Let's keep it civil, folks.
She stayed there until the morning, when my aunt found her, and we didn’t had any details until weeks later: as I alluded to, most of her friends had died because there were in a Resistance network with her mother and her. Giving water to the stereotypes that Hitler defended was something she could not accept to do. But the thing is: most people in her village met with the same fate that night or the one after, and had less qualms, so we put two-and-two.
I got myself beaten down at the ATM by a group of five; they stole my maximum cash-out, and when one of the group was caught, a 6’2” guy with muscular physique, he claimed that he was 12 and could not go on trial; he had no proof of this because he was a nomad and had a constitutional right not to show ID. He was released immediately, and went on to attack the waitress at the corner bar, at the same ATM. That made national news.
A couple weeks after that, I was at a TEDx event, and a Roma representative was defending their actions, wondering what kind of back-ward neo-nazi could imagine something so hateful as Roma stealing. They just had a “different perception of property, that’s all”. That stroke me as candid, so I wanted to tell him my stories, genuinely to explain: you talk to some Romas, but others… they are not like that.
You know, a version of: racists don’t like dealing with gang-bangers, you talk about Childish Gambino… We need to explain how the same childhood can lead to different path, try to pick the right one.
Nope. Not that guy. He openly said it was my fault that my grand’mother died (she’s alive, and fairly well for a 97 years, although she walks with a cane) and that I was wrong to let her alone (my grand’ mother hates my father, I have no idea why, and always insisted we never lived with her; she likes me, but I suspect that’s because I look like my late grand’father). I asked if he though it was normal to tear people’s house away, when their lives depended on basic comfort. He clearly responded that I had a narrow view of property, and that these guys were far more skilled than I was at recycling things.
That guy was not a fringe in the Roma community, but the highest level representative to the national government. Other people at TEDx described barbaric episodes, and he kept insisting that we wrong, showing open contempt for people who were still shocked by a loved-one being attacked, maimed, for precious heirloom stolen… He was repeatedly using “gadjo” as an insult. It was sickening.
Also, you know how they say that one should listen to people's experiences, and that tone policing it a way to shut down inconvenient discourse and secure one's stereotypes? That's very much true, but it cuts both ways. If a black guy told you that he's seeing a pattern of dismissive and hostile behavior towards himself from white people, would you consider that a racist observation? I wouldn't, and I'd believe him, too. And that doesn't translate to "white people are bad", either, but there is clearly a cultural aspect in there that cannot be ignored. Such aspects exist in other interactions, though, and the oft-repeated assertion that they are only relevant when the victim belongs to a disadvantaged social group doesn't have any rational basis.
I think I was just seeing a flood of unconstructive racist comments before they got flagged.
The facts themselves aren't racist, but the things I'm expecting the reader to infer from them are.
I'll defend your right to make racist comments with one hand while I call you out for making them with the other.
This is the anti-intellectual America that I fear. Decisions made based on PC doubletalk. Folks discredited and ignored because they don't talk the official line.
The thread appears to have changed since then. The early comments were garbage.