Roma People - Europe's Forgotten Social Disaster 

Reading through the comments, I'm relieved to find 90% of them positive and constructive. As for the rest, I'd like to address a few points: 1) Personal experience. If you got robbed or beaten up by Roma, I get why you'd be iffy about them. However, consider that you are afraid of "Roma" as a group now, and not "men" as a group. Why is that? Because you meet positive male examples every day in your life. Your brain can thus make the connection that "men robbed me =/= all men bad". The same doesn't apply to Roma though, because maybe you don't encounter positive examples of them often enough. So do those positive examples exist? Yes, they do. Rates of racism against Roma is the lowest in areas where the majority society lives together with Roma. The same goes for Black people, Mexicans, etc. Trying to build your perception of a group via personal experience is unhelpful to say the least. 2) "They don't want to integrate." First off, you don't know that. You feel that way, and that's okay I suppose, but do not present that as proof or evidence. Until you bring in data showing that the majority of Roma don't want to integrate, this argument cannot be taken seriously. Roma absolutely want to integrate. Are there cases where some say "fuck it", and won't do it? Sure, but why is that? The short answer: because society doesn't suddenly become tolerant and accepting towards Roma who want to integrate. Even those Roma will get the same shit, the same barriers, the same racism, regardless of their efforts. If this wasn't the case, Roma would never be denied work or accommodation. But they are, because most Eastern European societies are still largely racist towards them. And if 60% of society thinks you should be deported back to India, it might cause some issues in some with regards to their willingness to integrate. Here's a good rule of thumb: read what you wrote about Roma, and swap the word "Roma" with "Blacks". If you don't come across as a KKK member, you're probably good. If you do, it's probably time to consider your internal biases. That's all for now, happy commenting! I'll check back periodically and purge any overtly racist / low IQ comments.

As a Slovak when I was much younger I was convinced that "gypsy" was a synonym for "thief"

Living in France, Roma people is the one group you're allowed to be incredibly racist toward without any kind of repercussion

Living in Czechia, my boss hired a Roma to work in the accounting firm I work at, with good pay, on a non-customer facing job. Was very hard working and productive for several years, before she quit due to pressure from her family, with her being a "race traitor" for working for a non-roma. Felt really rough about that

As someone with a Roma background, the reality is that i was thought that stealing, fast cash, easy money is the way to be rather than getting an education. My parents didn't talk to me for 2 years when i went to college. The issue is generational and stems from racism, but the problems are real and i can attest this myself!

i am sure that the comments section will be 100% civilized with no racial incidents whatsoever

“The topic of poor segregation is not discussed” That’s by far the most common type of segregation. It’s not discussed because it’s already the norm.

I'm Greek. One time a police officer told me "you know you can just kill them and burry them and we won't do anything if you're not reported or if their families come looking for them." encouraging me to commit a hate crime. I can not imagine the hardship my Roma friends deal with every single day of their lives.

The amount of people in these comments who think "Roma" means "Romanian" is equal parts hilarious and depressing.

europeans taking about american racism: they are so evil europeans taking about Roma People: *my lawyer advised me not to finish this joke*

I was almost the victim of this segregation in school myself. I am a half Roma from Slovakia with a Roma surname and when I was 6 and was about to go to elementary school I was for some reason automatically put into a class for kids with 'special needs'. Mind you all the kids in that class where Roma. My white mother had to spend days fighting the principal, following her around the entire school until she persuaded the principal to put me into a regular class. To this day I think that was the most important thing anyone has ever done for me and my life would be unimaginably different that it is now if I was put in that class. Those kids were never given any chance. Yes on paper they did have the same curriculum but teachers never gave a fuck about them, openly talked about how they don't like to teach in that class, and treated the kids as subhumans from the moment they were taught to read. Almost noone from the 'special needs' kids finished high school as far as I know. In the mean time I am getting PhD in neuroscience so I don't think there was something wrong with me or them but they were just not as lucky as me. And I saw this happening over and over to so many people. Yes there are some Roma that cause problems but many of them were never given a chance.

When i was a teenager one of my best friends was from a roma family. being in close proximity to her throughout our teens i really noticed how unnecessarily hard everything was made for her from classmates and teachers but also her own family who gave her shit for actually pursuing education. she got Abitur and studied to be a teacher last i spoke to her. i hope she is well.

I worked in a school in a socially disadvantaged part of my hometown in western Germany. There were no real problems with the Roma children (all of Romanian descent), they were sweet, and usually well behaved children, much more so than many German children. However, none of them went to school more than three or four times a month and some suddenly disappeared in the middle of the year. We tried contacting the parents repeatedly, but to no avail. I think these children were just robbed of a possible education, and I do not see why.

Hell yeah, time to learn about something mundane or aggressively depressing in society, sometimes both!

Poverty is absolutely the number 1 indicator for criminality. Whenever people point to increased criminality in marginalized and vulnerable communities that have been systemically oppressed and kept in poverty, all they're doing is showing how ignorant they are and that they think criminality is something inherent rather than something largely born out of societal failures.

It's utterly insane how even in overall progressive history classes, we learn absolutely nothing about the Roma.

I think there's generally a host of issues that needs to be adressed. One problem is that many Roma families, as a result of facing poverty and discrimination for so long, also have developed a sort of crab bucket mentality and actually take offense if a family member (especially female ones) tries to pursue a higher education or work a more professional job. There are definitely some cultural issues, though most of them are also a result of discrimination, that make integration more difficult.

You know, Danes have this tendency to be so incredibly full of ourselves about how "progressive" our society is, and how we solved racism or whatever, but you still get the police of Copenhagen making announcements on Twitter about where the "Gypsies" are being spotted.

