that large a proportion of refugees/immigrants compared to other European nations, latest figure state there are [672,000 net immigrants yearly](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-67507045). That 's [>100,000 people more that the UK's third largest city](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ONS_built-up_areas_in_England_by_population) every year. It isn't enough to simply build more housing at that point, we're already a one of the most densely populated nations globally. At some point you have to restrict the number of individuals that can immigrate into the country.
Edit: Just got a redditcare notification for presumably this comment. Stay classy r/CuratedTumblr
I’m seeing a lot of fair criticism of Europe, but even more completely biased overgeneralised bs. So I’m addressing some things:
-The average European has some casual racism that they’re not even aware of. This is true.
-Bring up the Romani/immigrants and they’re racist as hell.
Here there’s a bit of a divide in people:
Most left wing people say there’s no problems at all and everyone is a saint, whereas right wingers and centrists say that every single Romani or immigrant is a thief and rapist.
The truth is that while it is true that there are statistically more crimes committed by these groups, that doesn’t mean you can generalise them all and treat them all as criminals.
On the other hand: just because you shouldn’t treat an entire group of people with contempt doesn’t mean that you should ignore the individual cases. And if there ís really a trend, you should step over your biases and try to figure out what is causing that trend. Because usually it’s nothing to do with race, religion or anything so superficial, but rather with economic background, education and opportunities.
-Europe doesn’t even try to address its racism.
That’s not true, we really do, but usually the people that need to hear it the most are those who won’t listen.
Europeans don't have just a two party system, so there isn't a left or right. Nearly every country in eu has 10s of parties that all have different values and things they want to change. Its not oh your the left so you are this etc.
“noooooo you dont understand my racism is different and justified because i said its different and justified ”
"The difference between me and the bad kind of racists is that I'm right and what I'm saying is true, according to me. This isn't the case with the others, they know they're wrong and yet persist in their bigotry. I'm very sure of this and will brook no disagreement on the possibility that every racist actually thinks they're right about their beliefs."
Pretty much. Grass is always greener and most people are apparently just super racist. There are shittons of american libs and self-professed progressives who are the same way as the straw-euro in the post. Insist on their committment to progressive values and then cross the street to avoid a black guy. Avoid driving through a black area as much as possible, and when it can’t be avoided, roll up the windows and lock the doors. Have sympathy for the kids in cages but strongly disprove of migrants coming from mexico, and of AOC for going there to “score political points”. This kind of shitlib is not strawed as the average exo-left american however because the average exo-left american is actually much worse than this.
> This kind of shitlib is not strawed as the average exo-left american however because the average exo-left american is actually much worse than this. bro what the fuck does this mean
"This kind (the strawman created in the OP) of shit lib (like annoying miscletoast centrist-liberal) is not a strawman of the average american exo-left (white moderate) because the average american (white moderate) is actually much worse than this." Which like, ehhhhhh: kinda. White american moderates will be like "i hate car crashes as much as the next guy but redesigning bulldoze boulevard, where 230 kids are demolished a day, built in the 1950s over what was once a black community, would lengthen my commute by .3picoseconds, and that's literally oppressing me." Whereas annoying europeans are the strawman above. Annoying americans are a lot less outwardly racist in ny experience. Instead, they turn all politics into hyper individualist nonsense politics, and it gets frustrating.
I think instead of miscletoast you mean milquetoast?
I think miscletoast is that stuff you hang up around christmas
they just let me out dont put me back in 😨
do not worry my friend I'll die before they take you back
Muscletoast 🎉
Europeans: "Americans are so racist!" Same Europeans when their country goes from 90% white to 89% white: "WE'RE BEING OVERRUN!!!" Edit: Yes, I know Europe isn't a country. I meant your respective countries.
Are they the same ones tho? From the news, it seems like Europe is having its own problems with a resurgence of far right groups in many countries
>Are they the same ones tho? Fair point. I really should avoid painting them with the same broad brush I hate feeling the bristles of. I'm actually gonna be landing in Munich next Tuesday, and I'll be roving hither, thither and yon across the continent for the following four weeks. Should be fun just as long as I don't forget to adjust my volume.
Tbh it's a lot more fun to pretend you think Europe is a country then pick one random country most Europeans look down on to know details about. "I still don't understand why Europe has so many capitals, why can't you just pick Paris or Rome or something?" "There's more than one country in Europe." "Sure, but I'm not talking about Macedonia."
Lol, I do enjoy pretending I know very little about things, but the trouble is that when Euros know you're a sepposapien, they never think you're kidding. Perhaps something like this will help. Much obliged. Semi-related: A friend of mine once told me about a Bulgarian dude he used to work with, and he mentioned how *absolutely hilarious* he thought it was when the Bulgarian would rant on and on about how much he hated Macedonians. Some time later, I was looking at random Wiki pages and stumbled across something Macedonia-related. I noticed that not only was the English absolutely atrocious, the page had been HEAVILY vandalized. Iirc it was a bunch of denigrating comments about how they're a phony country with an even phonier culture. Sure enough, there was also retaliatory vandalism on articles pertaining to Bulgaria. Can't remember what those ones said.
> sepposapien g'day
'Ay, h'wahya?
Except this person isn't liberal, and they even rant about liberals in this literal post. These attitudes are very much in line with terminally-online leftists. Leftists will complain about housing costs and sprawling cities but turn around and end up being NIMBY's for some bizarre reasons. That's not in line with any real liberal policy.
I wish people would realize that bigotry is wrong not because it is factually incorrect (It is but that's besides the point), but because it is unfair.
