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need a little help understanding a central european subculture
republic of me
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
is there anyone here from the Czech republic who can help me out? I am trying to figure something out, my boyfriend is Czech and he said to me something about most teenagers including himself in Ostrava where he is from were white supremists when he was young (hes 34 and no i don't want to hear about age difference) and i questioned him about it and he said its nothing to do with the Nazi's. I simply dont get this, can anyone explain a bit better? I mean I have jet black hair and dark brown eyes, my skin is darker than you would expect from an Irish person. And all of this is scaring me a little, he was perfectly civil and even friendly to a friend of my brother and i who is black.
This arose when i showed him a Boston Irish punk song by Dropkick Murphy's The Workers Song, I am a socialist and so is my mother, he is a capitalist and there was a bit of a heated political discussion between him and my mother, he showed me a song in his own language (we are both rockers) and i asked him what it was about he put his fist in the air and said "white power" i laughed i taught it was a joke. then he proceeded to tell me that he hates gypsies. My friend is half Romain gypsy and half Irish, his brother is married to one and his sister's long term partner is a gypsy.
He then said that he has no problem with black people, Asians, Muslims or Jews its just gypsies. Oh and Germans and Comunists
Thats all the info i have does anyone know what the hell he is on about and should i be scared, not for myself but for what i am getting into....
This arose when i showed him a Boston Irish punk song by Dropkick Murphy's The Workers Song, I am a socialist and so is my mother, he is a capitalist and there was a bit of a heated political discussion between him and my mother, he showed me a song in his own language (we are both rockers) and i asked him what it was about he put his fist in the air and said "white power" i laughed i taught it was a joke. then he proceeded to tell me that he hates gypsies. My friend is half Romain gypsy and half Irish, his brother is married to one and his sister's long term partner is a gypsy.
He then said that he has no problem with black people, Asians, Muslims or Jews its just gypsies. Oh and Germans and Comunists
Thats all the info i have does anyone know what the hell he is on about and should i be scared, not for myself but for what i am getting into....
republic of me on
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Your boyfriend is a racist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpJ5L7eivgA
It's honestly a sorta culturally accepted "racism" of a sort. Kinda like how many people in Europe think that americans are all dickwads (mostly during the bush era) except in a much nastier way.
It doesn't matter where you go, you'll always have large groups of people complaining about gypsy welfare queens, thieves and caravan trash.
Your boyfriend though seem to take it to the next level by having been a white supremacist in his youth.
1) You're too young to date someone in their 30s. You're incredibly immature as it is for someone your age, you'd have difficulties dating someone in their 20s, forget older. I don't care if you don't want to hear it, it's the truth.
2) You have a lot of growing up to do still and should stop rushing into relationships you're not ready for. This is like the 5th guy in as many months you've had issues with. Chill.
3) You are constantly running into relationships with questionable people. Knock it off. White supremacists, people getting arrested, seriously, get over this bad boy infatuation you seem to have.
The white supremacy stuff, not so much.
Also, what kind of boyfriend plays you a song, lets you listen to it, then tells you its about white supremacy. You should play him a song, have him listen, then explain to him how its a break-up song.
Lets just say that under communism Eastern Europe was a pretty poor and desperate place for a long time and the gypsies were the poorest of the poor. This led to some of them doing some questionable things to survive. I'm not going to judge, if I was forced to steal to feed my kids I would too. Point being some gypsies lived up to the negative stereotypes and the whole lot of them get the bad reputation as a result.
Even today with their modern "traveller" equivalent the pattern seems to be that they blow into town, set up camp, make a load of noise and mess which they usually leave behind when they go, crime stats go up slightly for the duration of their stay (who can say why?) and then they leave. The main beef with them where I come from is that the council usually has to spend tax money (which they don't contribute to) to clean up their mess.
It's really the same as any racial stereotype, it had to come from somewhere so there may be people who fit it but at the same time it's unfair because a lot of them are just people trying to make ends meet. People are too diverse to fit in neat pigeon holes.
I will say don't judge your bf too harshly, he did something in his youth he isn't too proud of. And while yes his feelings toward gypsies are racist it's difficult to make someone drop feelings that are part of their culture. I would however have the "look I have friends and family with gypsy roots and hating on them isn't cool with me" talk with him. It's something he's going to have to get past or severely repress if he wants to stay with you. Hopefully time and expose to gypsies that don't fit his negative view may change his mind. Also explain that the "white power" fist pump does not mean the same thing in your part of the world as it did in his.
