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Terminal Entropy
Dec 26, 2012

Blimpkin posted:

Has there been any development with the Tylenol killer? That was really interesting.

There was a copycat where a wife wanted her husband dead and the nice life insurance check that would follow it. But because killing just her spouse would be too suspicious, she put poisoned pills on store shelves leading to at least one death.

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Crow Jane
Oct 18, 2012

nothin' wrong with a lady drinkin' alone in her room
In college, I took a History of Native America class. It was an absolutely fascinating semester, and the professor really knew his poo poo, but oh holy god was that a horrible, disturbing and depressing three hours a week. It became a kind of tradition that some of us in the class would stop at the pub afterwards, just to be able to process what we'd learned that day.

If you're looking for a book on the topic that will seriously get your blood boiling, we read this in class.

WIFEY WATCHDOG
Jun 25, 2012

Yeah, well I don't trust this guy. I think he regifted, he degifted, and now he's using an upstairs invite as a springboard to a Super Bowl sex romp.
Loving a country is reprehensible.

Smiling Jack
Dec 2, 2001

I sucked a dick for bus fare and then I walked home.

Crow Jane posted:


If you're looking for a book on the topic that will seriously get your blood boiling, we read this in class.

Ward Churchill was accused of some fairly serious academic misconduct (not to mention falsely claiming to be a native american/first people/cherokee/etc).

I'd recommend 1491 as a pretty good entry point instead.

Crow Jane
Oct 18, 2012

nothin' wrong with a lady drinkin' alone in her room

Smiling Jack posted:

Ward Churchill was accused of some fairly serious academic misconduct (not to mention falsely claiming to be a native american/first people/cherokee/etc).

I'd recommend 1491 as a pretty good entry point instead.

Wow, I hadn't heard of that, so I looked it up... that's pretty hosed up. How could anyone think they could get away with outright fabrication in this day and age?

Smiling Jack
Dec 2, 2001

I sucked a dick for bus fare and then I walked home.

Crow Jane posted:

Wow, I hadn't heard of that, so I looked it up... that's pretty hosed up. How could anyone think they could get away with outright fabrication in this day and age?

He had gotten away with lying about everything from being a LRRP in Vietnam to being a Cherokee for years, then he got too famous (slandering 911 victims as Little Eichmanns) and welp, when your career is built on a false identity that's not a good idea.

nockturne
Aug 5, 2008

Soiled Meat

Dr. Tim Whatley posted:

Loving a country is reprehensible.

I'm sorry, maybe I phrased that the wrong way, since I know rampant patriotism can be a bad thing. Perhaps "I love living in Australia" would be more correct? Really didn't mean to offend :(

Mousepractice
Jan 30, 2005

A pint of plain is your only man

HEGEL CURES THESES posted:

Jesus Christ, another Flann O' Brian fan. My mom turned me on to At Swim Two Birds when I was an undergrad. :hf:

Whattup :hfive:

On that note The Third Policeman is pretty unnerving. Mostly amusing, but pretty unnerving. "all the queer ghastly things which have been happening [...] are happening in a sort of hell [...] It is made clear that this sort of thing goes on for ever".

Spoilers in the link above

Mousepractice has a new favorite as of 02:01 on Aug 6, 2013

Blimpkin
Dec 28, 2003

Terminal Entropy posted:

There was a copycat where a wife wanted her husband dead and the nice life insurance check that would follow it. But because killing just her spouse would be too suspicious, she put poisoned pills on store shelves leading to at least one death.

Those are two different cases. I apologize for not saying the Chicago Tylenol murders. and the following possible goon connection.

quote:

The Chicago Tylenol murders occurred when seven people died after taking pain-relief medicine capsules that had been poisoned. The poisonings, code-named TYMURS by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, took place in September and early October 1982, in the Chicago area of the United States.
These poisonings involved Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules, manufactured by McNeil Consumer Healthcare, which had been laced with potassium cyanide.[1] The incidents led to reforms in the packaging of over-the-counter substances and to federal anti-tampering laws. The case remains unsolved and no suspects have been charged. A $100,000 reward, offered by Johnson & Johnson, McNeil's parent company, for the capture and conviction of the "Tylenol Killer", has never been claimed.

Noisycat posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders

I was 7 when this happened. It is scary and horrible on its own, but on a personal level it always haunted me because my sister and I were raised to believe my grandfather was the perpetrator.

I don't remember the details but apparently he worked somewhere that had access to cyanide, had some sort of paranoid issue with McNeil Healthcare or had worked for them (he was bipolar/delusional*), and came home one day and warned my mother not to buy Tylenol from anywhere and not to give my sister or I Tylenol that she didn't buy before that day. This was right before people started dying.