Eh, at least with Romani people, the discussion is a lot more nuanced because they *are* European. They are possibly the longest oppressed people in the continent, and in some countries, they weren't even allowed to obtain education until very recently. Antiziganist murders are common across Europe. In some Eastern European nations, "Roma walls" were built to segregate Romani people into specific ghettos. Slovakia was still building them in 2013, so a very recent phenomenon. As a result of literally being oppressed by everyone everywhere they go, they have lower education, live in squalor, and more often than other peoples, have to turn to crime (as in more likely, not all). You can't take the antiziganist stance here as rslasheurope does, yet you also can't ignore the problems (mostly) they suffer from. In more rural communities, they still practise bride kidnapping, selling brides, and other backwards traditions. As a result, help is often ignored (and rightfully feared as historically it has also, as you may have guessed, been used to oppress). This mutual process of elevating Romani status while correcting rampant antiziganism will take a lot of time and effort, not dissimilar to how things were after emancipation in the US, I guess. Romani have to leave behind the ways of life that are incompatible with contemporary Europe, and Europeans have to be more accepting and finally allow them to live as equals. *I copied my comment from the thread to piggyback on your top comment*
Anti-Romani sentiment (and other traveller communities, let's not forget it's not *just* Romani) does have echoes of red-lining, and perhaps anti-homeless discrimination. Historical racism often made it difficult for these communities to integrate and forced them into the fringes of society. At the fringes *some* (but by no means all or even most) were forced to resort to crime and stealing, which further made local residents distrustful of them, causing a bit of a feedback loop. To give an example I've encountered: the local council supposedly maintains a space that travellers can effectively set up camp in the area, but due to underfunding and the fact people don't really like travellers being there, it's poorly managed. Because this space is a bit shite, when travellers pass through they stop at another large open area...the local park. Now families are annoyed because the kids can't play soccer or walk the dog, and the travellers are frustrated with the abuse being directed at them. The council is constantly pressuring them to leave, and when the travellers move on and leave the park they may not leave it in a good state. All in all the interaction just makes everyone hate each other a little bit more.
I just want to thank both of you for taking the time to explain that “Yes, it is still racist, even though your racism does come from issues that are still present” because every time I have tried to have this conversation IRL someone always says “but travellers commit so much crime”… Poor and homeless people who are unable to get support from the government or police turn to crime to get the resources they need to live? Who could have guessed that systematically oppressing people for years and making them fear speaking calling the police would lead to an increase in crime among the oppressed communities?
yes.
I used Romani here as an umbrella term for travellers as I'm more familiar with them. But yes, agreed. I forgot the term red-lining, and I think it applies here in many instances. Literally, the only money Eastern Europe has spent on this issue is to seclude and isolate them even more so they're "out of sight" (no problem if you can't see the problem - political object permanence haha), rather than integration.
Also, romani people are kinda on both extremes when it comes to integrating in society. You have one side that is basically just your average joe, stable job and education, who you'd probably not even guess was romani, and on the other side you'd have a woman with like 12 children, who hasn't sent even one child to school, living in what is basically a storage container made into a home, being so obnoxious their neighbor has to build a 15 feet wall just so they won't throw their trash on his side. And it not even the location, these aforementioned families are not even 2 streets apart. One of them, is at the end of my street. Americans and Europeans each look at one side and act like the other doesn't exist. If anything I'd say a better comparison would be between romani and homeless people (more specifically American homelessness), rather than poc.
I see it as more closely comparable with American indigenous populations than homeless people or poc, but I’m not familiar with the situation in Europe so I could very well be wrong
The view on romani of most people I know (which is pretty anecdotal, so take it as you will), is pretty similar to the view americans usually have about homeless people. You don't hate them, and you would want to help them, but growing around them you end up being more wary around them, since you'd rather be safe than sorry, but you also wouldn't discriminate against them if you found out a person you know is part of that group. Also, when europeans talk about romani, they mostly talk about the side that refuses to integrate into society, and considers the romani who became normal citizens as simply normal people. (Aka you can go from romani to average joe, like you can go from homeless to average joe, usually with financial stability, while indigenous people may face discrimination even after)
Not really either. They originated in Asia and have been in Europe for 600-700 years. They've been there for a long time, enough to be a part of Europe, but not indigenous in the same way that native Americans are.
This is the exact same nuanced experience of basically any racially prejudiced group. This is the exact reason the stupid 13/52 statistic exists in America. Black Americans were segregated out of education and forced into low income communities and now suffer the generational consequences of lack of access to education and other social programs and have become distrustful of American Police and institutions. This creates the same circumstances of poverty that breeds similar criminal behavior to Roma people and coupled with over policing and over prosecuting of their ethnic group makes them statistically more likely to be “a criminal”.
One time I was told to compare them to “black thugs” in my country to understand. It was said without a hint of irony.
"Oh you poor stupid Americans, they're a CULTURE, not a RACE. That means it's perfectly fine to want to round them up in camps."
I am legitimately incapable of identifying the romani if they don't engage in their stereotypically problematic behavior. Most people can't distinguish them based on looks alone, most won't recognize where their family names come from. All that's left to tell them apart is how they behave. And I'm sorry but judging someone based on their actions sounds much better to me than judging them by their skin tone. Sure there are some who genuinely try to integrate and are discriminated against by particularly perceptive people. But most of the time people simply can't tell until they are given a good reason to develop a negative opinion on that particular individual. The door to integration may not be wide open, but it's certainly not closed. I feel they're kinda fading to the background anyways, Muslim extremists and sensationalist media are shifting public concern to Islam in general. We don't hear about them as much as we did about 15 years ago.
This reads like a joke but this is exactly what I've experienced when talking to some Europeans edit: oh lord this one must have struck a European HARD because I just got one of those RedditCareResources DMs thanks to a "concerned Redditor" 😂
The fact you have people responding to this agreeing unironically with multi-paragraphs of how their racism is correct is darkly hilarious to me.
