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.

Adam can do the magyar shaker

As someone who was down on his luck and actually got to live in a building complex where around half of inhabitants were Roma, i can say, i had mild annoyances with exactly one Romani person(loud music, no personal boundaries, that's it), the rest were of them were extremely chill.
The worst people in that building complex were my fellow countrymen, they were druggie trash of the worst kind.

As a Romanian, I’m seriously offended by the term “Roma/Romani people”. No wonder the entire continent associates us with them, we have by far the biggest gypsy population in Eastern Europe and the “polite term” bears a lot of resemblance to my nation’s name.
Can’t we just call them “gypsies” instead? It’s not even a derogatory term. 😄

I’m from Romania and you are correct :((( thank you for this video

I'm glad in my country it's much softer. Just a topic to talk about over the dinner, and here we can actually talk about the complex issues instead of having to always choose between two options

We all know its not just about Roma or just about racism or even moralty but desperate people making hard decisions from both sides without having enough information

In my City Szczecin in Poland they fight with worst parts of City, by restoring buldings and puting them on market for very good prices. So more educated People was starting living there and those parts started to grow. Crime rates Goes down very sigificant. And after 15 years its safe in those parts. Becouse the poorer People started also had more chances to grow and change their situations.

Europeans: "we are the mostly civilized and developed nations in the world, we are the golden standard of modern society"
Europeans looking at gypsies: "muuh bad culture duuh go back to Asia"

Never though of yourself as a gypsy lover

Horse thieves! Everybody knows.

Because clearly, we're all racist and low-IQ (??? Something you wanna tell the class there?)

What guys like you of course completely fail to point out (cause you never DO talk to these awesome people do you) is how racist THEY are.

Bro realy using age of empires 2 music NICE

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.

This all sounds very familiar🧐

In Ireland, we have a similar issue with discrimination against Irish Travellers, who have been stereotyped and discriminated against in a similar way to Roma people. Irish Travellers who have moved abroad to Britain and America have also suffered from discrimination. People have used a lot of the same arguments used to discriminate against Roma people against the Travelling community.

I'm Slovak and yeah, this is one of the major problems in this central/eastern Europe region. It's like a neverending cycle: Roma people are poor which leads to crime, which then leads to negative public opinion and that causes more segregation, which decreases opportunities for Roma people and then the cycle repeats with more poverty. Mix in the large number of racist and anti-minority people here and you've got a disaster waiting to happen.

Adam, you might enjoy researching the British invasion of Australia and the ongoing genocidal policies toward Indigenous people. You won't be able to cut and paste from this vid 100% but it may tickle your fancy. PS Contact a few Indigenous people to make sure your content is respectful ;)

This is one of the few instances where you side with the colonizers and against the colonized

Wonder Why

It is a disaster to live near them yes.

Oh I thought you were an Engineering channel. Turns out you are just a far lefty. Oh.

Suuure mr. armchair.
But what if their culture simply rejects the help?
They are taken (forcefully) out of schools and some that go are being laughed at and dragged across the dirt.

HOW do you solve that?

This video made me a radical on overthrowing Orban

Bro Antonescu had the best solution to the roma problem.

Poor segregation already happens, and male segregation will never work. The most common type of crime is poor-on-poor, or poor-on-slightly-less-poor, and also men-on-men.

A good and much-needed video.

As an American myself, it really surprised me when I realized just how many Europeans can act in such an extremely racist manner towards individual's who are part of the Roma people.

I was raised to treat people as individuals, and to not discriminate against people based on things they were born into - but to judge them based on their character and their actions.

In the USA, most people now agree that discrimination against people simply for the color of their skin is wrong. Yet you only need to go back a few decades to find widespread rhetoric and even laws that discriminated against black Americans in particular, and it feels like the Roma people throughout Europe are in a similar state. Will it be another 50+ years at this rate before they are treated equally under the law - let alone socially? This doesn't personally affect me, but it always saddens me to see any individual treated as lesser through no fault of their own.