As a fellow Hungarian many of you guys would be in utter shock and disbelief what the everyday person says here about them. It’s almost that I barely met anyone who even tried to take their defense. Even people with diplomas are outright completely racist and hateful against them, way more than they ever are to other people of color. I had to strip away my own racism against them over the years and I’m just the odd one now for ever daring to say something positive about them Follow-up: during my life all the bad things that are associated with Roma did happen to me personally and to my family: I was beaten up as a kid and harassed by other Roma kids, also some of my belongings were stolen by Roma kids, my family home was terrorized by another Roma family, also some of our animals were stolen by impoverished Romas. I also remember vividly how two Roma kids when they were moved into our classroom, they only were allowed there for a few weeks since all children complained how bad they smelled and they were immediately removed (whatever happened to them?). As a consequence anti-Roma sentiment was rampant in my family but also I gathered lots of frustration against them personally, but when I finally educated myself in human rights issues in my adult life I realized that all these biases I held against them still are completely unfair and inhumane to hold against all of them, as an ethnic group, since every group of people without exception has unpleasant individuals. It's simply morally inexcusable and lacks education to blame an entire group of people for their worst members. Plus I understood that when you are loathed and discriminated and shunned out all your life, as the Roma are, it's so damn easy to become unpleasant with other people, it really is. I realize it can be pretty hard for many to take the high ground and be empathetic to them as group, when we also had bad experiences with them, but being tolerant and understanding is the only way to make them feel welcomed in our societies. People who feel welcomed will most often treat you nicely too, that's all human nature, regardless of ethnicity.

As a South African a lot of this rhetoric sounds very familiar. It seems racism never changes

I once was screamed at on the bus to leave and not steal anything like the "gypsy" I was. The guy went very silent when I answered in a Southern Italian dialect.

I'm a white passing roma woman, and while the hate for roma people aren't as strong in western europe it's still noticable. I'm rarely afraid of mentioning I'm a lesbian to new people, but mentioning I'm roma is something I avoid unless I have to. I'm not ashamed, but it's so tiring that I can't get myself to do it anymore. While we spoke a dialect of romani language at home, I never learned to write it because my parents never learned to write it (written romani is relatively new). Which makes it hard to communicate long distance with relatives, and in many ways I feel disconnected from them. Since I don't want to live the traditional life of a roma woman, getting married to a man and all that, it's been easier to just live as non-roma. Being able to pass as non-roma has made my life easier, but the cost has been denying who I am. A choice many roma don't have, but also shouldn't have to make if they can.

I was in southern Poland visiting my family for a wedding a few years back. While we were there man broke into my grandma's apartment and took everything while she was sleeping in the night. He then broke back into the apartment at 6 am returned all of the items and then chastised my grandma for not having multiple locks on her door. He apologized for taking her things and gave her advice about how not to get robbed. The first thing my polish aunt said after hearing this bizarre store is "yeah gypsies are just weird like that". They found the guy who did it. He wasnt Roma.

One of the strongest memories I had from my childhood during the late 80s was when we visited my father's family in Hungary, and my dad showed us a segregated area where Roma people lived. I was only 7 at the time and it had a long lasting effect on my life. I saw poor people, malnourished, living in dilapidated houses with broken glass and boarded windows. Back then I didn't understand the systemic nature of it, but I'm eternally grateful that he showed us what poverty truly looked like up close at that age, it set me apart from my privileged Swedish friends, and I gained a lot of empathy towards others and always found racism and class segregation horrifyingly evil. It taught me to always be empathetic, welcoming and kind to people of other ethnicity and social background... And guess what, I have only been treated with kindness back.

I am from Romania and during the BLM protests in the US, people here were writing BLM and ACAB on buildings everywhere but when I tried to talk to them about systemic racism towards Roma they would start talking exactly like an American republican. It's deeply saddening that we follow the American trends mindlessly without applying the same logic to ourselves or trying to think for ourselves. I think your video is amazing, thank you for talking about this

A while back I gave a superthanks to you in a livestream because I appreciated your efforts "to make things suck less." You seemed puzzled at that wording, but you hit that note again here. Identifying clear, concrete examples of how we willfully make our world suck more and put forth effort and energy toward the goal of encouraging people not do that (whether it be through presenting better alternatives or shaming unrepentant shitheads) is exactly what I was talking about. Thank you again.

My great grandmother was Roma. My family doesn’t speak about it. I am the one in the family who inherited some of her traits and I was constantly remarked that I look a bit darker than the rest of them (slightly), it’s not even obvious to most people. However,having a Romanian passport I felt the racism and discrimination. I’ve been treated differently, denied housing I was able to afford, insulted with racial slurs, denied jobs, etc… and all of this being a white woman with certain facial features. These experiences have made me realize how hard it must be for the Roma community and I really do care about this topic. My family, friends and other people around me are blatantly racist and they seem to not care at all… all of the points you covered in this video are extremely familiar to me. I thank you for this video. We need more awareness about the discrimination they face. Why is it ok for people to be racist against this very specific group but not others? Wtf is wrong with our society?

I've heard several times people saying randomly something like "I don't like black people, but they're better than Roma". Double racism in just one sentence! The racism against Roma is so normalized that even politicians are openly racist against Roma and they get popular with that.

One issue with roma people is that in some cases there is also self-segregation. In middle school i had a roma classmate that came to school on average just 3 days a week, later on we discovered that she was attending school behing her parents backs and then when they found out they barred her from ever leaving their community. Or another example was when my uncle was drafted in the italian military and ended up with a roma guy in the same plotoon, both him and his parents had italian citizenship and had integrated into the wider italian society but they kinda regretted it since doing that basically meant being banished from their original community and family. Theres really a vicious circle of hatred and ignorance going on on both sides.

My primary school in Portugal was next to a slum where Roma people lived (they are now in social housing) but my school did not segregate us. Lots of them were problematic and smelled bad (obviously, they lived in horrible conditions), but I played with two Roma children who became my friends for a very short time before they moved away to the capital. Thanks to being exposed to "good examples", and having a father who educated me on the impact of poverty, I never drank the koolaid and always defended Roma people growing up. But I was alone in that, and "weird", people would laugh at me thinking I was joking. It's horrible.