*he was German-born, but my grandmother, aunt, mother, sister and I were not allowed to learn German at school under any circumstances because he spoke in German on the phone and told my mother it was secret CIA/government information that he didn't want us to listen in on.

My mother was another shade of crazy so I never really knew whether it was really true or not, but growing up it was an accepted fact. :(

Noisycat posted:

You know, my best friend from childhood's father is/was FBI, and of course worked in Chicago for years. We're still very good friends; I think I will get in touch with him and see what he thinks, he'll at least know who I can contact in Chicago. I will probably end up feeling dumb, but I guess who knows, right?

Noisycat posted:

Hey guys, just a small update on the "my grandfather is the Tylenol Poisoner" thing. I contacted my childhood friend and laid out the whole story for her, it actually made sense to her (?!) and she is going to sit down with her dad once he is out of some minor surgery. He will be able to point me in the right direction, since he's an FBI agent and worked in the Chicago suburbs for decades.

Also I was reading the wiki on it and it mentioned the first victim was from Elk Grove. That's where my grandfather lived (though none of the places are that far from Elk Grove; Chicago suburbs are all kinda smooshed together).

:ohdear:

utada
Jun 6, 2006

I had the craziest dream last night. I was dancing the White Swan.

Dr. Tim Whatley posted:

Loving a country is reprehensible.

I question your medical credentials.

hambeet
Sep 13, 2002

Blimpkin posted:

Those are two different cases. I apologize for not saying the Chicago Tylenol murders. and the following possible goon connection.





:ohdear:

PM'd Noisycat. Will come post.

AlbieQuirky
Oct 9, 2012

Just me and my 🌊dragon🐉 hanging out

Mousepractice posted:

Whattup :hfive:

On that note The Third Policeman is pretty unnerving. Mostly amusing, but pretty unnerving. "all the queer ghastly things which have been happening [...] are happening in a sort of hell [...] It is made clear that this sort of thing goes on for ever".

Spoilers in the link above

THE PLAIN PEOPLE OF IRELAND: Sure and it is at that.



The most unnerving literature to me is books like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Tony Judt's The Memory Chalet, because being immobile while your mind still functions perfectly is my worst nightmare.

Noisycat
Jul 6, 2003

If you give a mouse a cookie, you are supporting underground furry terrorists.

Oh dear! I didn't mean to leave anyone hanging!

I haven't heard back from my friend yet, and I've had some serious poo poo going down in my life otherwise, so it was on the back burner to follow up on. I'll drop her a note and see how the talk with her dad went (he was recovering from surgery which is why she didn't ask right away) I promise as soon as I have something to update I will, I just have some major worries going on that need to be addressed (and it may be why she didn't bring it up yet because she knows my life just got thrown up in the air).

adventure in the sandbox
Nov 24, 2005



Things change


Crow Jane posted:

In college, I took a History of Native America class. It was an absolutely fascinating semester, and the professor really knew his poo poo, but oh holy god was that a horrible, disturbing and depressing three hours a week. It became a kind of tradition that some of us in the class would stop at the pub afterwards, just to be able to process what we'd learned that day.

If you're looking for a book on the topic that will seriously get your blood boiling, we read this in class.

My grandfather is a Canadian residential school survivor. He was not permitted to obtain a high school diploma because, ya know, he is an Indian. This prevented him from becoming a pilot in the Forces. After everything he wanted to serve his country.

My grandmother has a Gr. 4 education, which she obtained during summer in a church basement. School finished by September because the native kids did not attend regular school with white kids.

:(

Avshalom
Feb 14, 2012

by Lowtax
Meanwhile, all across Europe, Romani culture and society is still being undermined and gradually eroded by the removal and institutionalisation of children on very shaky grounds.

Zeroisanumber
Oct 23, 2010

Nap Ghost

Avshalom posted:

Meanwhile, all across Europe, Romani culture and society is still being undermined and gradually eroded by the removal and institutionalisation of children on very shaky grounds.

The Antiziganism that runs rampant in Europe is fascinating to me because the US just doesn't have any significant cultural history with the Romany people, either positive or negative. It's such a weird cultural pathology in Europe that half of the Europeans that I've met have asked whether or not we have Romany in the States.

El Estrago Bonito
Dec 17, 2010

Scout Finch Bitch
It makes researching my family tree almost impossible since the records of the Canadian portion of my tribe date to about the mid 1980's
when there actually existed people who were both educated and also hadn't had their culture brainwashed out of them. And even then it's mostly based on secondhand recollections by older First Nations members because in many cases the government just didn't bother recording First Nations children, and for example my great grandfather's exact year of birth could be off by as much as five years since there was no formal record of his birth made until he entered the school system.

