Europeans vs. Romani People

About

Europeans vs. Romani People refers to memes and discourse about the supposed cliché or tendency or tendency of European people to be "bigoted towards ethnically Romani (sometimes called Roma or Gypsy) people. The jokes are often framed in a way that contrasts with European people's opinions on America and racism. While discussions about the tensions between European and Romani communities have been widely discussed on the internet, comparisons between European and American racism began to gain traction after 2020.

Origin

Romani people are a community of typically nomadic travelers that live in Europe and some parts of the Americas. The group descended from Indo-Aryans and reportedly spread from the Indian subcontinent to West Europe and beyond around the 14th century. Romani people are widely referred to as "Gypsies" in the English language, a term that is often used in a pejorative fashion. The first World Romani Congress in 1971 voted to reject the use of exonyms such as "Gypsy" due to its common use as a racial slur.^[1]

A December 3rd, 2012, Redditor /u/davidreiss666 posted a study to /r/worldnews that discussed the likelihood of Romani people being genetic descendants of Dalits in India and received several comments from users discussing the supposed negative behaviors of Romani people in their communities.^[2] A 2013 AskReddit thread posed the question of why Europeans "hate gypsies" so much and received various responses from people detailing the supposed behavior of Romani nomads in their communities.^[3]

An October 10th, 2014, image posted to /r/polandball ^[4] depicted the idea of Europeans being "united" in their hatred for Romani people (seen below).

Spread

On May 30th, 2019, a meme discussing European and American prejudice was posted to /r/Polandball,^[7] gathering over 3,600 likes in three years (seen below).

Discussions and memes about European people's perceptions of Romani people continued to be contrasted with Europeans' perceptions of American racism during the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement. On March 8th, 2020, Redditor /u/hard_rain_falling posted a meme about the phenomenon to /r/politicalcompassmemes,^[5] gathering over 2,600 upvotes in three years (seen below, left). On May 8th, Redditor /u/known-look posted another meme commenting on the issue to /r/politicalcompassmemes,^[6] gathering over 2,000 upvotes in a similar timeframe (seen below, right).

A March 4th, 2023, post by /u/Bilbo238 to /r/clevercomebacks contrasted a person's justifications for their negative perception of Romani people with another user asking which chapter of Mein Kampf the paragraph was lifted from. The post gathered over 29,000 upvotes in a month (seen below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References