As a Ukrainian, I often feel guilty about how well our refugees are treated compared to some other minority groups, such as Roma, Syrians, etc, despite the fact that they suffered no less, and in many cases even more. And I think it's sadly due to the fact that they are simply precived as "non-white".

I'm part Roma (Lovari), but I can "pass" as non-Roma because of my name being Scandinavian. It is a bizarre experience to be talking to people who have known you for years, telling them you're Roma, and then watching their entire demeanor change because they "just thought you had dark features." Even more bizarre to go through official systems via online means (university admission, doctor's appointments, and apartment hunting for instance) where you're treated like a person, and then be treated like a criminal when meeting the same person you've been emailing face to face. Thank you for making this video. Roma are generally really private about their culture and you addressed this in a way that focused on Europe's reactions to and assumptions about us, rather than the cultural reasons some non-Roma may use as an excuse for their racist behavior. Great video.

As an individual of Roma descent hailing from Serbia, I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to relocate to Vienna, Austria, when my parents made the decision to do so. Presently, I am employed in the esteemed position of working within the Parliament, enabling me to make a meaningful contribution to society. Had I remained in my ancestral Serbian village, I would not have been bestowed with the same advantageous prospects that have been made available to me in Vienna, a city renowned for its progressive nature.

While i am not Roma, I am half-Greek half-German, I got a darker skin complexion and I've had experienced plenty of racism from since i was a kid from people that thought i was Roma. The issue is pretty bad here in Europe and it sucks that even some of the progressive folk refuse to either acknowledge the issue or are just straight up racist themselves. Thank you for shining some light on this

Every supposed non racist country has at least one group they're outrageously racist towards, you just gotta learn where to look. I remember seeing people talking about how "yeah, the west is really racist, but that's not a problem in places like Japan" and just laughing my ass off

As a south american who migrated to western europe 2 years ago, I still struggle to undestand why people hate this specific group of people and how they can recognize and differentiate them from other people on the street.

Intro is actually gold. Racists love to pull FBI stats as proof of their racist stereotypes (instead of proof of what being a second class citizen for centuries does to people but I digress) but the moment you pull out the facts about how many terrorists are male, how many homicides are committed by male people... Suddenly it's not a matter and does not mean anything.

I'm Spanish gypsy. 'gitano'. Strangely enough we are maybe the only ethnic minority in Spain that is accepted as actually being Spanish. The Spanish are very racist as per recent la Liga discussion. But as a gitano there is no question that we are Spanish and never any question about us being foreign and needing to go back home or anything. There are prejudices. But there are always prejudices by everyone towards everyone

I am from Russia. When I was 5-11 years old, my best friend on the playground was Roma. We lived in the same apartment block. He was from a "normal" family with no shady stuff. Though there were some Roma "characteristics" - when you entered their apartment, you suddenly felt like you'd teleported into the French Versailles with so much fake gold and ostentatious "richness". But they were nice people and they liked me. Once, they even took me to a Roma wedding - they rented a huge hotel space, with hundreds of guests and relatives, a lot of dancing, and loud music (ai na ne na ne!). It was fun. Being friends with him was natural. We didn't care about nationalistic biases and just played together. When we grew up, I met him again and we talked about the life of Romas. He told me that during Soviet times, the state forced Roma to abandon their "nomadic" way of life, compelling them to work and sending Roma kids to school like everyone else. Also, the state built the Roma Theater (Google 'Romen Theatre') and it became a huge cultural and intellectual center for Roma people, aswell as offering job opportunities for many and good instrument to improve public image of Roma people.

I had a friend in elementary school class who is middle class, just a regular kid, good at foreign language and geography, not great at math, your most average kid. After we became old enough to realize that he's a Gypsy "disguised" as a "normal" kid we all stopped handing out with him, I think his family left town.. literally, evil society.

I work in school education I had two Roma girls who were good and smart students with a chance to go to college and get a scholarship but the family and environment forced them to get married and not finish high school. one already had problems when she wanted to go to high school after elementary school, she finally gave up (I know it wasn't her choice) in the last grade she was already married then her husband and his family forced her to leave school. My husband's friend is a roma man when he was 16 years old he hid from his family (ran away from home) because they wanted to force him to marry a 14-year-old girl he did not know. He succeeded because he has a strong character and told his father that he will run away abroad and never speak to him and he is too young to get married

As someone who grew up in Sweden in the 80's, I can confirm that the outright hostility and racism against "gypsys" was strong and widespread. I still, to this day, hold inherent biases against roma people, even though I don't want to. It's so deeply ingrained into me by my upbringing.

4:13 I can understand most of what's written so I will explain it for anyone interested. It's basically an ad for a sale in the form of licitation of 10 young gypsy men, 7 women and 3 girls adding that they are in fine condition. The time (in the noon), the date (8th of may) and the location (a monastery) of the licitation are also mentioned.

Oh thank god, someone sensible! I've seen way too many times where someone is spouting anti-Roma rhetoric and I'm just left asking "Wait, so how is this any different from any other form of racism?". The answer usually of course boils down to "Well you see, because they are Roma, and you know how they are." Really appreciate seeing something that affirms that I am not the crazy one about this!

Had something similar happen to me regarding housing (Netherlands) - renter sent me an email straight up asking for my ethnicity, to which I answered that I am polish, and he promptly replied saying "oh sorry actually I'll give the apartment to my daughter". ?? what Can't imagine what actual minorities go through, it's crazy.

I am gipsy from slovakia and i live near hungarian border. I am happy that there are people like you. I often feel like, there is not a lot of people which still care about this topic. I liked part where you said, that being gipsy is like living on hard difficulty :D To be honest, i would rather not think about it. I just try to live like other people. I was born as gipsy and i wil die as gipsy :D There is no point of crying about it, complaining about it. However, its important to talk about theese problems we have. Its important to say your opinion and try to educate people, help people understand. I would like to say more and properly thank you. But its really difficult for me to use english. I still have a lot to learn.

