this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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one day we were hanging out, when somehow the topic of the Roma people came up and he referred to them by the derogatory term that starts with a G. I figured he was just ignorant of it, so I told him that it's really not cool to say that and that he went on a whole rant about how romani were "bums" and that "all they did was steal" and that "you would agree with me if i met one." He gave a few anecdotes about how he saw a romani person in line at a grocery store and said they stank, giving this as justification that they are all "bums." When I kept calling him out on saying the G slur he told me to grow a pair, because "people are gonna say stuff you don't like." I was really confused and shocked as he had shown me nothing of this and I was pretty sad. I feel so angry that this kind of discrimination is so god damned common among americans. I cant wait to get out of this hellhole

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[–] eight@hexbear.net 52 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] blakeus12@hexbear.net 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 20 points 1 year ago

Oh nvm I misread, that makes sense

[–] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Anti-Roma discrimination is extremely virulent in Europe, and generally accepted among even the social liberals

[–] johnmccainstumor@hexbear.net 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I wouldn’t call it a w but in the united states Roma are unironically white passing, elvis is the biggest example of this. The european brand of racism didn’t translate to the american kind 1:1. american racism is more centered on anti-blackness while european racism is more religious/nationalist. I do think the american version is becoming the more dominant form thanks to amerikkka’s unparalleled cultural dominance but Roma people suffer worse under the european kind, the same could be said for Jewish people.

[–] rootsbreadandmakka@hexbear.net 11 points 1 year ago

Elvis was roma?

[–] JohnBrownNote@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago

we had g-slur fortune tellers in carnivals for a while but even within that context nobody here knows shit about stateless european ethnic minorities. if you're really lucky maybe somebody knows enough about the holocaust

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago

Race has basically nothing to do with the discrimination these people face here in the UK. It is culture formed around anyone following traveller lifestyles and all of them face near identical discrimination for it as if they're all one and the same, regardless of ethnicity.

[–] hexaflexagonbear@hexbear.net 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is your new friend European? If so generally safe to assume they're racist against Roma people until proven otherwise.

[–] hexaflexagonbear@hexbear.net 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You can tell a European is starting to trust you if they tell you "Hitler was right about Roma people" in a slightly hushed tone.

[–] VILenin@hexbear.net 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hushed tone? They are very enthusiastic about spouting their bigotry.

[–] PointAndClique@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Exactly, case in point Jimmy Carr's Holocaust apologia joke (cw: racism, Nazism)

[–] Anne_Teefa@hexbear.net 4 points 1 year ago

Pretty sure I know which special this is without even looking, and I generally liked seagull man for a few, if often, crude jokes, but that kinda put me off entirely...

The most liberal European when asked about the Romani:

[–] blakeus12@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] huf@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago

haha, there it is. we're such lovely people

[–] itappearsthat@hexbear.net 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Sorry dude that fuckin sucks. I don't know whether it's just because I'm older or better at sussing stuff out but it's really hard to meet new people that aren't fucking racist. Hell half the friends I had from my 20s developed racist and/or transphobic beliefs.

[–] Truffle@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago

This happened to me too. Met up with a friend from college days (20+ years) for lunch the other day. We were really close while studying, spent holidays together, etc. Then life happened and while messaging each other from time to time, we had not had the chance to meet up again. Midway through our meal, he started telling me he was suspended that same week from his job (teacher at a preppy college) for calling a student by their dead name on multiple ocassions. I told him that yeah, that is rude, cruel and uncalled for and he should get a lawyer because what he did is fucked up... he then started rambling about forced inclusion and men's rights and chromosomes blah blah.

It broke my heart in a way because we were such good friends but now he is just too far gone for me to be able to have a relationship with him.

[–] viva_la_juche@hexbear.net 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Had pretty much this exact experience with a friend of mine. Only I had some clients that were Roma who were wonderful people. A little extra but very nice and always brought me food and stuff and when I would bring that up she would just be like “ok well they’re nice but that’s not how most of them are!”

[–] blakeus12@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago

ugghghg it was literally this. i asked him how he could possibly claim that they were ALL "bums" and he kept justifying it

[–] AlicePraxis@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago

embarrassed to admit that I was close friends with a guy for many years who would say shit like this since we were teenagers. american who visited his family in europe once or twice as a kid and came back racist against romani people. and frankly had a lot of other bigoted and generally misanthropic views, which I would regularly call out and push back on, which became incredibly exhausting. fuck, I wish I could have found more friends who were cool and chill instead of this racist reddit gamer debatelord dipshit

[–] rootsbreadandmakka@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

americans. I cant wait to get out of this hellhole

I hope you’re not going to Europe because it’s much worse over there

[–] blakeus12@hexbear.net 11 points 1 year ago

oh hell no, i'm going to china

love when people are like "um how can a word be racist it's just a word" and "these people are subhuman btw and i hate them" in the very same breath

[–] Sickos@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago

Had an ex who constantly described their preferred aesthetic using that word; never really got through to them that it was problematic.

[–] glans@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago

I've gotten this exact speech a couple of times.

If I only knew what they were really like I would understand why they are so widely reviled.

[–] Mickmacduffin@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

How can he hate the Romani? Has he not seen the Hunchback of Notre Dame?!

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"If you said that about a black person you'd be a social pariah" usually works for me but I don't know if it's different over there in america. Pointing out that what they're saying is literally identical to anti-black racism is usually a shock to the system but tends to sink in at least a little bit.

[–] blakeus12@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

i said that, and he said "no i love black people" and continued spewing the most vile, nasty shit

honestly witnessing the frictionlessness of this kind of socially acceptable racism really makes me wonder just how thin the taboos against overt racism actually are. like white americans used to just say that shit about black people all the time what, 50 years ago? and now supposedly we're post-racism because they learned that you can't say the N-word?

[–] farting_weedman@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You should move to England. Their attitude towards Romani is much more cosmopolitan.

[–] blakeus12@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i would rather die than move to engl*nd