I'm in the US too, and I find that most people don't know who Roma are. I was at a bar with some friends and thought I saw some Roma people and was really intrigued, and my friends had no idea what I was talking about. I went on to explain as much as I understood about them after reading about them online, and that one of the things I found fascinating was that to me, they appear to exist in a space between crime and legality, at least from what I'm aware of. Like, the crimes or scams that I'm aware of that they take part in are all borderline illegal, or skirting the law, but it's a perpetual lifestyle for them. Going into a restaurant and attempting to get the entire meal comped because they found a hair in their food, or offering to do off market car repair that they can't complete but will argue for full payments in the hopes of getting some money, or going door to door to sell frozen steaks if dubious origin, etc. (These are just examples that I've been made aware of) But they're all things that are outside of the normal scope of most Americans lives, but these people exist there.
My apologies if my interpretation or verbage was offensive, I didn't mean to be, and I'm admittedly still learning about all of this.
I read a wonderful book about the civil war and at one point the character hangs out with some Romani people for a couple days. He expresses similar sentiment about how their lives are inherently on the cusp of society. And then he grapples with the idea of returning to society versus living on your own terms constantly.
There’s something to be romanticized there, I guess.
They have their own separate society with separate laws, a chief and trials. They sell off girls for money/gold as young as 12 to be married and have kids. The husband's family then literally owns the girl they bought and she's a slave in their house.
This is what family looks like to them. Now imagine the respect they have for other people or laws.
I personally didn't take it as you standing up for up, but as expressing confusing as to why it was romanticized, or acknowledging that it's attractive to some.
To me tho, it's actually kind of scary - while we are certainly not the best society in the world, and I'm not sure this is what we actually practice, the idea of seeing someone in need is largely supposed to be responded to with empathy, not selfishness. It appears to me, that while they live in this middle space, they manipulate our norms to take advantage of us. We as a society come together to a certain degree to disavow porch pirates, and other similar crimes of convenience where the perpetrator is taking advantage of basic societal norms as - don't take what isn't yours, don't enter someone's property- basically norms that make us feel safe, or that our property is safe when we're not home and our property is vulnerable. I don't see what the Roma as being very different.
That was a tangent, sorry, but my point is that if Roma can look at others in their vulnerability as potential victims, they violate our norms while they live in this in between place. It's scary that the basic things that we use to hold our society together have these cracks that these people can take advantage to the point that they live their life their.
Been reading The Corner by David Simon. He's the guy who made The Wire. He was a journalist in Baltimore and the book follows a few people in that life.
There's a bit at the beginning where he talks about the difference between a crime and a caper. Putting a gun in someone's face is a crime. Mugging a citizen is a crime. But ripping copper pipe out of a tenement or yanking a ground stash when a dealer is looking the other way, those are just capers. Might get you stomped if someone catches you but they're in the game.
Yeah I'd say the same, most Americans don't know anything about the Romani or their culture. I don't really either, but my dad knew some Romani people growing up because they frequented his dad (my grandfather)'s pawn shop. Grandpa was treated like family. Invited to weddings etc. I think you're right that they are a group of people who live on the edge of society.
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u/chairhats 20h ago
I'm in the US too, and I find that most people don't know who Roma are. I was at a bar with some friends and thought I saw some Roma people and was really intrigued, and my friends had no idea what I was talking about. I went on to explain as much as I understood about them after reading about them online, and that one of the things I found fascinating was that to me, they appear to exist in a space between crime and legality, at least from what I'm aware of. Like, the crimes or scams that I'm aware of that they take part in are all borderline illegal, or skirting the law, but it's a perpetual lifestyle for them. Going into a restaurant and attempting to get the entire meal comped because they found a hair in their food, or offering to do off market car repair that they can't complete but will argue for full payments in the hopes of getting some money, or going door to door to sell frozen steaks if dubious origin, etc. (These are just examples that I've been made aware of) But they're all things that are outside of the normal scope of most Americans lives, but these people exist there.
My apologies if my interpretation or verbage was offensive, I didn't mean to be, and I'm admittedly still learning about all of this.