Oh that's good. It's really hard to figure out how one could help roma in Greece. The situation doesn't seem to be getting better. Now they're being scapegoated for covid. Thing is, they're kind of segregated from the rest of society so there isn't a lot of communication, and if there isn't communication, how are we supposed to come up with something better? I really don't know, it's all very hard and confusing. I don't know how much experience you had with communities in Greece, but what are some of the things you think most people would like to be changed and what are the main problems they're facing?
Oh, there's also the horrible drug epidemic... That makes things even harder...
I think the main problem can stem down to Roma facing extreme job discrimination. Lots of people don't want to hire gypsies just due to racism. So then we make very little money, cannot afford better housing or running water or heat, and then we beg on the streets or steal to survive, or our kids drop out of school to try to get jobs to make money. That all contributes to people viewing us as uneducated criminals which leads to more job discrimination, so it's a vicious cycle. So I think Roma just being able to get good jobs would help immensely. Wouldn't solve everything, but if we just had a chance to let kids be educated and not live in a horrible "house" then it would be lifechanging. There's a million little and big things I could list here, but I think that's one of the main things.
And yeah, can name countless relatives of mine who suffer from addiction. It's also a pretty bad cycle there...
I think the main problem can stem down to Roma facing extreme job discrimination. Lots of people don’t want to hire gypsies just due to racism.
Makes sense, definitely agrees with what I have observed.
So I think Roma just being able to get good jobs would help immensely.
How do you think this could be done? The fact that Greece has such a high unemployment rate for everyone also complicates things...
The worst I heard was from a friend who studies medicine and worked in hospitals for a while. Apparently there's tons of roma children ending up in hospitals with horrible and rare infections, and doctors often try to give them as many vaccines as possible for the time they stay in hospitals because most are unvaccinated and they probably won't ever come back to get vaccinated some other time. It feels like the whole thing is taking steps back, like, a few decades ago it seemed like there was starting to be some kind of cultural communication etc, there was many very famous gypsy musicians (for instance Kostas Hatzis), gypsies were more visible and there seemed to be some kind of progress. Now it's like gypsies and other people aren't living in the same plane of existence, especially after the drug epidemic.
I mentioned Covid before, the issue is that there's outbreaks in their communities so the government forces them into lockdown. But how are they supposed to survive if they're under lockdown? Almost none of them have "normal" jobs. So the result is that they defy the restrictions, which in turn means they get fined a lot (the fines have actually gone up to 500 euros now, it's sick how much the government is trying to exploit the situation, it's as much as many people earn per month), and other people are getting angry at them because they blame them for covid spreading. It's a horrible situation.
I wish I had a good answer. It would have to start with dismantling antiziganism really, and I... don't know how to do that. Or if it's entirely possible at this point. And you are right about it being more difficult in Greece. It struggles alone as a country. I think few outsiders realize how bad it is in Greece, especially for the most vulnerable or alienated. So I don't truly have an answer.
I think a lot of shit has happened over the past few decades to cause stuff like that. Increase in drugs, increase in far-right thought and thus antiziganism as a whole, and many of European countries suffering financially too. As for the vaccine stuff, a lot of Roma distrust doctors. We face a lot of medical racism. Women to this day get sterilized without being told. So a lot of us go unvaccinated, and it's not good. I get why many of us do that, but it's still not good.
The lockdowns definitely hurt. And without proper supply of food/money, lockdowns do nothing but make people suffer if they still need money. This article I read this morning talks about it a bit if you're interested. It also goes into the educational segregation going on right now with online classes, and many Roma not having internet access. Romani life expectancies are already much lower than non-Roma life expectancies in many countries. Covid is really going to nail that in much harder in the following generations I am afraid.
Thanks, it is really interesting. Is there somewhere where I could learn more about gypsies and news, especially gypsies in the Balkan area?
Btw the thing about the online classes being inaccessible for some people was brought up by the left here but people were laughing and saying shit like "haha come on everyone has access to the internet lol" :doomjak:
Everything is just so bad... And I hate how powerful the new right wing government is and how impotent COVID has rendered the left... Shit sucks... And it's just so much harder to do anything for marginalized groups when even the non-marginalized groups are doing so bad.
Is there some smaller issue that should be straight forward to solve but no one does it that you can think of?
http://www.errc.org/ is really good! They don't update as frequently as they should, but it comes from Roma voices for the most part. http://www.romea.cz/ is good too if you translate the stuff.
Oh god I didn't see all that conversation. If I had, I would've went off. It is incredibly unrealistic to think everyone has Internet access -- even some Americans don't. Jeez.