Finally someone said it honestly it's a problem in the Czech Republic especially and it's strange that it's not talked about more and it should be

“Unless your goal is to cause suffering to [groups] you don’t like” Half of America: “Yes, that one please.”

had an argument with that uncle(tm) he really hates romani people (he never met them tho). he was like "why dont they just buy a house in a nice neighbourhood and ask for better jobs?" and i asked him "would you sell them a house and hire them for your company?" and he said "I WOULD NEVER DO THAT!" i guess it was too much to assume that he would get the point i was trying to make

My mother is genuinely progressive in many ways, which is why i was absolutely shocked at her response when a few Roma people moved in near our house. 5 years later, i haven't heard of them doing any wrong, and my mother still insists they're some of the 'good ones' and it disturbs me. Thanks for making this video because while i felt she was wrong and told her off, i think my lack of education hindered me from really making a proper argument

I grew up in an area full of roma people and my family were always extremely condescending towards them, especially 13-14 year old kids who already had kids of their own (which is absolutely disgusting, but it's not THEIR fault). My parents were also really scared I could get snatched away at any moment and instilled that fear in me EDIT: as a spaniard, i thought it would be interesting to add that the word "gitano" (gypsy in spanish) is NOT a slur. Gitanos themselves use it and are not offended by the term. Instead, they are offended when people use the word in the sense of "thief" and other similarly derogatory and incorrect ways. Gitano referring to a roma person is encouraged and perfectly fine. It's in English and other languages where the word is seen as offensive. Just wanted to clarify in case you see gitano be used to refer to roma people in spanish; if it's being used as an insult to anyone regardless of ethnicity and with the meaning of "thief", "unorganised" etc, it's an insult. If it's being used to refer to a roma person or any roma thing, it's perfectly okay

Beautiful video. As a Hungarian, having discussion about this topic with my fellow Hungarians is very difficult. Sometimes I'm straight up discusted what some of my friends can say about Roma people, while being left leaning or liberal.

8:10 my grandmother literally did that half a year ago. A fire had started in her bedroom. She saw the smoke from outside the bedroom door, and she went to sleep inside another room instead. Luckily a neighbour saw the fire in the bedroom window and called the fire department who rushed in and got her out. Thankfully She was unharmed, and we've managed to get her in a good home.

Ostrava, Czech Republic here. I actually live in a commie-block where couple of flats are rented to Roma families (usually the shitty ones in ground floor or in the 12th floor where the lift does not go). Like twice a year there is neighbours session to take care of the house's stuff (most flats are owned by indivual owners so that's why). It is usually sth like 2 hour session where like 20 minutes is solving and/or proposing actual problems. The rest of the session usually contains of every owner bitching about our Roma members (they are poor but relatively well adapted families, the problem is, they vigorously insist on keeping being Roma, which is apparently an insult for most of the flat owners). So I deem the message of the video accurate.

The main problem with some of the traditional Roma groups is that they are, CULTURALLY, not allowed to assimilate and integrate. I have good Roma friends and neighbors (well, my brothers neighbor). My friend married and when he had kids moved into the apartment next to my brothers. His kids go to same school of my nieces, etc. Couple weeks ago, we were at the lunch party for one of my nieces Baptism, and we (group of friends/neighbors) spoke for a few hours about the "Gypsy problem". My friend and his wife (both Roma) explained how a lot of Roma groups are not allowed to integrate at all. They are ostracized and kicked out of their family/groups if they try to live among non Roma or marry outside of their groups etc. My friends own family disowned him simply because they decided to live among non-Roma and have their kids go to schools and have non-Roma friends, etc. Thankfully he tells me things are changing fast and this sort of cases are rarer by the day. Also, he used to be a target of discrimination/racism when he was a kid (he is 38 now), but he says nowadays his kids/himself are no longer suffering from the same things anymore, and that the state support he received over the years was a big part of why he ended up "leaving" his friends and family, because he got a proper house and subsidies to help his family. He got a free, and later, low rent, apartment that he now bought under a special arrangement and his kids have subsidies for free school meals and books etc until university. When both his kids reach 18, he will lose all "special Roma" subsidies and be treated like any other person/family. I'm very well familiar (as an observer) with the Portuguese and Spanish "Gypsy" integration over the last couple decades, and let me tell you, it hasn't been easy, but nowadays, the "integrated gyspys" far far outnumber the non integrated Gypsy groups or the Gypsy criminal clans and scammers etc you see in tourist spots for example... And most gypsys are now just like any other Spaniard or Portuguese in the eyes of the "natives", in fact, a lot of their cultural traditions were incorporated by the locals, like the music, dances, etc. I honestly thing the integration of Roma people has been much harder than normal, much harder than middle eastern people for example, specifically for the reason I mentioned at the start. For many years, Roma simply refused to, and the way they were treated for many years sure as shit did not help. Sadly many are still badly treated, but, at least in the places I know well, like Portugal and Spain, its incredible rare to see Gypsy camps, full of trash everywhere, and temporary "houses" made of scrap metals and whatnot. These were VERY COMMON 20-30 years ago. It's sad how long its taking, but I truly believe that this issue will be completely gone in my lifetime.

I don’t know how this systemic oppression still is so quiet in this day and age. I’ve asked so many video essayists to make videos but they’ve always been silent or not knowledgeable enough. Thanks for this video!