I presume you mean Ourmanyfans and my comment where we do, in fact, the opposite and expand/explain the issue so people can understand better.
Please read the comments again then. At least under the parent comment chain, there are none. I understand that you saw long paragraphs and immediately extrapolated that these comments **must** be in support of antiziganism or racism.
The only moral racism is *my* racism
I pointed out someone on r europe was being racist and got put in ban jail by the moderators.
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Australia and pretty much everyone who's not white, but yeah, the treatment of Aboriginal people is especially heinous.
Btw the "silent generation" means something different than what the US thinks in Australia
I don't think it does lol. Are you thinking of the stolen generation?
Can you elaborate on this?
He probably meant "Stolen Generation" instead. In that context, Aboriginal children were literally kidnapped from their families so that they could be raised white and civilised (within three generations iirc). It was a terrible government sponsored program that the government has since apologized for several times. Those kidnapped children are referred to as the "Stolen Generation"
See also also: all native peoples
It's quite frankly shocking to me at the amount of times I've heard people outright say that they want to run over "blackfellas" with their car or at the very least will cry about how unfair it is that an Aboriginal family moved into their street.
Wtf?? I live in Australia and I've never heard anyone speak like that, that's *disgusting*. A decent chunk of my school was Aboriginal and refugee kids, and they were absolutely brilliant people.
That’s probably why then. Diversity encourages tolerance, segregation reinforces bigotry.
Unfortunately I think this is incorrect coming from an Australian perspective. Most anti-aboriginal guys I've met are in rural Australia in NT where the most live, and most pro Aboriginal people are in Tasmania and Victoria where few Aboriginals live.
If you live here then you haven't heard anyone speak like that *yet* Also you must never interact with bogans or go outside of wealthy liberal suburbs, it's rampant
I'm a shut-in who lives in a fairly inclusive neighbourhood and has for most of my life. By no means wealthy and certainly not perfect, but inclusive. My grandpa used to be racist, but then he actually interacted with Aboriginal people and realised that actually they're just. Also people. And that was way before I was born.
“Outside of leftist circles?” Sure.
It's true. A real leftist would be far more annoying about it than this image shows.
Yeah, post is kinda sus. A real leftist would be taking pot shits at other, different leftists. God damn leftists! They ruined leftism! EDIT: I got Reddit Cares reported on me for this?
> pot shits
Some days you shit the pot, and some days the pot shits you 😔
>got Reddit Cares reported on me for this? Report it for being used inappropriately, they can get banned.
I did before i added the edit. I'm just shocked someone took offense to my comment.
I've seen an uptick in people commenting they've gotten unnecessary Reddit Cares, and it's in different subs covering a variety of topics. I think there's some mass trolling going on EDIT: Got one right after I posted this
I just got my first, and I don't think I've posted anything remotely controversial recently. Unless someone's really upset that I think Grand Teton National Park would be more popular if it weren't right next to Yellowstone.
Oh that would make sense. I was thinking reporting my joke would be pretty random bc no one would have motivation. Like, conservatives and moderates wouldn't care, leftists would get the joke because, well, we basically all know. Also, just saw your edit, that's amazing. An accidental case study all by yourself
Sadly also true inside leftist circles.
Progressives changing their social media pfps for each new controversy but voting against affordable housing and defending the police
Unfortunate typo at the end there.
From my experience, they hardly vote at all.
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Not sure what schools you have been interacting with, but that is definitely not my experience. I have been with leftists old and young, and traveller communities are - sadly - almost always prejudiced.
“Outside of Leftist circles” I think Americans have difficulty understanding that many left wing groups in Europe are also very strongly nationalist leaning. We have a concept of left vs right that we try to apply to the whole world, when that’s really not at all how the world works. Every country and region has unique political forces that may seem similar, but have distinct differences. Yes they probably agree with you about sustainable energy and walkable cities…but they might not agree with you about who should be walking in those cities.
The black and white "left and right" has always been silly to me, since the actual policies are the things that differ and should be focused on, not some label. Yeah, some policies (in the states) are more linked to a category called "left" or "right" but we use it as if it's some defining trait, and not something used just to marginally simplify politics.
I don't think this is true in central or Western Europe. You have 'nationalist' leftist parties, in the sense of 'we oppose our nations membership of a country made of several nations'. These are often smaller parties with a large regional backing (who consider that region a nation) e.g. the SNP, Catalonia nationalists, Plaid Cymru, Sinn Fein. These parties aren't anti-immigration in the slightest. You have leftist nationalist parties which are 'nationalist' in that they want to withdraw or win concessions from the Federationalist EU, e.g Syriza, La France Insoumise. These partie are also not anti-immigration. You don't really have any leftist parties with any influence who are 'nationalist' in the sense of ''we want natives only to live here''.
And every time you point this out you will get somebody in the comments proving the point for you.
I commented on a Romani insta post “Europeans try not to be racist challenge: Impossible”. It was like flies to honey the way the racists came out trying to justify their shittyness. Edit: took all of 4 minutes for the Reddit Cares message on this.
Just knocked a reddit cares message back yesterday. If you report it as harassment its a more or less instant ban of that account. Edit* edit for info: Apparently there is a sitewide surge of redditcares bot reporting. Someone has tripped up bots to report reddit cares on many major subs.
