I saw firsthand discrimination against the Roma when I lived in Hungary. I was warned away from the gypsy side of town ("they'll kill you just as soon as look at you"); called in by my boss for frequenting a pub that wasn't "all white"; I was told that a sixth-grader (I was a teacher) wouldn't be learning English with the rest of her class because "gypsies aren't smart enough to learn a foreign language".

Hungarians would tell me in solidarity, white person to white person, that "our problem with the gypsies is like your problem with the blacks, ungrateful, welfare frauds, you know..."

The racism was pervasive, mainstream, and institutionalized. Among my friends and colleagues, even the ...

I saw firsthand discrimination against the Roma when I lived in Hungary. I was warned away from the gypsy side of town ("they'll kill you just as soon as look at you"); called in by my boss for frequenting a pub that wasn't "all white"; I was told that a sixth-grader (I was a teacher) wouldn't be learning English with the rest of her class because "gypsies aren't smart enough to learn a foreign language".

Hungarians would tell me in solidarity, white person to white person, that "our problem with the gypsies is like your problem with the blacks, ungrateful, welfare frauds, you know..."

The racism was pervasive, mainstream, and institutionalized. Among my friends and colleagues, even the most liberal were hopelessly bigoted.

The story of the Roma is a sad one, and a largely ignored one as well.