The Case for AA Illistrated in Europe
The Roma in Europe have been discriminated against since the middle ages not only because they look physically different, but also because of their one time nomadic lifestyle and the absence of any cultural homeland. They are the only group of people that at no time in modern history could be called indigenous. They are not only Europe’s largest minority, but also the most systematically discriminated against minority in Europe—and by many accounts the world. They were also the second largest ethnic group targeted by the Nazis. Recently there has been an amazing amount of progress in bettering the plight of the Roma in Europe. Last year the European Court of Human Rights ruled that exclusion of the Roma from mainstream European schools is discrimination and had to be ended. States have as a rule been slow to comply with the decision and desegregation has other hurdles not inherent in other desegregation programs like the one we had here in the US. Today the BBC had an article on the reality of the education situation in the Czech Republic.
It begins with Berta Cervenakova’s daughter, who was forced to go to a school for the mentally retarded even though she herself was not mentally retarded. Now 18 she does not know how to read, nor does she have sufficient skills to support herself in any job that is not manual labor—this type of discrimination keeps the Roma in extreme poverty and near helpless to protect themselves economically in some cases (according to Cervenakova her daughter lakes the skills even to do the marketing). Eight years ago Cervenakova filed suit to put her daughter in mainstream schools, the result was that she was given a 4,000 Euro award in compensation. There is no way that a onetime payment of 4,000 Euros will make up for being able to read and write sufficiently to acquire a job that will lift her out of poverty. No way that paltry 4,000 Euros will help her ensure that her employer is not shorting her paycheck. That award itself is so low it screams discrimination to me. My uncle (white, American) won more than that when he was injured for life by a state vehicle in Germany—an injury that in no way relegated him to subpar employment. Before the fact that these are two different countries is pointed out I want to remind all that this was a /European/ court, not a Czech court that did the awarding, and that my uncle’s award happened well over 40 years ago. Inflation alone should have made it higher.
The racism of the headmaster of the Czech school for Romani children is so blatantly thick I do not think I could breathe in the same room with him:
“”In the first grade in a normal school, the kids can count to 20. Here, they can only count to five – although we want to teach them numbers up to 10,” says headmaster Jindrich Otzipka at the Ibsen school.
He takes me on a tour. In the eighth grade, a classroom for 14-year-olds, a brightly-coloured alphabet is on the wall.
“Normally the children would learn this at fourth grade. But these kids keep forgetting things, so you have to keep repeating them,” he says.
“I blame the parents. They don’t read to their kids. The Roma have no appreciation that you have to apply yourself to get on. They just live for the day.”
It does not seem to cross his mind that the parents do not read to their children because they can’t or because they are exhausted from attempting to fend off poverty. He blames the children for forgetting things but later states that they cannot get rid of subpar teacher because then the entire system would collapse. This tells me that not only are Romani children being funneled in to ‘special’ schools but that the schools are staffed with unqualified ‘teachers.’ To blame the kids and their (likely undereducated) parents for the failings of school system is absurd. That quote alone makes one hella strong case for affirmative action.
The article goes on to talk about the de facto segregation in many German schools where the Romani and Sinti (a subset of Roma) are loathe to leave the schools they historically attend. Other than the obvious comfort we all have when our surroundings do not harangue us for our race, many Roma still hold religious beliefs that prolonged contact with non-Roma will pollute their beings. There is in the Romani religion a code of actions that must be adhered to in daily living. Simplistically this is like eating Kosher or Halal but far more extensive. According to this believe not only can committing a taboo upset your balance, but so can contact with others who do not remain ‘pure.’ This complicates desegregation, but should not affect the quality of education at the schools the Roma chose to attend.