I think the issue with roma people is not a race issue, but a cultural issue. Growing up in Budapest, I had a lot of connections to roma people. My family was nearly the poorest of all due to family tragedies. That means, all of the roma children around me were richer. Literally we were living on the same street, got the same education (up until middle school), they have had waaay better financial status. But guess who got children at 15? Me or them? Guess who fihished university? Me or them? Obviously they are not inferior racially. They were smart, fun kids, also, good friends. But their family values and traditions differ so much. And not just in bad ways. Their family oriented view of life is pretty admirable. That's why I say that a lot of them truly don't want to integrate. Those who want, can. I have a friend with a roma wife. She integrated pretty well, even though, she came from the worst part of the country. About the renting of flats... I live in a some kind of commie block. The block owns 12 flats. Those flats are rented. One time our administration decided to let a roma family rent it. To rent a flat like that, you have to be middle class. So it's not about them being poor. They trashed the place completely and moved out without paying anything. Now we had to pay for the renovation. My mother worked on governmental social programs before 2010. They weren't successful. And not just because the leaders stole the money. But because it was thought that all the problems are coming from them being poor and nothing else. So giving them money, flats, houses should be enough. Well, no. The government issued new houses to roma families. From the reports of the social workers, some families just removed the wooden floor and lit it on fire (heating equipment was provided), some used a certain room as a toilet (toilet was included, they just haven't used it), some just sold the windows and when winter came, they were complaining about the cold, but there were stories that they just sold the house brick by brick and returned to the ghetto. Yes, saying sht like "Roma people are inferior" is blantant racism and stupidity. But on the other hand, if we do not recognize the cultural differences, their cultural priorities and don't figure out a way how can we incorporate their values to the majority's culture, then we won't solve sht. Being "less racist" and more accepting won't help a lot.

I'll probably get a lot of stick here, but I think the problem is double-edged: - I lived my whole life in Ukraine, in a city neighborhood which 1/4 of population of Roma people, my classmates were Roma, and my neighbors are Roma - They usually drop school around 5th/6th grade, not because of they are unable to study, but because they "don't need to", although kids want to study, the parents are the deciding factor here. - There is a huge wealth inequality amongst the Roma community, you can see some minor part having 4 story mansions with marble floors and driving s-class Mercs, and the majority are below poverty line. It can be the same neighborhood - The main issue is that the poor Roma who make money through the criminal activities, or semi-legal stuff have to give up the majority of their income to more wealthy ones - There is a "baron" who's like a leader of the community and usually the richest guy, he get the cut from what the poor Roma earn, offering them "protection" from the police etc. - Therefore the poor Roma can't leave this cycle, they always have to give up their earnings, and if they don't they'll be simply thrown away from the community to the world where they are not "protected"

Communist authorities would stick Roma people in former german neighbourhoods, thus automatically forming ghettos by default. You are putting traditionally nomadic people into hard to maintain buildings, and then do a pikachu face once those burgeoise neighbourhoods crumble into dust.

In the Uk it's pretty bad, middling in treatment of Roma people overall compared to Europe, but still bad. I worked in a Primary school with a sizeable Roma student population. Overall, things were okay. Bar one year, where they felt threatened, so they grouped up to protect one of their younger relatives from what they thought was bullying (it was just friends falling out). This scared the other non Roma children as all they saw at break time was a huge "gang" so they started to form their own "gang" which caused a vicious circle for weeks.... took ages for all the staff to slowly defuses the situation

It's insane to me that while segregating jews is unthinkable today because of the holocaust, the Romani who had 75% of their people wiped out in the holocaust get no recognition or sympathy.

When my mother was a child, all the local teenage girls had a crush on this one Roma boy. It would be many years later that she finally understood why the boy's mother had a number tattooed on her arm, though😔 (in case it wasn’t obvious, it was a _KZ-Häftlingsnummer_ - an identification number from a concentration camp)

Roma are the minority in Europe most affected by statelessness. Children will not be registered when born, or a child born to stateless parents will not be granted citizenship of the country they are born in. Also, as national borders changed in central/Eastern Europe, Roma were intentionally discriminated against and refused citizenship. Thank you so much for talking about such an important and underreported issue!

I live in the Netherlands and all I was ever taught about Roma is that they were also targeted by the nazis. The more topics like this I see, the more my political conviction shifts from equality to equity.

I am living in one of the poorer cities in Germany, Halle (Saale) and even in one of its poorer districts, Neustadt. At the same time, I volunteer at a local "community games club", where we offer a safe space to play boardgames, card games, Tabletop and Pen&Paper with friends, host regular events etc. I am very proud of what we are doing for the community, especially since we recently started opening up our club for afternoon activities for kids and it has been very well received by them and the parents alike. Why do I comment this under this video? Because Halle (Saale) has a huge population of refugees, foreigners and non-white germans. Even our main representative in parliament is black. But at the same time, I have never seen a black, Turkish, Syrian or Roma person regularly visit our club. This saddens me, because I often wonder, what could be the reason for that? Are we not advertising enough? Is liking these kinds of activities way less popular in their communities? (I say it like that, because we still are kind of segregated, if not by law, but by social "norms") Or could it even be, that they are just not welcome in the part of the city, where our club is located? We at least have a lot of queer people and I think even one or two Ukrainian refugees visiting the club regularly, so I have hopes for the future, but still, I often wish I could do more to promote integration, but don't know how.

I have a European coworker who once made a comment about how Europe is much more advanced than the American countries because they don’t discriminate against anyone based on race and was trying to paint Europe as a picture of social harmony. I responded “don’t y’all literally have an entire ethnic group of homeless people?” and he legit said “Who? The Gypsies? They’re only like that because they’re too stupid to function in society” The cognitive dissonance he must have to hold both of those opinions simultaneously is astounding 😂

Am from Bulgaria. During the Socialist times. Romas where discriminated yes, yet the government actually tried to integrate them because that's more working hands. In general housing, school's and etc. were provided yet a big majority just didn't want it. They have very strong religious practices and are not keen on abandoning them and that just stops them from integrating. Fast forward 30 years. I have Roma friends i have had both good and bad experiences with Roma people and i won't lie am racist. Yet i fully respect Roma people who work hard and integrate i got nothing but praise for them it makes me have hope. And like bruuh the most confusing part of all of this there is a big divide between Roma people, those who integrate dispise the ones who are almost comprable to savages. They are borderline racist. In general I don't know a solution to this complex problem at least here very tried and failed.