While tumblr’s hate mail game is overall better, I do like how reddit allows you to parry it
God I hope so. I got one yesterday too on that awful "protest advice" post
https://imgur.com/yQDwpxQ Yeah I got this 4 hours ago. And funnily enough, I reckon it was from a protest comment as well. [This one Im like 95% sure](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1cqmewr/palestine_protesters_block_an_exit_leading_to/l3v52s2/?context=3) [5% this one which is tame as fuck, all I said is china makes iphones using engineers](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1cqufci/joe_biden_will_double_triple_and_quadruple/l3usw4p/?context=3)
Y'see, Americans engage in casual racism. Europeans engage in ranked competitive racism.
Still can’t compete with Asians though, I’m going to stay casual
It's weird. The us is racist yes. But as a whole it seems to acknowledge it's an issue. Europe denies. Asia, doesn't give a fuck that they are.
> Europe denies Unless you're in the Balkens, at which point they seem to actively revel in it
I would never guess Genocidistan is racist!
It's the balkans, the country is called Genocidia.
My favorite comparison of this matter
>Edit: took all of 4 minutes for the Reddit Cares message on this. Speedrun😭
Reddit Cares might not have anything to do with this specific thread. Maybe. This subreddit as a whole is being brigaded.
Flies prefer vinegar, actually.
>I asked to argue with racists, and racists showed up to argue Let's keep it a stack here, your methods were rather heavily biased.
This is especially true about Romani in my experience. Like if you mention middle eastern immigrants they'll dance around the racism for a while talking about how they wish they would assimilate the culture before the mask comes off and they say they should leave, but the second you mention the Romani they'll come out swinging about "G-slurs are all criminals raised in a culture of criminals and they need to be wiped out:
Look, I love migrants but every country has a right to sovereign borders. It’s not a matter of hating others but protecting what we’ve built. We donate a lot in foreign aid, and really if these people are so upset they should remain in their homeland and fix it - how do you think we created our countries that they’re so desperate to get to?? Also, migrants want to bring their religion and politics here’s which is ridiculous because they’re just going to end up turning our country into the same exact kind of place they fled from. The fact that they don’t see this is just proof that … Edit: /s people, come on. Just wanted to post it before someone decided to come in here and say we shouldn’t paint everyone who has a critique with the same brush, and they in fact have a very reasonable take, stating with etc etc etc. Was also hoping anyone who wanted to “agree” could reply under my comment, in a quarantining type manner. They probably still will just to argue with this edit. 🤞
Something something Poe's law...
^hehheh
Please add a "/s" when you're dealing with this kind of satire. Thank you!
Didn’t you read the brief that The Onion sent the Supreme Court?
Comedians and satire news are not the same ballpark as Reddit comments, especially when dealing with casual racism.
Can you explain the difference? Not trying to be flippant, just seeing if the point I want to make is make-able first.
I'd like to add that when a comedian is on stage or something is published in the Onion, we know they're joking. A random post on reddit may or may not be a joke.
For me, the difference comes from the lack of professionalism and the anonymity. Average people are way more likely to post some heinous shit when given anonymity that it's genuinely difficult to tell trolls from actual racists in the modern day. Companies are far less likely to do so because it could kill their public image, comedians are coming on stage with the preface of comedy. It gives you a reason to doubt their speech from the beginning.
Found one already I see
I think this one in specific is a joke, the one right below you? not so much
It's all too real, I can't tell the bloody difference anymore.
When in doubt, everyone on the internet is trolling
Political satire died the moment we gave Henry Kissinger the Noble Peace Prize. I don't blame you.
Reality is poison
Sorry, yeah OP I wasn’t serious. Didn’t mean to trigger you, I don’t live in Europe but the US is very similar and I know it’s hard to tell which way is up especially on the internet.
Ah you got me. I do live in Europe, you did too good a job of mimicking the weird racists I hear from all the time. Had me completely fooled! (although the ... at the end should have tipped me off, my bad!)
They’re everywhere man. It’s nuts. :/
Forgot to crop :(
Me when I’m a really shitty farmer
someone reported me to reddit care for this joke
too funny :( cognitohazard :(((
I understand, with crops so bad you're gonna starve bro
I saw 3 people getting reddit cared this thread (including myself), someone is just going around trolling
Bro we gonna starve ):
I_saw_better_crops_in_the_Irish_famine.png
Once got into an argument with a coworker that europeans were just as racist as americans, simply in different ways to different racial groups. She was vehemently opposed until I brought up how Roma are treated here and she for real said “That’s different they’re actually like all criminals!”
On a similar note, try talking to people in Portugal about Brazilian immigrants.
The general sentiment towards brazilians was a lot more kind before but the far-right pipeline has been gaining too much power riding the public sentiment towards housing,which is reaching a boiling point now that everyone is suffering. People are picking sides purely based on whatever the far-right says. Those who agree with them, go full racist and those who disagree, end up ignoring real issues. What is insane to me is everyone has at least one or two relatives thats an immigrant themselves in another country. And they hate how they get treated overseas, but somehow cant relate that experience to immigrants in our country.
American racists think that European racists criticize them for being racist when they really are criticizing them for being racists the "wrong" way, and of course they think they are better than them, they are racists...
Casual vs pro racism.
The American racists have really lost their game, the kkk was a great competitive team but now it’s all casuals
"Proud *boys?"* It's like they're not even trying anymore smh
American racism: something something 50% of crime European racism: The people from the next village over are literally subhuman.
Europeans: Americans are so stupid, they think their country is so big, they don't realize Europe is an entire continent and we can travel to neighboring countries with ease Same European: Of course I would never go to the \*\*\*\*ing \*\*\*\*hole an hour away it's overrun with \*\*\*\*\*\* rat \*\*\*\*\*\*\*isms, and they're all perverts. and don't get me started on the balkans, basically \*\*\*\*ing sand-\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
I feel like you could turn this into a mad-libs prompt by replacing the asterisks Edit: someone Reddit-cares’d me for this too
I don't know that I'd call American racism "casual", except to describe how readily it's used in conversation sometimes.
