Commentary: Let's distance ourselves from Roma who give us a bad reputation

What do you think the effect is of headlines like the following:  “Roma commit another brutal attack:  12-year-old boy beaten with sticks in Duchcov!" Many Czech people read that information and think:  "Again? How much longer and we going to stand for this? Why is everyone conniving with them, even closing down the internet discussions so we can’t even say our piece?!

Many Romani people read that information and think:  “We all attacked someone again? Why are they linking us to the perpetrators? They’re writing about us all again and they love it – they’re all racists."

I’m giving the very polite version of both sides here. Now I will try to respond to them both.  

Dear majority society, the laws apply to internet discussions too. If many racist contributions are posted beneath articles about Romani people (and many are), then the operator of the website has the right to close such discussions down because he does not want to have problems with the law.

Dear Romani people, some journalists will use any dirt they find because that is their job. Even if the alleged crime may never have even happened, as has been demonstrated several times.

Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, some media are creating a certain mood in society today. Unfortunately, the worst "journalist" from the tabloids exists, just as the wost Romani person who attacks someone or robs them exists also. 

There is no public discussion between the two sides. The majority often believes we Roma are all the same and sees no distance between our ranks and those of the Roma who make things oppressive for everyone and don’t know how to behave. 

We should work together on this problem, stop the ticking time bombs in the ghettos, and improve a deteriorating situation. There is no more room for complaining and mutual recriminations. Time is flying.

I could also write here about the days when my fellow first-graders all laughed at me, saying "Go wash yourself gyppyrippy greasy fish." (To this day I don’t know what ‘gyppyrippy’ means). I could also complain about how people have refused to serve me in restaurants where the manager himself has told me he doesn’t wait on Gyppos. I was just trying to eat lunch. However, in my opinion, it doesn’t make sense to write about these incidents.

Some Romani people believe I want the majority to like me, that I probably stand to gain something from this position. I really have to laugh at that idea, because my concern is solely the good cause of peace and quiet, of friendship between the majority and our minority, no matter how utopian that might seem.

I have written a petition (available in Czech only at http://www.jednej.cz/petition.php?id=2326+).  It is mainly about the distance between us and those Roma who give us a bad reputation, It’s also about the fact that we should get work instead of welfare. Not many people have signed it yet.

I am certain that if I were to write about the racism and xenophobia committed by the majority I would have enough signatures to make wallpaper with, just as I would in the reverse case, if I were to write a petition against all of us Roma. I believe there is a need to look at this matter from a distance, to think about how to improve our coexistence. 

I do my best to do this in my everyday life. Today, for example, I met an older woman with a dog on the sidewalk who was so anxious to avoid me that she moved onto the grass. She was so afraid of me! My dog and I stopped, I smiled at her and said something, and in the end she was rather glad to have met me.

That’s the coexistence I enjoy, not the internet and racism. Be well.