It's getting late, but I'll happily pick this up tomorrow.
In a nutshell, the we're not using the word "integration" in the same sense. Roma reject the "host culture" (for lack of a better term) to an extent that is difficult to fathom, and much, much more extreme than anything in the American Black community. The Black community in the US has legitimate grievences and understandable trust issues with White America. Roma do not (except, perhaps, with Germany, but you'll note that they behave the same way everywhere... even in Romania!)
- They don't send their children to school
- They force their children to beg on the streets
- They force their children to steal (pickpocketing, stealing from yards/farms/public-utilitlies/etc
- They force their women into prostitution
- They force their children to spend their days running scams (the most well-known of which involves harrassing people for signatures on petitions for government subsidies. Typically, at least in France, they start fraudulent "associations" for deaf/mute people, collect a certain number of signatures, and cash in)
- When the police come to their shanty-towns to make arrests for anything from petty theft to battery to murder, they hold knives to the throats of their children and hold them hostage (I know you don't believe me so I leave it as an exercise to the reader to look this up. Examples abound.)
- They get into knife-fights between themselves and with locals, go to the hospital, and don't pay anything.
- They set up camp in agricultural fields, preventing them form being exploited, and leave behind mounds of garbage, requiring substantial cleanup efforts before the area can be exploited for its intended use once more [0]
The list goes on.
Suffice to say that there is very little about Black Americans that resembles Roma. Black Americans resist integration in a certain sense (as you have shown illustrated), but not nearly to the same extent.
Black Americans aren't, for example, forbiding their children from going to school in order to have them turn tricks for the benefit of elders.
I spent about half of my life in the US and half of my life in France. I've seen Black America (spent 6 years in an inner-city school in Wilmington, DE) and I've seen Roma. It's very hard to explain to a non-European what the deal is with Roma, but I implore you to believe me when I tell you the two have nothing in common. Roma are not bad by nature. I am not a racist. That said, Roma (by and large) do not share ours (i.e. yours and mine) values of tolerance, integration, and mutual respect. As a community, they are nothing short of abusive, and the strong reactions you see from Europeans reflects this.
I completely understand your skepticism, but I don't know how else to put it. This is different.
> The Black community in the US has legitimate grievences and understandable trust issues with White America. Roma do not
Are you serious? For starters, you completely glossed over the Holocaust because "they behave the same way everywhere" not just in Germany. But Romani throughout Europe were persecuted, including in Romania (which, you'll remember, was an Axis power).
>For starters, you completely glossed over the Holocaust
Actually, I'm pretty sure I didn't...
But I do concede your point. I oversimplified to the point of misrepresentation. Please accept my apology and my assurances that this was accidental. Roma do indeed have a bone to pick with several peoples in Europe.
Still, I have to wonder what your underlying point is. Are you claiming that they're sociologically comparable to Black Americans? Black Americans are by-and-large law-abiding, hard-working, and desire nothing more to become an integral part of American society. They're angry precisely because they feel marginalized. Roma aren't particularly angry. They want to be marginal, as evidenced by the fact that they behave the same way even with peoples that have not been so horrific to them, so it can't be that...
Surely you aren't claiming that this justifies their all-but-systematic prostituting of their women, exploitation of their children, larceny, fraud and violence...
The only line from your post that even begins to reference the Holocaust is "Roma do not (except, perhaps, with Germany, but you'll note that they behave the same way everywhere... even in Romania!)". In my book, that's glossing over.
> Are you claiming that they're sociologically comparable to Black Americans?
No, African Americans are a pretty different case.
> I have to wonder what your point is.
> Surely you aren't claiming that this justifies their all-but-systematic prostituting of their women, exploitation of their children, larceny, fraud and violence...
I just wanted to correct what I thought was a gross oversight of your writing, which doesn't mention the long history of persecution of Roma that continues into this century. That's important context if you want to talk about Roma culture.
> Black Americans are by-and-large law-abiding, hard-working
I agree, but I'm curious what you mean when you say "by-and-large". You used the same phrase to say that the Roma have an issue with criminality. What do you mean, formally, by "by-and-large"? When you say "People X are by-and-large Y" do you mean that more than 50% of X are Y? Do you mean being X is positively correlated with being Y? Do you control for other factors, such as Z?
I'd just like to see a little more pedantry in this thread, a few more firm statistics.
In a nutshell, the we're not using the word "integration" in the same sense. Roma reject the "host culture" (for lack of a better term) to an extent that is difficult to fathom, and much, much more extreme than anything in the American Black community. The Black community in the US has legitimate grievences and understandable trust issues with White America. Roma do not (except, perhaps, with Germany, but you'll note that they behave the same way everywhere... even in Romania!)
- They don't send their children to school
- They force their children to beg on the streets
- They force their children to steal (pickpocketing, stealing from yards/farms/public-utilitlies/etc
- They force their women into prostitution
- They force their children to spend their days running scams (the most well-known of which involves harrassing people for signatures on petitions for government subsidies. Typically, at least in France, they start fraudulent "associations" for deaf/mute people, collect a certain number of signatures, and cash in)
- When the police come to their shanty-towns to make arrests for anything from petty theft to battery to murder, they hold knives to the throats of their children and hold them hostage (I know you don't believe me so I leave it as an exercise to the reader to look this up. Examples abound.)
- They get into knife-fights between themselves and with locals, go to the hospital, and don't pay anything.
- They set up camp in agricultural fields, preventing them form being exploited, and leave behind mounds of garbage, requiring substantial cleanup efforts before the area can be exploited for its intended use once more [0]
The list goes on.
Suffice to say that there is very little about Black Americans that resembles Roma. Black Americans resist integration in a certain sense (as you have shown illustrated), but not nearly to the same extent.
Black Americans aren't, for example, forbiding their children from going to school in order to have them turn tricks for the benefit of elders.
I spent about half of my life in the US and half of my life in France. I've seen Black America (spent 6 years in an inner-city school in Wilmington, DE) and I've seen Roma. It's very hard to explain to a non-European what the deal is with Roma, but I implore you to believe me when I tell you the two have nothing in common. Roma are not bad by nature. I am not a racist. That said, Roma (by and large) do not share ours (i.e. yours and mine) values of tolerance, integration, and mutual respect. As a community, they are nothing short of abusive, and the strong reactions you see from Europeans reflects this.
I completely understand your skepticism, but I don't know how else to put it. This is different.
[0] https://youtu.be/_2ezoPFtC3Y