I have a feeling that despite channel history and a pretty solid and well-established position on things, this particular time Adam and the audience are REALLY gonna bump heads and lock horns

About that last point you made: Spain hasn't completely integrated Roma though. They still are sometimes viewed as inferior. They still tend to be disproportionately poor and live in sub-par housing. Thankfully, nothing close to what you are saying about segregation and such. Here they go to public school as anyone else, but as the lady from the NGO said, when they arrive home they tend to lack an environment for properly studying, their family also not usually being able to help them. I've lived my whole life basically next door to a Roma family and they seem to be stuck in a poverty cycle. They are not bad people, I know some from high school and they are nice to talk to, my father also says hi to one of the fathers of the family that he knows. Nevertheless, I feel like from not completing education properly, their children just end up not being productive citizens. But there's probably also a family component, like, pressure to stay with the family, which ends up being an environment that hinders the development of those that want to improve beyond poverty. I hope the situation gets better for them.

As a Romani person, thank you for this video! We have been trying to say this for a long time but it’s like talking to a wall (literally). I’m glad more people are waking up to the how Roma around the world are treated and how inhumane it is.

I'm from Poland. Where I grew up people would tell you to check if the door was closed not because a thief could come, but because a Gypsy would come and steal from you. A man (not even a Roma, I think, just not white) came with another man (white) to a place where my father worked, just so the white man could confirm that the man is not a Gypsy and he is there to actually do business. I could go on and on, it's so disgusting...

In my experience a lot of supporters of segregation don’t want to engage with the fact that helping Roma people integrate is a really long process that can take a whole generation to accomplish. On the other hand, (at least in Slovakia, where I’m from) our fascists have a much “simpler and more effective solution”. It is frightening to se them gain popularity around this issue, because a lot of people are racist towards Roma and refuse to engage with their situation on a human level. Great video btw. I love that you are rising awareness about this.

As a brown American, one of the things that really shocked me about living in Europe is how many racial/ethnic issues are boiling under the surface. America may have a bad reputation on race issues, but at least our racial issues are widely discussed, and only fringe groups deny outright that they exist. Living in France, I experienced every bit as much racism as I did in the US, if not more. I'm Native American, so I would often be assumed to be Roma, or North African, and both of those groups deal with a LOT of bias in Europe. I was also surprised by how much blatant anti-semitism is in Europe. Like in many places it seems like Jewish people are still very much thought of as a different race of people, and not in a good way.

As an American, it's so refreshing to see Europeans on the internet talking about Romani in positive way. You guys restored a bit of my faith in humanity.

Its a sad reality, i was once descriminatory to them when i was a child due to me being with my dad, working on markets, where unfortunately most '-phobic' ideas come from. Luckily I escaped that line of thought but many dont, its an issue in most countries that is not addressed

Adam's giving George Carlin vibes and I'm here for it.

As someone who volunteered in Poland during the ru invasion outbreak, I've faced discrimination towards Roma refugees. But on the other side, they were the most problematic group causing a lot of trouble. Even though I understand that it comes in big part from a lack of integration options for them, but this behavior makes it hard for people to get warmer toward them. So it's a bit of a vicious cycle

Honestly, as a Dutch person I was shocked to see that most of my Eastern-European university colleagues were outright spitting racist rhetoric despite claiming to be “rational thinkers” who do BP debating.

As a Czech ( non- roma) I am well aware of the problem and the idea of vicious cycle was the one I came to in my own time. Thank you for covering this problem. It is concerning how no-one talks about it.

Absolutely amazing work and I've been saying these points for years. Please, make a Hungarian audio track of this video if you can (or a separate video, perhaps unlisted if that's an issue - but I guess Hungarian subtitles could help as well). I know I'm asking a lot of work but I really want to share this and (as you probably know) English knowledge is really lacking here (in Hungary). I'd also love if the very people who can't get a good education and thus even a proper chance at learning English could understand this too. People need to understand that ethnicity is not the issue and it should not doom anyone by default. That is horrible. It is very much a socioeconomic issue so we need real social and economical solutions to live people out of this cycle of being stuck in poverty, staying uneducated and having to live in inhumane conditions. This is what breeds the crime and health concerns people are worried about not race.