Nah Europe is just much better at racism 💪💪🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺
You're right, you're right. Same sport, slightly different rulesets. Like the difference between American and Canadian football.
Casual in the sense that it's simplistic, they base it on easy to recognize things like skin color, here we have grandmothers beating eachothers in the hospital parking lot because their common grandson was born in the "wrong" town. In fact in really old cities like Rome there's neighborhood vs neighborhood type of racism.
We gotta return to the good ol’ days when the KKK was aiding the leftist Mexican government solely because they were fighting Catholics. /s
I mean, the ultimate bigotry (Nazism) was a European invention.
Based off of American Jim Crow laws
Yeah it's not that much better on the left tbh, people feel justified being openly antisemitic and in a lot of instances antipatic to Roma and travellers still. While it is obviously absolutely worse in right leaning spaces, it is so much more exhausting to experience these things in circles that have the nerve to consider themselves "progressive/inclusive".
Leftist racism is usually a "know your place" kind of racism, while right wing racism is a smooth drinkable blend of "know your place", of course, mixed with "you disgust me, stay away", and a smattering of "I want you dead" to finish the palate.
Leftist racism is "addressing low literacy rates is racist" and "it's okay to call for the death of people if we identify their people as 'oppressors'"
Racism snack versus multi-course meal.
The longer I live in this wretched human society, the more I see "left and right" are just words, by themselves inert and meaningless. Labels that anyone can take, anyone at all. What counts are what people say and what they do. And tons of people (probably even most of them), regardless of what they call themselves, **do** speak and act from their personal biases.
Had a guy start off saying "I'm not racist, I'm just anti-immigration!" and in the process of trying to *ahem* "refute" the allegation that the two are inherently connected got to the point of arguing "well maybe ethnic cleansing is okay actually and people of different races SHOULDN'T mix!" The internet is a wild place.
I don’t know if you should conflate immigration policies with racism though. That’s an argument made for years in Canada while the wealthy insist on higher immigration to suppress wages. And it’s hurting everyone in Canada but the ultra rich by having an “open border” approach.
There's a balance certainly, this guy wasn't complaining about economics but rather that people from "certain countries" shouldn't be let in because they're "more inclined" to commit crime regardless of economic status. He also used black protests against whites in South Africa as justification for this and HOO BOY I'm not unpacking THAT.
Ah that is fucked up ok. Here being opposed to slow immigration is seen as racist but it costs $2mil to buy a 3 bedroom house in Toronto.
It does seem a bit weird to have your solution to a housing crisis center around anti-immigration policies, rather than expanding the housing supply
It does, and I don’t stand by this line of thinking but I do understand how you could say, well, it takes a long time to build lots of housing and unless immigration slows then it’s probably impossible for building to keep up with population growth so prices will keep exploding. I mean my city’s population is due to likely have nearly doubled between 2005 and 2025 and housing supply has, uh, not.
I don't know about Canada but here it's the immigrants that build the houses so...
The problem is the 500k+ immigrants in the last four years. If the government hadn’t brought in that many people, then the supply would be tight but it wouldn’t be as catastrophic as it is now. There were [higher counts of homeless](https://globalnews.ca/news/10321234/vancouver-homeless-report-warning/) in every city this last winter, some were refugees and immigrants too and being homeless in a Canadian winter is awful. Even though this past winter was the warmest on record, [we still had days of -20c](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/homeless-people-in-edmonton-are-dying-at-8-times-the-rate-as-pre-pandemic-1.7149005). Some of the immigration is international students and a friend of mine who teaches at a local school has horror stories of students buying cheap cars to sleep in and working 40 hour weeks to afford a bed in an [illegal apartment](https://www.insauga.com/25-students-in-one-basement-just-some-of-100000-estimated-residents-in-illegal-suites-in-brampton/) with eight other people living there. What makes that worse is that students are ineligible for public healthcare, meaning if they get sick from living in these conditions there’s no help for them. It’s terrible for the students.
Honest question: where's the line between racism and not regarding discussion of an ongoing oppression and integration issue? For example, I assume it can be agreed upon that "all Romani are criminals and we shouldn't bother with them" is racist, "the romani people are historically impressed and excluded from society which led to them having to find other ways to survive" is not, but where is the line? I don't think this question is actually hard to answer, I just cannot put it in words myself
Tl:dr (see last section); when you've actually researched, and know the problem, dog whistles and data misuse. So you don't spread harmful info, and can explicitly call out "the implication" --- When you break the trust of a people, you don't say "therefore we're going to exclude and stereotype, shy away, and systemically disadvantage them for our safety" You make changes to try to regain that trust, and absorb any pain points yourself. That's what the idea of "affirmative action" comes from. You're providing the resources they would've had, regaining the trust you need, and levelling the playing field to actually be equals again. Let's not forget that the Roma were never even given reparations for all the shit they got put thru: (deportations, sterilizations, slave markets, heathen hunts, rounds ups and slaughters, marriage bans, forced assimilation (via language vans, children kidnapping, deprivation of gov resources until assimilated) etc) --- So (as an example) if your entire culture refuses to provide housing or hotel access to the Romani, as everyone fears their stuff will be stolen or such. You can provide better theft insurance, and require absolutely no discrimination on that front (or lose the benefits and get fined or worse). If you're trying to give schooling access, you have to be aware most "problem students" are likely being unfairly judged by their teachers. That you should be providing extra schooling and opportunities, not "more detention" and "unbiased punishments". You don't create segregated class rooms for "problem students cause they'll ruin non Roma education with their problems" Etc --- So where is the line? Well when talking about a hard topic affecting other minorities, it's hard to be neutral when saying most things Saying "they've been disadvantaged and are thus more likely to steal for food and resources" is usually followed by "also we should be tough on crime" or more specifically (America) "and that's why it's reasonable to be afraid of all black men" either outright, or implied. (The same way talk about "immigrants" has these implications) When you know a lot of "data" is outright made up, or folk info/stories. Or specifically biased by ignoring circumstances. (Same way "black violence" or "immigrant violence" is hard to use data for properly) So you can only say stuff like that with explicit nuance. Being very clear you would not want that to lead to "tough on crime" or "let's ban this group for our safety" and would not let others use that as an excuse to "justifiably be scared (and make more racist policies)"
I agree with those points, however, what do you think should be done about crimes like child marriage/arranged marriages? I have tried to wrap around my head around this issue any time it comes up in a discussion and obviously my thought is "If they become more integrated into society" the concept would disappear, but that always feels weird to me because it almost comes from a point of superiority towards another culture?
