The Roma: The History of the Romani People and the Controversial Persecutions of Them across Europe

Written by Charles River Editors

Narrated by Bill Hare

More often than not, the Romani are branded by even those who fancy themselves liberals as “pikeys,” “gyppos,” and “gips.” There's also a regrettably common term, “gypped,” meaning “to cheat, or swindle,” which perpetuates the damaging stereotype that the Roma are dishonest nuisances and societal pests. Even well-intentioned attempts to shine the spotlight on the community have sometimes been counterproductive, for they are often reduced to no more than exotic, whimsical entertainers for the privileged. According to a shocking email authored by an anonymous whistleblower in 2012, the staff at the Laurieston Job Center in Glasgow's Southside regularly referred to their Romani customers as “gypos, scum, beggars, suicide bombers, thieves, and [pedophiles].” The whistleblower cited the staff's disturbing comments regarding an unnamed Romani woman, who had brought her two children along to the job center: “The staff were all joking and saying they should sanction her for claiming whilst pimping out her kids. They then went on to make horrible remarks about the children, saying they were 'mongs.'”

The dangerous blanket statements issued by various European politicians in recent years are also a cause for concern. In 1992, Bert Karlsson, a prominent member of the Swedish New Democracy Party, claimed that “Gypsies [were] responsible for 90% of crime against senior citizens.” In June 2008, the conservative Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi ordered the fingerprinting of the 150,000 Romani, children included, as a way to crack down on street crime. In France, political parties from either end of the spectrum have blamed the Romani for the nation's problems, economic and otherwise. The Gypsies, asserted one interior minister, were responsible for one in every 10 crimes. It’s fair to wonder why the abhorrent treatment of the Romani continues to slip below the radar of many social justice warriors, particularly in this age of globalization.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles River Editors
• Release date: Oct 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781094220918

Reviews for The Roma

[joe · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Informative and fast ..I learned a lot, in a short time.

[Kai “Khun Kai” Odegard · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

When I got it in the mail, I first was very disappointed it was thin and an A-4 sized leaflet.
The pictures and illustrations inside are all poor quality Black & white.
The booklet is written in such a way one will suspect it has been written by some sort of AI software.
There is no signing of who wrote it, just the publisher name.
Stay clear of this product, as you are better off reading the exactly same on one of the many Wikipedia sites.

[Shiraz Hussain · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating, powerful and frequently shocking accoumt of a people historically ostracised and who remain disadvantaged and targets of ignorant prejudice to this day.

May better times come for the Roma and for all people. Bigotry hurts all of us.

[Bill McCahey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Terrific insight into historical questions of the Romani origins. Probably accurate and not disproportionate to the truth, this book is dripping in descriptions of torture and annihilation. I found it disproportionate the size of the book. I wasn't sure at the outset that this was the intended scope of the text. And since it's the European Romani story, I expected the scope to go beyond the Tzigane /Manouche thread (though I don't recall Manouche mentioned). Even though the story touches on Spain, long enough to draw the Romani into the inquisition, it seems to have completely by-passed the Gitan. So, I'm still looking for the story that ties together the separation of 'compania' tribes in Persia between those who ventured north to Europe and those that traveled across Egypt proper and to Morraco and into Spain - those that later became the flamenco gypsies. We know a little about how the Manouche and Gitans intermixed in France and eventually all of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, but next to nothing about the origins of the Romani in Spain. They surely didn't just wander in from France in the middle ages like this book suggests. And what about Russia as well - that's also seemingly a huge untold story. This book did great however for what it set out to do.