Before I write about my experiences with segregation as a Romanian in this awful situation, I want to say that I hate using the name "Roma" because it often leads to the stigma associated with them being associated with me and my family. People often mistakenly think that Roma and Romanians are the same, so I will be using the term "gypsy" whether you think I'm racist or not. Due to my very poor family, I had to live in a gypsy neighborhood close to Bucharest, and oh Lord, the segregation was terrible. Despite my family's poverty, being white allowed me to attend much better schools (by Romanian standards, although they were still subpar). The school was not far from a gypsy school where I would often visit friends from my neighborhood. Those schools were overcrowded, barely functional, and had minimal to no security. Fights would constantly break out, vandalism was everywhere, and the underqualified teachers assigned to that school because they failed the teacher exam did absolutely nothing other than stay in the teachers' room. This pattern repeated itself at every level of education. The kindergarten for "Romanians" was nice, small, newly built, colorful, with parks and, of course, fences separating it from the kindergarten for gypsies, which was a tall, gray, overcrowded, communist-style building with no play areas. I know this because I had friends there. At least I could play with my friends in the neighborhood, or so I thought. However, most of them were forced by their families into child labor to alleviate their family's financial problems. I would often see them on my way home from school, selling probably stolen products on the streets. They were looked down upon, ignored, or treated like garbage, even by my friends from school who were all "Romanians" and were taught by their parents to hate them. But if the scorn and hate weren't enough for the gypsy kids, their parents were not much better. They would often beat them for not bringing in enough money. The parents were often the ones inflicting most of the abuse, beating them, tearing apart their clothes, and sending them to beg on the streets for money. They even subjected their children to sexual assault. The children had to live in decrepit, fallen-down houses in inhumane conditions, alongside their 10 other brothers and sisters, because the parents didn't want to spend any money on birth control. The next section might be disturbing as I will discuss gypsies, mostly children, with whom I had contact and who died. However, those families couldn't afford to feed so many kids, so most of the time they only kept the boys. The girls existed mostly for sexual favors or to be married off to someone else for money. With so many kids living in such terrible conditions, many of them died. I was friends with some kids who died due to these living conditions. The typical causes of death were starvation, physical injuries, diseases, and wild dogs. I knew one kid who was killed by the numerous wild dogs in our vicinity, and I heard of three other cases like this that happened in my neighborhood. These kids would go to abandoned factories for Prune Mirabelle trees to have something to eat, as those places usually had the highest number of wild dogs. I myself have been chased by them many times. Despite all these deaths, the government never made any attempt to do something about those wild dogs. If I, a Romanian, had died there, perhaps something would have been done. I also met two girls, sisters, who were sexually assaulted by their parents, then abandoned and left as orphans. At that time, they were living under a tree, sleeping on cardboard boxes. The government didn't even try to get them into an orphanage. They died of hypothermia during a strong rainfall, and to make matters worse, they were right next to the hospital where my mother worked. Imagine dying of hypothermia next to a HOSPITAL because the hospital wasn't for gypsies but for Romanians. I actually got severely injured once and broke my arm. The forearm bone was no longer connected to the rest of my body, and the closest hospital was one for gypsies. Initially, the doctors asked for money to move me up on the waiting list, only to commit malpractice and then put me on another waiting list where I remained for two weeks. During that time, my mother had to bring extra food because I was only receiving one small meal per day, and the doctors did nothing to repair my arm. In the end, my mother pulled some strings to get me transferred to another hospital on the other side of the city, which was, of course, a hospital for "Romanians." While my friends, who were often beaten by their parents and bitten by dogs, had underage pregnancies, lived in crumbling houses, and had to go to that hospital where the likelihood of being killed was higher, I went to a hospital for Romanians that did its best to solve my problems. I even had enough food from the hospital, a park to stroll in, and a TV to pass the time. The place was clean, modern, and looked nice. So despite living in a gypsy neighborhood, I still received the Romanian treatment. Now, I have grown up and moved to Germany, where I am often treated like a gypsy. But honestly, life is still better than living in Romania as a Romanian. However, I have severed contact with all the gypsies I knew from home because over time, society turned them into the same kind of people who made their lives like that. They treat their children the same way their parents did and never help their families out of poverty. They are just as unable to read and write as their parents. It has been over a decade since the time when the above-described things were happening. I have never returned to that neighborhood since I was last beaten up when I went to see acquaintances. But from what I have seen more recently, as an outsider, nothing has changed or too little has changed. And it doesn't look like anything is changing. The occasional park for kids, repainting infrastructure to make it look better, and adding garbage bins to prevent people from creating piles of garbage in the open are merely band-aid solutions. The system is still as rotten as it was ten years ago. The garbage piles have grown larger, and the bins have been vandalized. It is clear that to make a difference, as a country, we need to help improve their financial situations rather than just beautifying the place so they can suffer in a nicer environment. Thank you for reading this far in this extensive comment that is much older than the video. I hope this helps you see how dark the segregation in Romania is and how the system is at fault for often raising gypsies into monsters who do nothing to alleviate the stigma placed on them and instead make it worse.

Living and growing up in England, I saw a few caravans here and there, and we'd drive past them and my mum would say "oh those are gypsy caravans", but I never really interacted or heard much about them, positive or negative. Honestly this video is the first time I've been made away of the vile, violent racism against their people on the mainland, it honestly reminded me massively of learning about Jim crow and segregation in America. It's shocking and disturbing to hear that similar things are being done to people still, when Roma people just seem like any other group of people to me.

Adam seriously earned my absolute respect of being the most sane and realest person to ever grace the internet. I swear, I wish I would have known him Much MUCH earlier instead from his "Cities Skyline" Presentation of different extreme societies.

As a Greek I really appreciate this video. Many Greeks talk about Roma people the same way I presume people in the dark ages talked about fae and other fictional races. Also I really love that the opening was a parody of these awful alt-right videos.

The oversimplification of the Roma problem is basically "Survivorship bias". You notice only those who are poor and anti-social. Those who are middleclass and atleast high school educated are not noticed. But there is still racism when it comes to housing and education to even those "lucky ones". Most of the "lucky ones" abandon their Roma identity and assimilate (you can call me out on this one, cuz I have no source for that, only my perseption).

Adam, you are a real gem. I am very grateful that you are raising the topic of war in my country and opening my eyes to such problems in the modern world. Keep it up!

I lived in Romania for a couple of weeks with some "Hungarians". I was completely shocked by the blatant racism. They where so nice about everything else, and i really connected with them. Then they started talking about how "sadly the best solution to the Roma problem is genocide" basically. Them and everyone else in the village where openly throwing racist remarks towards Roma people just going about their day or doing their job. It felt like in other areas like in Serbia and Bucharest they where much more accepted into society, while in Hungary and Transylvania the racism was brutal and open, this was just my impression though.

As a black person that lives in United States this video hits extra hard 😢. Next time I’m in Europe I’ll definitely add time to do some volunteer work to help

I have very conflicted thoughts on Roma on one hand I've had very bad experiences with them but also very good ones since I grew up around them. The thing that really brings sour feelings towards Roma is due to a blood feud that is unfortunally traditional. The Roma family that my family is very close to got into a feud after a precieved slight after a drunken arguement had their eldest son murdered. The first person in their family for generation to be sent to university murdered and it spiraled with revenge over and over it lasted for so many years it made me cynical and very critical of Roma culture and I realize it is not fair to look at all of them with suspicion. It hurts being suspicious of due to personal experience even though logically I know they are just people like the rest of us yet I can't shake that irrational emotional response. Another gripe I have is that the Roma family that I consider friends to this day are considered race traitors by other Roma since they are actively part of society. I think the self-segregation and distrust towards everyone who isn't Roma comes from centuries of persecution but it still hits that irrational and emotional part of my brain. I want to be able to let go of this negative view in the future but it feels like I'm stuck in this vicious cycle of bigotry towards majority of Roma and having great love for those Roma who has been close to me all my life.