I am from Germany and hating Sinti and Roma(cause we really don't call them gypsies here and gypsie is a pretty racist term anyway) is not a favorite past time here.
I know the situation is different in some parts of eastern Europe, but that doesn't really excuse this kind of behaviour, there are lots of nonracist and nonprejudiced people living in those countries as well and anyone with half a brain will not share your boyfriend's "values".
Gaybashing is still pretty common in eastern Europe, doesn't mean that's a part of their unique cultural identity that is worth defending.
Your boyfriend is a racist and there's no way to excuse this or explain this rationally. He also sounds like an idiot, listening to music about white power and raising his fist, then proceeding to tell you he only hates gypsies, sounds like he is either too stupid to know what the term white power is associated with or he is afraid to come out of the closet and admit he hates all non white people to you.
Reading that puts this in new light:
You're getting into a relationship with a bigoted prick.
It's completely up to you if that's what you want.
He may have been trying to impress me because i am a Socialist, slightly Anarchist and i identify with the feminist movement.
Huh? Anyway, in what world will a left-wing feminist have a good relationship with a right-wing racist? Your choice of men is ... unwise. Racists are still racist if they are civil to people of other races, they just don't want their teeth kicked in. Dump him!
Their fate in central Europe since 1945:
It's really a deeply complex issue which several groups are responsible for creating. Persecution and bigotry of the Romani people for an example naturally lead to disenfranchised members of this groups sometimes resorting to criminality as a pay back to a society that despises them and their culture which in turns further strengthens the mindset that "we're not really hating them, they just don't want to clean up and follow our rules/law"
"Hello, I am socialist feminist" "Nice to meet you, I am white power capitalist!"
Your boyfriend sounds pretty immature himself, incidentally I am 34 as well and this kind of behaviour and attitude is really not what I expect of people in my age group. It would be kinda different if you were both in your late teens, but at 34 his opinions won't be a spur of the moment thing.
If that's the case then he's definitely a racist.
From what people are saying on this thread, you seem to have a history of bad dating decisions. How about you just break up with this guy and don't date anyone for a while until you get your head together a bit. Trust me, being single is much, much better than dating one douchebag after another.
Rigorous Scholarship
Your bloke is so racist he couldn't be more racist if he had a T-Shirt with a Nazi flag and a hat saying "I am a racist", and was carrying a copy of Mein Kampf, while on the phone to Nick Griffin. There really is not much subtlety here! Are you still dating him?
FWIW- it really boils down to whether you think your feelings for this douchebag overcome his negative qualities. Sure there's an age difference, but such a thing can be worked around. If you can tolerate the racism, keep dating him; maybe you can bring him round to more enlightened thinking.
This is quite sig-worthly.
so all i want to say is i am glad of all the help and i appologise for the bad spelling but you are better than counceling, mostly because you are all straight talking people.
i will stay single until i can express emotin without drink. and until i leave the punk rock/ biker scene i am currrently in. any way i am canvasing for an irish political party tomorrow so i will sober up, night night and god bless. thank you for your help.k i am sorry it has taken more than an hour to type this but mr biggot fucker is dumped im sending him a txt as i speak
Is this what passes for breaking up with someone these days? Damn socialists.
See VoC's post.
Most people don't deserve a breakup via text message, but racists do! :twisted:
The whole racism stint is something most guys I used to play football with have grown out of. A few years ago when they were adolescents they were raging against everything. The lure of wearing bomber jackets, picking fights with minority groups in school and constantly drawing attention to how racist they were was big. It gave them something to identify with and was an easy way to make friends with the tough guys. But as they matured a bit they either toned down their racism to the socially acceptable level of making crass jokes, voting populist parties and uttering the legendary words "I don't like them, but their food sure is tasty" or they realized that racism is retarded.
Someone outright coming out for their racism when they were young is either regretting it or is kind of proud of it. I do not trust someone with a past like that, but I am open to the option that they were just being dumb young boys back then.
--
Also: discrimination against gypsies* has been around ever since human beings started settling down in one place year round. It's more defined in Eastern and Central Europe because there happen to be large groups of Roma there, but it is just as commonplace and institutionalized in France, The Netherlands and Italy.
*by lack of a better umbrella definition for all the different groups of people who have a tradition of being on the road.