I despite the "Roma" term. Makes no sense since it just means "man". Doma, Gypsy, Tigan were terms always associated with them, and they themselves use it more often. Sure the origin of the word is derogatory but words change meaning with time. Also especially the confusion that adds to the Romanian or Romans.

Growing up, I was taught that there are TWO sides to every story. You did a very good job detailing one side, but what about the other? I'm an American that has been living in Austria for several years now. I'd never met a "Gypsy", or more correctly, a "Roma" until I came to Europe. I don't believe we have a lot of Roma immigration to the U.S. Here in Austria however, we have a lot of Roma, mostly from Serbia and Romania. Unlike Eastern Europe however, Austria doesn't seem to have a history of discrimination or hatred towards the Roma, at least not in modern times. Here Roma have exactly the same rights and opportunities as everyone else and I've not heard anyone from the Roma community complain about being badly treated in Austria.

In one my past jobs in the social sector, I had several Roma clients. I was able to get to know them and understand their history, culture and the challenges they face. I've spent so many hours in deep conversation with my Roma clients, that I could right a book - that's how amazing the stories were that they told me. One of my clients was a young Serbian-Roma guy who immigrated with his family to Austria as a child. He told me that in Serbia the Roma are treated badly at every level of society. At school they are segregated and for breakfast are only allowed to eat whatever's left over by the white Serbian kids. Since his family moved to Austria, their lives have drastically improved because of how much better they're treated here. They have equal rights here in Austria and are treated just as well (or as badly) as any other citizen.

Another Roma client, a large guy in his 40's, told me that there are several different types of Roma tribes. Each tribe has its own culture and tradition and they recognize each other by their last names. The tribe that he belonged to (I've forgotten its name) have chosen to only partially integrate themselves into Austrian society. While they work among Austrians, they live in clusters of Roma houses and follow their own customs and traditions. They never go to the Austrian police or court systems for example, they have their own Council of Elders that resolves all their disputes. Their society is strongly patriarchal, meaning that each man is the unquestioned head of his family. My client lived in a large three story house, his father and mother lived in the ground floor, his brother and his family lived in the second floor and my client lived in the third. At the end of each month all the family members turn over their salaries to the father, who then decides what bills get paid and how much each family member gets as an allowance. The father is seen and treated as a king and his word is NEVER questioned! My client, who must have been 6 foot 4 (about 1.95 meters) and weighed about 250 pounds (115 kg), told me that he once had a terrible disagreement with his father, a diminutive, short tempered man, who then hopped onto the nearest chair in order to slap the proverbial sh*t out of his much larger, 40+ year old son. His son just stood there, frozen and bursting with anger. He raised his fist while his father dared him to strike back. He couldn't, and in the end he stormed out of the house.

He told me that they have their own religion, a synthetic mixture of Christianity and Paganism. They belief in Jesus Christ, for example, and revere his mother whom they worship as the "Black Madonna". They don't believe in partaking in Austrian civil life and instead prefer to host their own events more in keeping with their culture. They also don't go to the Austrian hospitals, instead relying on their own traditional medicine. This client of mine also took part in an underground gambling fight club, which is illegal in Austria. They meet at an abandoned warehouse where they fight until the first person is knocked out cold. He got married at the age of 16 to a girl he'd never met but whom was chosen by his parents. They were married according to their own traditions, meaning not by Austrian law, so there's no legal record of their marriage.

His father was a tyrant who had abused him on many, many occasions. His mother was a docile Hausfrau (housewife) who had almost no say in anything. He explained that many of the problems facing the Roma are the result of a clash of culture, i.e. many Roma traditions are simply not compatible with the laws and traditions of Western societies. For example education is not seen as a priority among the Roma, girls are married off very young and they MUST be virgins. Proof of this is given the day after the bridal night when the blood stained sheets are required to be hung outside the window for the entire community to see. There's a strong preference among young Roma men for large, expensive BMW's and Mercedes cars, and since most of them lack the qualifications to get a good paying job (remember, education is NOT a high priority), they resort to "creative" measures to obtain their vehicles. The main gist of my many conversations with Roma clients is the belief that education is a "Western" thing, and therefore not a part of Roma culture.

