Comment by EB-Barrington | Hacker News Reader

Comment by EB-Barrington | Hacker News Reader

Post author here.

Stolipinovo is one of several European Roma communities that I have visited over the years (several times now), and it's the largest that I'm aware of. The photos in the post are representative and true of how the area actually is, and I'm happy to answer any questions (forewarning, I'm not an expert).

If I were to emphasize any one take-away - it's the friendliness I experienced from the locals. Sounds cliched, but look at reality - I was taking photos in a place where I don't particularly belong (it's kind of my hobby since "retiring" from tech), and you may assume that a poverty-stricken, much maligned group of people would be wary of "outsiders".

Indeed, the exact opposite was the case.

edit: with regards to racism, a story I was told in the same city is perhaps the best example of just how far Bulgaria (in this example) has to climb. I asked a local Bulgarian friend why I didn't see Roma working at the local restaurants. He said that would be really bad for the business - to have a Gypsy waiter, or cashier, or in any "public facing" role. I voiced my assumption that perhaps they were working back-of-house, in the kitchen. He said they weren't - if the public found out a Gypsy was working in the kitchen, most people would never dine at that restaurant.

Incredible photos and a great story. Thanks for putting this together. People forget all too easily how everyone in this world is trying to live their best life with the resources they have. That becomes exponentially more difficult when someone treats you as less of a person for whatever delusional reasons they rationalize in their minds.

Thanks, my pleasure.

Thank you for your article. I now know more than about my country than before. We have similar ghetto in my home city Burgas, but due to my grand-father working in the area, and my mom too - never felt that much threatened.

You use the word "gypsy" a lot. The Roma I've met consider it very offensive, almost n-word level offensive. Is that not the case in Europe?

Not that I have encountered. Perhaps all of the Gypsy/Roma I have spoken with are too polite to let me know otherwise.

Here in Czechia many use the 'vulgar' variant (cikán) themselves. I wouldn't use it in my writing though.

It's "циганин" (tsiganin, or ciganin) in Bulgaria. But this is now deemed offensive, hence roma.

In Brazil (which has a sizeable Romani population, and had two Romani presidents), the direct translation of this, "Cigano", is still the one officially used.

I didn’t know that Brazil had two presidents with Romani origin. According to Wikipedia they are Juscelino Kubitscheck and Washington Luís.

Interestingly, many variants of that word in different European languages. See section Exonyms in:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people

It’s complicated. Ultimately it’s rude to refer to anyone by their skin colour, ethnicity or racial “group”. There are almost no situations where it’s appropriate.

In the US and certain upper-middle class echelons of other Western nations, maybe.

Outside of that bubble, though, it ranges from neutral to positive to acknowledge a person's ethnicity.

This is how I understand the world to be too

Lol at the nominative determinism!

I didn't even realise. That's hilarious!

Although at the NGO level activists claim that "Roma" should be used instead of "gypsy", it is very common when talking to Balkan Roma to be corrected by them: “Don’t call us Roma, we’re <locally used exonym equivalent to ‘gypsies’>". Obviously their own endonym is Rom, plural Roma, but they sometimes bristle at outsiders using it.

I have the impression those being better off, with (somewhat) higher social status, education being better connected to the majority population find "Gypsy" to be derogatory.

But once I met a poor family referring to themselves this way, so a bit perplexed and curious I rather asked them directly if they consider themselves being Roma or Gypsy... only to get an ambiguous answer.

Edit: I met that family in the eastern Slovakia.

It depends. Sometimes, older people will call themselves "Gypsy" and may even correct you if you call them "Roma". But younger people have been taught that "Gypsy" is an offense, so they will get offended if you use the word.

As a long-time "hobby" photographer of street and neighborhood life in certain parts of Mexico, I'm curious, how did you build rapport with the locals for the sake of your photography, and that friendly acceptance. I'd love to hear any advice or observations you have.

Just be kind, confident, honest, and friendly. As with most things in life - practice practice practice.

Of course, but were you frequently asked why you were taking photos? In your case, what explanation would you give? Wonderful shots by the way, and thank you for your reply.

Thanks for the compliment! Yes, I was asked several times that day what I was doing. My explanation was "I'm just taking photos". Lame, but it works if you show a little smile.

Exactly what I've done so many times! Good to know it works just fine in other contexts.

Be a white English-speaking foreigner, and spend money.

I want to echo what chimen said, with a bit of nuance. There is discrimination, real and pretty strong. But on the other hand it's rational to discriminate - if a group of traditionally dressed roma is entering a shop, you'd better bet the security guard will follow their every step without even bothering to be subtle, and that he's doing this from experience. And walking around in roma neighborhoods as a foreigner is a _very_ chancy activity. Nobody local will even cry for you if you get robbed.

The main reason for this state of affairs is roma's traditional reliance on internal law and complete disregard for outsiders and their laws. Coupled with this is a tendency to just not apply morality to whatever you do to outsiders. This makes it very very hard to change their ways from outside - even 40 years of communism barely made a dent. Best strategy I know of is to make sure each individual has full protection of the host nation's laws and support mechanisms, and that they know it. This makes it possible for them to disregard internal laws with less fear of being ostracized. It's a slow strategy, but I know of none quicker.

And to end on a brighter note, in the next elections I'll be voting for an independent, who is the newest rising star of local politics. He's a gypsy.

You wrestled with a screaming guy trying to rip the camera out of your hands.

A common travel cliche is "99% of people are friendly to you". That's a good thing, but I want to know what the 1% and 0.1% are likely do to you.

Mostly peaceful

How does it compare to Luník IX?

I haven't visited - but Stolipinovo is much larger.

The first thing that stands out to me is the choice of the word "gypsy". While many Roma are perfectly fine with it and even use it themselves, there are also many who find the word offensive and it has historically been used as a racial slur. Why not drop the word alltogether and fall back to the (at least to my understanding) neutral "roma"?

In all honestly many people in North America would not know who the Roma are but would know what group you are talking about when you say gypsy.

Such a silly choice. If some people really hate a group won't the new self designated word become a racial slur too? What then?

You get what is commonly known as the "euphemism cycle", or the "euphemism treadmill": https://www.jstor.org/stable/3087798

Gypsy was always a slur. It's not a case of a euphemism treadmill.

Since you sounds honest and not sarcastic, may I take this opportunity to ask you what mechanism do you believe will help improving the actual situation once the word have been successfully changed (assuming for the sake of discussion that the word can be effectively changed) ? I have always been intrigued by the power of words.

I'm not a local, but wouldn't eat at a restaurant if it was staffed by people from that specific neighborhood documented in the submitted web page. That's regardless of their ethnic background: they could be milk-white Bulgarians.

I would expect them to show up in dirty clothes, and not having bathed in months, and neglect to follow basic hygiene like washing their hands. They would likely perpetrate actions like tasting food and putting the same utensil back into the pot, completely lacking the inhibition of refraining from doing whatever comes naturally.

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