Dare to Ask: Gypsies are victims of stereotype

By PHILLIP MILANO, The Times-Union

Question

I'm a real gypsy (Roma). People label us as petty thieves and criminals and claim we are filthy and dumb. Why?

cOnFuSed-ChiK, 20, Florida

Replies

I'm an English Romany gypsy. I studied business at college. Good gypsies are not shown for being the clean, decent people we are. The scummy gypsies get seen for thieving, etc. The media picks up on the bad stuff.

Shirley, 24, England

In Spain, gypsies are treated badly, but in a way, I can see why. We lived on the U.S. Air Force base. Things would always get stolen by the gypsies who lived on the vacant lot down the road - even our BBQ.

Jade, 16, Sydney, Australia

Where I live, "gypsies" are usually engaged in scams and thieving, frequently against vulnerable elderly people. Not all people who identify as gypsies or Roma engage in this kind of conduct, but those are not the ones you hear about.

Sue, Chicago

When I traveled to Romania several years ago, I was amazed at the horrific way the Roma people were treated. For the Romas' part, I witnessed many involved in harassment of foreigners and stealing. I also met several college-educated, wealthy Roma. The "true Romanians" (forgive the term) summarily dismissed the Roma as awful, terrible beasts beneath consideration or hope.

Tinuviel, 37, female, Albuquerque, N.M.

Expert says

And you should've seen the comments we didn't print.

Gypsies - a preferred term is Roma - have traveled a tough road these past thousand years.

Fast-forward through lots of history to the 14th century. By then they'd migrated to the Balkans and were wrongly thought to be from Egypt (hence the name "Gypsy"), when in fact their origins were India, said Zoltan Barany, a University of Texas professor who specializes in ethnopolitics.

They were darker-skinned, fiercely protected their cultural identity . . . and were quickly persecuted. Meanwhile, all the land was already spoken for, so they developed skills they could practice on the go, such as mending, entertaining or working at fairs, said Barany, author of The East European Gypsies: Regime Change, Marginality, and Ethnopolitics.

"No one wanted them, and they chased them away. . . . With no means of survival, of course they were going to steal, but it's not that it's in their genes."

Unfortunately, they're still shunned across the globe.

"They've gone through incredible amounts of discrimination and marginalization for centuries, partially because of hostility of the host country and partly because of their own inability or unwillingness to integrate."

It doesn't help that too many gypsy families don't value education, with many Roma youth telling Barany and other researchers they don't see college as their most viable option.

"If you look at the socioeconomic conditions of Roma, you see every major cause [for their plight]: poverty, overpopulation and lack of education."

Phillip Milano, author of I Can't Believe You Asked That! (Perigee), moderates cross-cultural dialogue at Y? The National Forum on People's Differences. Visit www.yforum.com to submit questions and answers. Send general column comments to phillip. milano@jacksonville.com. You can also hear his podcasts or watch his TV spots.