My point is, the Roma do face discrimination, but that mainly occurs in Eastern Europe. In Western Europe they're afforded the same rights and privileges as anyone else, yet still seem to live in dire poverty and be disproportionally involved in crime. Given all that I've learned, it's very difficult to escape the conclusion that elements of Roma culture, especially their aversion to education, play a significant role in their lack of economic prosperity.

To be fair, the EU mostly solved the issue by changing the way we name them. Problem solved!

this vid should have millions of views

As a european I must disagree. We have not forgotten the disaster that is roma people.

it just makes me so upset that the only interaction i have with roma people is them playing the accordion in the subway while collecting money from passengers, i wish i could say i had positive experiences with them, but that's the only thing i know them for.

As someone from Spain, I can tell you that Roma people are still terribly discriminated against here. At best, they are allowed to participate in society in a similar way to black people in the US: you can see a lot of them integrated at different levels of society, they are positively known for their culture, but they still suffer housing and job discrimination, are heavily policed in shops and even kicked out of them occasionally and fall under poverty and extreme poverty at a rate multiple time higher than the average. And we are suffering a rise of fascism right now as the rest of Europe, with high likelihood of a fascist party entering government next month, so things are likely going to get worse in the medium term.

roma people hade stolen my bike in my garden for 2times

Yea so I think no one is on board with racism. Right? So again I am against anyone whom discriminates based on race okay? But come to Romania, and tell me how many times do you need to get mugged or begged from or scammed until you start avoiding these people like the plague? Cause for me it took an entire childhood of being mugged with a few occasions at knife point.

You don't deserve basic human rights.

Aaaaw poor thieves.

honestly, as a Pole, I hope that such monstrosities do not lurk in our country, in the sense of treating the Roma and not themselves, but if I'm to be a sage, I don't think so, based on the example of other minorities, such as Tatars, highlanders, and Silesians, the latter said something about independence, unless even they themselves do not take it seriously

are they also called “Cigans” in your country ?

"roma talent" AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA "breaths in" AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I see teachers and people in Romania trying to help their children..with school supplies, food, transport..And then parents decides to not send the child to schools. Teachers are going to their house and emplores them to let their child learn... is..a vicious cicle😢

Growing up in Germany, I was always raised to be accepting of everyone and not discriminate and yadi yada but somehow when it came to Roma the negative stereotypes were only reinforced. "They're the reason for racism again (Slavic) eastern europeans!"; "No, Russians, Poles, Bulgarians don't commit such crimes, they must be Roma!"
Glad that as an adult I've had the chance to unlearn much of what I've been taught growing up and been able to interact with Roma in person as well.

As a Russian, I agree. Roma here are terrible. Asocial way of life, crimes, drug dealing, etc. Everyone hates Roma here, and that's really deserved.

You're a champion, this was an awesome video, thank you so much for it. Life is still hell in he UK for Romanichal at scottish/welsh/irish travellers, but this gives me hope that things will get better

My personal experiences cannot be changed no matter what. It's better to put up your guard when around them.

Here from Spain. Had some Roma classmates through the years. Was very saddened that mid year, their families took them away so they help them work in the amenities at all regional festivities (all kind of portable stores and whatnot). So yes, it's definitely something to do with poverty. But also, they live immersed in a very shady and difficult culture that is very hard for them to escape, even when that poverty aspect is no longer present: from violence to trafficking. The part about the poverty not being always a factor is because I know some families first hand. One of them lives in a house bigger than mine at the other side of the street, and that family specifically is shady AF. The sad part for me is that even when the kids want to, their families don't let them, so the cycle continues. As far as my experience goes with them, that's what I have seen, and it truly saddens me.