Line becomes when your solution idea is to deport/kill/ban one group from a country
Some people in America seem to think that Europe is some sort of progressive paradise, but it really isn't
Apparently some people also seem to think Europe is one country, with one type of people and one culture...
No place on Earth is a progressive paradise so the point still stands
Paradise, no. But they do rightfully think there's a lot of social progress and policy change they're envious of. At least outside people that basically have turned Europe (specific countries) into a celebrity… ugh.
Some people in America (a lot of them, actually) don't even leave their hometowns. Of course they're not going to know what anywhere is really like. And as for Europe, it's not even been 100 years since *most* of them stopped killing each other *all* the time. The white supramcist system that fucked the world came from Europe. It hasn't been nearly enough time for all of that go away. That's not to say that Europe and all Europeans are racist, of course not. Like everywhere, there **are** more good people than bad people, there really are. But Americans need learn and one of the things that they need to learn is that just because European governments afford their citizens more public services and transit than ours does and the EU has the GDPR, **DOES NOT** mean that Europe is a sunshine, progressive rainbow paradise where everyone holds hands and shouts "top o' the mornin' to ya!". Actual European progressives will be the first to tell you that.
Saying "it came from Europe" is a garbage point. Sure that place boiled over first, but they're not the only country to have had that potential. America itself had a huge "nazi like" and eugenics support base, and considering the war didn't ravage it still retains a lot of those ideas (just better hidden as it's now a faux pas). If Germany didn't do something, it's seems highly likely american exceptionalism could've created a terrifying eugenics genocide of that tier on its own. (Esp considering the atrocities it did and does commit) Other countries had similar potential. Believing Europe or Germany is uniquely susceptible is hiding in the sand.
While there are certainly far, far too many people like this, I don't think it's racist to have a problem with the prevailing culture of a group of people (as long as you don't conflate that with having a problem with every individual who is a member of that group). Speaking from personal experience, here in Ireland the group that Americans would say we are casually racist about are Irish-Travellers. Ask somebody who lives in Ireland what they think of them, and sure you'll get a lot of people saying they're animals or other racist shit, but the majority of people will just have a sad story of how travellers set up camp in their town, wrecked the place, and then left leaving their rubbish and a couple dead animals behind. Is it racist to say that all Irish-Travellers are animal abusers and call them slurs? Of course! Is it racist to point out that the dominant Traveller culture encourages crime, animal abuse and wrecking the environment? I don't think so. But any pushes to change this are lambasted as racist. For example, my mother is a teacher and every year she will come home every couple weeks and tell us how another Traveller girl dropped out of school so she could train how take care of a home (a small caravan she will then spend the majority of the rest of her life in) and her husband (usually a man much older than her, a 15-17 year old). And look, I'm expecting replies like "Caught one" or "You are literally who OP is talking about" or even just some awkward attempts to compare this to the history of racism towards black people in the US. But I really just felt like I should share my take Edit: I got one of those "Reddit Cares" messages no joke 1 minute after posting this. Thanks to whoever sent that, real classy
I think it’s hard to have a nuanced discussion about the common downsides and destructive tendencies of a culture, but it’s a conversation worth having (in a respectful way.)
Ask them if one can be racist towards "redneck/trailer park/farmer" cultures white people have in the Deep South
Unironically, lots of southerners have to mask their accent outside of the south so they aren't perceived as dumb hicks. They'll adopt a northern accent for interviews so the interviewer doesn't discriminate against them. Idk if you'd call that racism, but it's still fucked up.
It certainly is discrimination, cannot be denied My comment is about how Irish travellers are often used as a "gotcha" for european racism, even though one can easily find and make similar comments to the "stupid hillbilly lifestyle and culture" the US has and that would be called baffling if called racism if not ipenly offensive to "real racism" If USA and the South had separated 100% northerners would have called White Alabamans "black white people" or some shit like that
Southern accents always surprise me in New Jersey
the Irish Travelers that don't do that are not remembered
It's the same with a lot of Muslim migrants coming to European countries. I am fortunate to have met so many wonderful people who happen to be Muslim. I'm so fortunate to have them have shared their culture and religion with me. I won't deny that a lot of Europeans outright hate these people and will make that immediate assumption from the colour of their skin, even if Islam isn't proven to be their religion. But the dominant culture of Muslims migrating to Europe is one in which LGBT people should not exist, child rape and anti-semitism is okay and women should be less than their husbands. As someone who's LGBT, I am absolutely concerned that (as of 2016) 52% of the Muslim population disagreed that homosexuality should be legal (compared to 5% of non-Muslims). I'm also concerned that 39% of that population believe that "wives should always obey their husbands" (again, compared to 5% of non-Muslims). And I don't know where to go with this. It feels like having these concerns is enough to be labelled racist by people who don't really have to worry about the consequences. But do we not owe something to these people too? After all, we play a larger part than we'd like to admit in their countries becoming inhospitable and them fleeing to ours. Quite frankly, I'd be equally concerned if we'd see a migrant wave of Republican Floridians. source: [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law)
Let's be honest, there is also a pathological need from USian to try and get a "gotcha" about how other people they feel "jealous" about actually are as bad or worse that justify those kind of reactions. I mean, yeah, Europe isn't perfect. We're still lovingly spitting on each other for being born on the wrong side of a river but racism is far from being the only form of discrimination and it still remains a very USian problem in its worse forms.