Hm, I mean there's a lot of little microaggressions that happen. Like store owners following around gypsies who enter, people crossing the street as to not be close to gypsies on street, people assuming we are all liars or criminals or pickpockets. So if someone hears someone or a friend do or say shit like that, they should speak up. Little things go a long way eventually.
I mean in Greece, not this forum. Leftists did bring the issue up.
Hm, I mean there’s a lot of little microaggressions that happen. Like store owners following around gypsies who enter, people crossing the street as to not be close to gypsies on street, people assuming we are all liars or criminals or pickpockets. So if someone hears someone or a friend do or say shit like that, they should speak up. Little things go a long way eventually.
I mostly meant in terms of legislation, it goes without saying that bigotry should be addressed when it pops up, although in Greece when it comes to gypsies it is less microagression and more, like, mega-aggression. Like, gyftos is literally slang for someone who is uncivilised or rude as you probably know and it is casually used all the time.
In terms of legislation, that's hard too. I'd probably start somewhere with schooling. Like even non-segregated schools have subliminal segregation usually enforced by teachers or administration. But it's hard. In a world where stuff like free housing isn't really a thing, I'm not sure what could be done. Tsipras kinda leaned on the idea like "if you all just got educated, you would earn your equal rights" which. Lol. But still, starting at the schooling level could help.
Also god. I hate the ~G word is a slur debate cause, whatever there's intricacies there. But shit like Γύφτοι, tzigane, zigeuner. Those words really hurt.
I'm actually always confused about what most prefer to be called and what they use to describe each other. It's confusing because I have heard many of them use γύφτοι, as well as Roma and some other word that I didn't quite catch.
Tsipras kinda leaned on the idea like “if you all just got educated, you would earn your equal rights” which. Lol.
Yeah well Tsipras was the master of doing nothing whatsoever. But now Mitsotakis is even worse, and the worst thing is that he is completely unchallenged and literally all media except for like maybe one channel and a few newspapers that no one even reads any more are 100% with him. It's gross. And then you have people like Kougias who will just go on live TV and say just the most vile stuff about Roma as well as everyone else pretty much and yet he is never blacklisted for some reason.
And really covid just seems to either drive people more left or more reactionary. It’s scary.
This has happened to some extent but the thing is the left before was capable of going out and protesting, talking to people in the workplace and universities, etc. But now nothing can be done.
It's weird because you can feel the growing distrust towards the government, but it is not reflected in opinion polls AT ALL. They look almost exactly the same they looked like a year ago. Idk if they are all bullshit or it is just because Tsipras shit the bed big time and now there is no opposition. The dumbasses at KKE thought Syriza would be demonstrated to be bad and then people would flock to the REAL leftist party, KKE, but that's not how it works and instead Syriza just took the entire left down with it.
Oh that's good. It's really hard to figure out how one could help roma in Greece. The situation doesn't seem to be getting better. Now they're being scapegoated for covid. Thing is, they're kind of segregated from the rest of society so there isn't a lot of communication, and if there isn't communication, how are we supposed to come up with something better? I really don't know, it's all very hard and confusing. I don't know how much experience you had with communities in Greece, but what are some of the things you think most people would like to be changed and what are the main problems they're facing?
Oh, there's also the horrible drug epidemic... That makes things even harder...
Yeah, it's very difficult.
I think the main problem can stem down to Roma facing extreme job discrimination. Lots of people don't want to hire gypsies just due to racism. So then we make very little money, cannot afford better housing or running water or heat, and then we beg on the streets or steal to survive, or our kids drop out of school to try to get jobs to make money. That all contributes to people viewing us as uneducated criminals which leads to more job discrimination, so it's a vicious cycle. So I think Roma just being able to get good jobs would help immensely. Wouldn't solve everything, but if we just had a chance to let kids be educated and not live in a horrible "house" then it would be lifechanging. There's a million little and big things I could list here, but I think that's one of the main things.
And yeah, can name countless relatives of mine who suffer from addiction. It's also a pretty bad cycle there...
Makes sense, definitely agrees with what I have observed.
How do you think this could be done? The fact that Greece has such a high unemployment rate for everyone also complicates things...
The worst I heard was from a friend who studies medicine and worked in hospitals for a while. Apparently there's tons of roma children ending up in hospitals with horrible and rare infections, and doctors often try to give them as many vaccines as possible for the time they stay in hospitals because most are unvaccinated and they probably won't ever come back to get vaccinated some other time. It feels like the whole thing is taking steps back, like, a few decades ago it seemed like there was starting to be some kind of cultural communication etc, there was many very famous gypsy musicians (for instance Kostas Hatzis), gypsies were more visible and there seemed to be some kind of progress. Now it's like gypsies and other people aren't living in the same plane of existence, especially after the drug epidemic.