Someone living in Spain here. Had a conversation this week about the Roma population. My friend grew up in Madrid, now living in Valencia. They had a lot of bad experiences with the Roma people. Being bullied as a gay kid up to getting harassed by kids about their disabled father. Overall, it seems the Roma people here tend to stick together to protect themselves and many of the politicians and police are afraid to confront them. It's interesting that you mentioned the integration of Roma people in Spain, at the end of your video. Perhaps it is better than in other countries but there's still some issues.

Honestly this always comes back to poverty, most cultures now a days aren't as violent as all of our predecessors (usually due to very violent groups tend to be torn down), there are some exceptions but it always comes back to poverty being the issue. Poverty breeds criminality due to factors such as being unable to support ones family, lack of food, being looked down upon, poor management from local officials, and it much more. It all leads to a circular issue where you can't even trust the people you see in areas with poverty, even if you are one of those people (when I was younger I was in high poverty areas and everyone was looking over our shoulder, after moving out our old house was shot up due to gang dispute). The best fix for this is some kind of balancing out of the people who are in poverty.

My ex-girlfriend was born in India and grew up as an adopted kid inside a German household. Once she told me about a holiday trip to Croatia where she was "chased away like a stray dog" because of her looks. It clearly showed that she was treated like that because of her skin color, the local Croatians thought that she was a Rom and treated her like they would treat a Romani person. She was also often racially profiled by the police and had many completely unnecessary police encounters and a bad view of the police as a result of it. It was however weird when I found out how she actually saw the Roma herself. When she was talking about an encounter with a supposedly(!) Romani pickpocket in a trip to France, she complained about how the Roma supposedly profited from their own past suffering during WW2, kind of implying that they were untrustworthy and a criminal nuisance. It's always absurd how entrenched anti-Roma racism is, if someone suffering under anti-Roma racism still condones some of those hateful stereotypes in an uncritical fashion.

There's something about the way people will cast blame across a whole group. The "Them" is always monolithic, all the same and negative traits apply to all. But for "Us" we're always misunderstood, picked on, and victimised. With violence, the same people will see a violent member of another group and believe it proves the stereotypes. But a violent act of a member of their own group and they will even celebrate it as a show of pent up frustration, righteous anger at how victimised "our" group is.

lot's of good points were raised in the video, they indeed have it rough. But speaking from personal experience, many of these hardships are self--inflicted. At the school I used to work at, we did so many things to help them, despite their circumstances. But the children and their parents squandered every opportunity that was on the horizon for them, and after a while all the teachers felt very disillusioned about helping them with anything. We bought them clothes, school supplies and all that, but they just burned most of those things at home after a couple days. We couldn't give them textbooks because we already had a very short supply of them and we knew they would just use them as fuel. Their parents complained that it's hard for their kids to come to school since it was in a different village, so we actually managed to get a school bus for them, yet none of them took advantage of it, so after a couple months it was stopped. I tried for almost 2 years to teach them at least the basics, like counting and reading, but most of them had zero interest in it. IIRC out of ~50 kids in 2 years, only 4 of them learned to read, and 2 learned how to do basic arithmetics. We also had to cover for them all the time, so that they or their parents don't get arrested for stupid shit (mostly theft and drugs). In the end there was an incident involving a couple of "our" roma kids (12 and younger) kidnapping and then gangraping a mute&deaf roma kid from a different school, I just quit and blamed my resignation on my upcoming diploma work. ME and my colleagues wasted hundreds of hours on trying to give them a chance in a proper life, but in the end we had nothing to show for it. So I do understand why so many schools just straight up segregate them and don't even bother with giving them any education whatsoever. Because of the lack of any education romas in general find themselves in a very difficult environment that only reinforces the vicious cycle of poverty and crime.

As someone from Portugal, there is definetly a major issue with Roma people in general, but even more pronounced in the interior. They are often avoided, feared, and discriminated against by police. One of the most frustrating things about this issue is that there seems to be no good solution proposed by politicians. The only people that mention this problem is the far right whose solution is simply segregation, other political groups just straight up ignore the problem like it's taboo. Another issue is that many Roma communities deny education for their children, especially for women. There are even some communities that are still nomadic people and travel in caravans from one town to the next. If one of the main solutions is education, how can we educate people that culturally opose it? This issue has encouraged a lot of people from the interior (who traditionally were far-left oriented) to start voting far-right, as they see one of their problems being addressed, while historically the central government has, and continues to, ignore and neglect these regions because they are sparsely populated.

I remember last year seeing all the stuff that has been said about Roma people. I couldn’t believe how blatant the mistrust and hatred could be! Also I hear Charlie Chaplin had a Roma grandmother himself.

I'm from spain. Yes the situation here is much better, but in some regions discrimination and casual racism against them is very much present (but much less serious than the examples presented). This is mostly seen in the northern part of Spain

I think that getting Romas to work in heavy industry like steelmaking, locomotive and machine in particular was not as evil idea as it might seem (if it was voluntary ofc). There are jobs that are traditionally more in tune with their cultural heritage involving smithing, horses, music and arts. I believe that actually giving the kids some preference in education and jobs in associated fields could help fight poverty and reconnect with important cultural and historical function. You see back in a day in Poland when traveling Romas would arrive in a village it was a joy because they would fix things like pots and tools for you and they had high quality horses to trade and breed. So smart people would greet them with open arms and gifts and throw a party, which was always a blast, because you know a lot of that cool Slavic folk music you might have heard is actually Roma influenced.

As an American listening to Roma people talk about their experiences, it sounds scarily similar to what black people here went through before the civil rights act. They need their own civil rights movement, to have people fighting for them to have equality and to stop the cycle of poverty and racism.

Such a great video. I was a fan of the channel already, but this video is way beyond what I'd have expected to see. Thank you kindly for covering this topic, it's very important that as many people are informed about the issue as possible, and the way you presented it leaves little room for doubt as to what's actually going on.