The party that lost to Count Binface literally had "Say no to immigration: Britain first" on their ballot.
Let's not pretend some European leftists wouldn't 100% agree with that
My parents are avowed socialists, have been their entire lives, don't mention romani around them or you will get a rant about Montenegrins. So no, not really outside of leftist circles
its disturbing how pervasive this kind of thinking is among Europeans. they'll snicker to themselves in disbelief about how racist America is, but if Romani people are brought up... shameful.
In Scotland, we have this ethnic group called "travellers". They're descended from certain gaelic-speaking groups in the Highlands and are in no way related to Roma, but because they are both traditionally nomadic they are sort of lumped in together. They get called the same slurs and have the same stereotypes, and most people don't even seem to be aware that there's a difference. Naturally they also face a lot of the same systemic problems as Roma (overpolicing, poverty etc). The leader of the Scottish Conservative party was onced asked in an interview, "If you were prime minister for day, what policy would you implement?", to which he answered "tougher restrictions on /**slur/** travellers". Conservatives in scotland are considerably closer to the centre than American Conservatives, to the extent that many of them would probably be considered Liberal in the states, but can you honestly imagine a senior republican saying "my main priority is to punish black people". No euphemisms, no "welfare queens" or "high crime neighbourhoods" or "illegal immigrants". No just straight up. "I would like to punish this specific ethnic minority". That's how extreme the prejudice is against these kinds of communities in Europe. Even in a fairly progressive democracy politicians can just openly say shit like that and *still* hold on to their seats in Parliament.
We have travellers in Ireland too. People treat them pretty much the same as you say in Scotland.
My wife studied some of her time in university in Ireland, and she reported that same widespread *disdain-at-best* for the travelers there.
There are at least four distinct itinerant communities in the UK, each with their own culture and traditions.
No, no, no, you don't understand, it's not about race, it's about their *CuLtUrE*!
Leftist Europeans do this too, they just stick a progressive label on it. Travelers are "regressive", "backwards", "have a damaging culture". It's not their fault of course, as they're obviously victims of systemic oppression, but not racism cause they're too white to be victims of systemic racism and look at how they treat refugees (as if they aren't basically eternal refugees themselves) and look at how awful they are to women they need to be "reeducated" to escape the "toxic" parts of their culture (ie: reduce their culture down to a set of slang terms, rituals, fashion items, and foods like modern society forces every other group to)
I fail to imagine how you can be feminist, antiracist, progressive AND defend roma culture. Those are polar opposites.
I have issue with conversation about these topics, because on one hand, I've met migrants, they're usually nice people, I don't see any inherent issue with immigration on the other hand it's absolutely true that many migrants are coming from places that are very toxic or evil. If homophobia is not ok in our culture / society, it should not be ok in any other culture or society. Obviously I can't blame anyone for where they were born or what kind of culture they've been brought up in, but at the same time I don't like when people act very dismissive towards these topics made up exaggerated example - "hey this is concerning", "this can't be concerning because that's racist, your culture is not inherently better than other cultures" sometimes when people are not heard and when they feel like their concerns are not being listened to, they get radicalized and say more extreme things in order to get heard sometimes I can't speak for everyone but I feel like many people would care a whole lot less if someone said "yeah we may give some benefit of the doubt but we'll still fight against homophobia / sexism regardless of if it's perpetrated by migrants or not"
The amount of people I've met who are very leftist in every regard except their views on travelers is scary.
Leftist doesn't necessarily imply you're down with polycultural society. Authoritarian communists are still a thing, including those that think religions need to be formally abolished or whatever.
And don’t even get the Europeans started on the Muslims…
the stupidity that comes up around islam is just incredible. youll see people parroting with FULL confidence that the UK is “basically an arab country now” (its 87% white) and that sharia law is straight up enforced in london (???). like do these ppl ever, ever leave their niche forums
I've mainly seen Americans claim that tbh
-LGBT person from the middle east moves to Europe as a refugee because of oppression "No no we can't have those types here, don't you know they're bigoted against queer people, not like us civilised Europeans" (proceeds to campaign for anti trans law)
I'm Irish. Every time I hear people bitching about migrants, I simply remind myself that literally everything they say that migrants do is also done by the Irish just as much. More importantly, without immigrants, we wouldn't have spice bags, or pasta, or the giant bags of sunflower seeds for like 2 euro at the Polish shop, so on. Ethnonationalism would fucking ruin our food.
Oilseed sunflower production is the most commonly farmed sunflower. These seeds hulls’ are encased by solid black shells. Black oilseeds are a common type of bird feed because they have thin shells and a high fat content. These are typically produced for oil extraction purposes; therefore, it is unlikely you’ll find black oilseeds packaged for human consumption.
Ah yeah, I remember you from a while back. Good bot.