I mentioned Covid before, the issue is that there's outbreaks in their communities so the government forces them into lockdown. But how are they supposed to survive if they're under lockdown? Almost none of them have "normal" jobs. So the result is that they defy the restrictions, which in turn means they get fined a lot (the fines have actually gone up to 500 euros now, it's sick how much the government is trying to exploit the situation, it's as much as many people earn per month), and other people are getting angry at them because they blame them for covid spreading. It's a horrible situation.
I wish I had a good answer. It would have to start with dismantling antiziganism really, and I... don't know how to do that. Or if it's entirely possible at this point. And you are right about it being more difficult in Greece. It struggles alone as a country. I think few outsiders realize how bad it is in Greece, especially for the most vulnerable or alienated. So I don't truly have an answer.
I think a lot of shit has happened over the past few decades to cause stuff like that. Increase in drugs, increase in far-right thought and thus antiziganism as a whole, and many of European countries suffering financially too. As for the vaccine stuff, a lot of Roma distrust doctors. We face a lot of medical racism. Women to this day get sterilized without being told. So a lot of us go unvaccinated, and it's not good. I get why many of us do that, but it's still not good.
The lockdowns definitely hurt. And without proper supply of food/money, lockdowns do nothing but make people suffer if they still need money. This article I read this morning talks about it a bit if you're interested. It also goes into the educational segregation going on right now with online classes, and many Roma not having internet access. Romani life expectancies are already much lower than non-Roma life expectancies in many countries. Covid is really going to nail that in much harder in the following generations I am afraid.
Thanks, it is really interesting. Is there somewhere where I could learn more about gypsies and news, especially gypsies in the Balkan area?
Btw the thing about the online classes being inaccessible for some people was brought up by the left here but people were laughing and saying shit like "haha come on everyone has access to the internet lol" :doomjak:
Everything is just so bad... And I hate how powerful the new right wing government is and how impotent COVID has rendered the left... Shit sucks... And it's just so much harder to do anything for marginalized groups when even the non-marginalized groups are doing so bad.
Is there some smaller issue that should be straight forward to solve but no one does it that you can think of?
http://www.errc.org/ is really good! They don't update as frequently as they should, but it comes from Roma voices for the most part. http://www.romea.cz/ is good too if you translate the stuff.
Oh god I didn't see all that conversation. If I had, I would've went off. It is incredibly unrealistic to think everyone has Internet access -- even some Americans don't. Jeez.
Hm, I mean there's a lot of little microaggressions that happen. Like store owners following around gypsies who enter, people crossing the street as to not be close to gypsies on street, people assuming we are all liars or criminals or pickpockets. So if someone hears someone or a friend do or say shit like that, they should speak up. Little things go a long way eventually.
I mean in Greece, not this forum. Leftists did bring the issue up.
I mostly meant in terms of legislation, it goes without saying that bigotry should be addressed when it pops up, although in Greece when it comes to gypsies it is less microagression and more, like, mega-aggression. Like, gyftos is literally slang for someone who is uncivilised or rude as you probably know and it is casually used all the time.
Ohhh my bad. Misread that.
In terms of legislation, that's hard too. I'd probably start somewhere with schooling. Like even non-segregated schools have subliminal segregation usually enforced by teachers or administration. But it's hard. In a world where stuff like free housing isn't really a thing, I'm not sure what could be done. Tsipras kinda leaned on the idea like "if you all just got educated, you would earn your equal rights" which. Lol. But still, starting at the schooling level could help.
Also god. I hate the ~G word is a slur debate cause, whatever there's intricacies there. But shit like Γύφτοι, tzigane, zigeuner. Those words really hurt.
I'm actually always confused about what most prefer to be called and what they use to describe each other. It's confusing because I have heard many of them use γύφτοι, as well as Roma and some other word that I didn't quite catch.
Yeah well Tsipras was the master of doing nothing whatsoever. But now Mitsotakis is even worse, and the worst thing is that he is completely unchallenged and literally all media except for like maybe one channel and a few newspapers that no one even reads any more are 100% with him. It's gross. And then you have people like Kougias who will just go on live TV and say just the most vile stuff about Roma as well as everyone else pretty much and yet he is never blacklisted for some reason.
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This has happened to some extent but the thing is the left before was capable of going out and protesting, talking to people in the workplace and universities, etc. But now nothing can be done.
It's weird because you can feel the growing distrust towards the government, but it is not reflected in opinion polls AT ALL. They look almost exactly the same they looked like a year ago. Idk if they are all bullshit or it is just because Tsipras shit the bed big time and now there is no opposition. The dumbasses at KKE thought Syriza would be demonstrated to be bad and then people would flock to the REAL leftist party, KKE, but that's not how it works and instead Syriza just took the entire left down with it.