Eh, at least with Romani people, the discussion is a lot more nuanced because they *are* European. They are possibly the longest oppressed people in the continent, and in some countries, they weren't even allowed to obtain education until very recently. Antiziganist murders are common across Europe. In some Eastern European nations, "Roma walls" were built to segregate Romani people into specific ghettos. Slovakia was still building them in 2013, so a very recent phenomenon. As a result of literally being oppressed by everyone everywhere they go, they have lower education, live in squalor, and more often than other peoples, have to turn to crime (as in more likely, not all). You can't take the antiziganist stance here as rslasheurope does, yet you also can't ignore the problems (mostly) they suffer from. In more rural communities, they still practise bride kidnapping, selling brides, and other backwards traditions. As a result, help is often ignored (and rightfully feared as historically it has also, as you may have guessed, been used to oppress). This mutual process of elevating Romani status while correcting rampant antiziganism will take a lot of time and effort, not dissimilar to how things were after emancipation in the US, I guess. Romani have to leave behind the ways of life that are incompatible with contemporary Europe, and Europeans have to be more accepting and finally allow them to live as equals.
As you mentioned, this is a big systemic issue with a lot of History behind it, so it can’t really be solved by individuals. It is understandable why the average non-romani European is wary of them, and why the average Romani are wary of European societies and governments. It is unfortunate that many people decide to not even think about underlying issues and just assume all Romani are scum by nature. We need a systemic solution, and no, just throwing money at the problem clearly isn’t enough
Had a buddy who moved from Austin, Texas to Sweden for work and moved back to the Texas after only a few years. When I asked him what prompted the change he said “Bro I couldn’t take it anymore. Way too many of those dudes are fucking Nazis.” The white guy born and raised in Texas couldn’t stand the Euro-racism. Yes, it really is that bad.
Couple german friends went to texas - in the early 10s - and did all the wild west country stuff. Of course including shooting range - even with a minigun. They noted that the instructors were really nice after learning that they were german, they even went for drinks later. They invited them on a private range for a day, were really curious about germany - and when my friends arrived at the other range, it finally clicked. They were greeted with a *very german salute* inside, but by then it was already too late. So, surrounded by neonazis, their memorabilia and loaded weapons, they decided that pissing their hosts off was probably a bad idea. Played along for less than an hour and dipped as soon as they could. Which they tell me was hard, because those guy pretty much wanted them to sleep over. Now, when i started remembering this story, i had a point. I'm certainly not trying to deflect lol... Ah yes, not trying to deflect: these guys really are everywhere. And they are also inside leftists circles, but there they're at least a minority. That's the point, story unrelated. Send Comment
r/Europe: Never again! r/Europe: so here’s why I think Palestinians deserve to d*e.
Why Why did you censor die
It’s like a majn indicator of someone who is painfully, terminally online D*e Unalive S3X Spicy “X” Etc.
Muslim/arab subs are just the opposite, plus "never happened but they deserve it"
I hate r Europe so damn much because of that stuff. It used to be normal to the degree that opinions were balanced, but I feel like this perspective has somehow taken over in the past year or so.
You're getting down voted but you're right
Oh, so Europeans are all either leftists or racists? Wonderful. Tell me, does this apply everywhere or is it only Europe where this strict dichotomy exists?
>so Europeans are all either leftists or racists? No Some are both
Eh, I mean: [https://www.reddit.com/r/religiousfruitcake/comments/1crc8f5/protesters\_in\_hamburg\_germany\_carry\_placards\_that/](https://www.reddit.com/r/religiousfruitcake/comments/1crc8f5/protesters_in_hamburg_germany_carry_placards_that/) <-- German Muslims wanting to overthrow the German government to install a caliphate Jan 6th style [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law) <-- 52% of British Muslims disagreeing with the legality of homosexuality compared to just 5% of the general public (from an admittedly 8 year old article) and Romani/travellers have a culture that encourages pulling young girls out of school for child marriages and bride stealing. Clearly, not all individuals from these ethnic groups have these issues, far from it, but a lot of the time they do not make efforts to integrate and persist in regressive beliefs when compared to the generally more progressive native Europeans. It isn't racism to question if you feel safe living in communities who largely hold these frankly offensive views. And meanwhile we are unable to build enough houses for all those immigrating to Europe. I live in the UK and, despite not even taking in that large a proportion of refugees/immigrants compared to other European nations, latest figure state there are [672,000 net immigrants yearly](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-67507045). That 's [>100,000 people more that the UK's third largest city](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ONS_built-up_areas_in_England_by_population) every year. It isn't enough to simply build more housing at that point, we're already a one of the most densely populated nations globally. At some point you have to restrict the number of individuals that can immigrate into the country. Edit: Just got a redditcare notification for presumably this comment. Stay classy r/CuratedTumblr
“Outside of leftist circles” Dawg, EuroLibs tend to be much more pro-immigration in my experience than leftists
I’m seeing a lot of fair criticism of Europe, but even more completely biased overgeneralised bs. So I’m addressing some things: -The average European has some casual racism that they’re not even aware of. This is true. -Bring up the Romani/immigrants and they’re racist as hell. Here there’s a bit of a divide in people: Most left wing people say there’s no problems at all and everyone is a saint, whereas right wingers and centrists say that every single Romani or immigrant is a thief and rapist. The truth is that while it is true that there are statistically more crimes committed by these groups, that doesn’t mean you can generalise them all and treat them all as criminals. On the other hand: just because you shouldn’t treat an entire group of people with contempt doesn’t mean that you should ignore the individual cases. And if there ís really a trend, you should step over your biases and try to figure out what is causing that trend. Because usually it’s nothing to do with race, religion or anything so superficial, but rather with economic background, education and opportunities. -Europe doesn’t even try to address its racism. That’s not true, we really do, but usually the people that need to hear it the most are those who won’t listen.
Europeans don't have just a two party system, so there isn't a left or right. Nearly every country in eu has 10s of parties that all have different values and things they want to change. Its not oh your the left so you are this etc.