Zeroisanumber posted:

The Antiziganism that runs rampant in Europe is fascinating to me because the US just doesn't have any significant cultural history with the Romany people, either positive or negative. It's such a weird cultural pathology in Europe that half of the Europeans that I've met have asked whether or not we have Romany in the States.

A similar group of people in the US might be Carnies. Who are, for the most part, odd and eccentric but normal people working hard labor jobs with a lot of travel involved. On the other hand no one has ever had anything positive to say about carnies and their depictions in shows like Carnivale haven't helped much (Carnivale is a really awesome show tho). In fact the last time I can think of a mainstream thing having a positive depiction of carnival folk was Queer Eye.

HEY GUNS
Oct 11, 2012

FOPTIMUS PRIME

Mousepractice posted:

Whattup :hfive:

On that note The Third Policeman is pretty unnerving. Mostly amusing, but pretty unnerving. "all the queer ghastly things which have been happening [...] are happening in a sort of hell [...] It is made clear that this sort of thing goes on for ever".

Spoilers in the link above
I read that when I was too young and stupid to get that everything was literally going on in hell, so all I remember is being entertained by the fictional professor and the fact that bicycles had genders. :downs:

Khazar-khum
Oct 22, 2008

:minnie: Cat Army :minnie:
2nd Battalion

El Estrago Bonito posted:

It makes researching my family tree almost impossible since the records of the Canadian portion of my tribe date to about the mid 1980's
when there actually existed people who were both educated and also hadn't had their culture brainwashed out of them. And even then it's mostly based on secondhand recollections by older First Nations members because in many cases the government just didn't bother recording First Nations children, and for example my great grandfather's exact year of birth could be off by as much as five years since there was no formal record of his birth made until he entered the school system.


A similar group of people in the US might be Carnies. Who are, for the most part, odd and eccentric but normal people working hard labor jobs with a lot of travel involved. On the other hand no one has ever had anything positive to say about carnies and their depictions in shows like Carnivale haven't helped much (Carnivale is a really awesome show tho). In fact the last time I can think of a mainstream thing having a positive depiction of carnival folk was Queer Eye.

Carnies, though, do not consider themselves a race apart. It's more of a class/profession than a racial construct.

Avshalom
Feb 14, 2012

by Lowtax

Zeroisanumber posted:

The Antiziganism that runs rampant in Europe is fascinating to me because the US just doesn't have any significant cultural history with the Romany people, either positive or negative. It's such a weird cultural pathology in Europe that half of the Europeans that I've met have asked whether or not we have Romany in the States.

Next time someone mentions that to you, tell them that because there's no real endemic culture of antiziganism in the States, Romani people are able to get jobs and education and the end result is that they integrate as functioning, happy members of society. See if they get the point.

(There are antiziganists in the US too, of course, but you're right - it's not nearly as bad as in Europe.)

Phobophilia
Apr 26, 2008

by Hand Knit
I've read some pretty aggressive antiziganist stuff on these very forums, and honestly I have no idea what the gently caress because I don't know how to even respond.

Avshalom
Feb 14, 2012

by Lowtax

Phobophilia posted:

I've read some pretty aggressive antiziganist stuff on these very forums, and honestly I have no idea what the gently caress because I don't know how to even respond.

Antiziganism is one of the last great bastions of intolerance no matter where you look. Nobody on SA is stupid enough to march into a discussion on race relations and go "But my friend was mugged by a black man! Blacks really do steal!", for example, and I'd like to think that most posters recognise that ethnic crime in America is due to centuries of cruelty, oppression and deprivation*. Yet even on these forums, I see the "But my friend was pickpocketed in Rome! Gypsies really do steal!" argument all the loving time, and nobody ever seems to consider the fact that there are centuries of cruelty, oppression and deprivation behind that problem, too.

I'm kind of on the soapbox about this today and I don't want to derail this thread into Post Your Favourite Antiziganist Hate Crime, so I'll just link to my A/T post and be done.

*Plus, white-on-black and white-on-Romani violent crime is far more common than vice versa, and almost always more brutal.

mactheknife
Jul 20, 2004

THE JOLLY CANDY-LIKE BUTTON

Crow Jane posted:

In college, I took a History of Native America class. It was an absolutely fascinating semester, and the professor really knew his poo poo, but oh holy god was that a horrible, disturbing and depressing three hours a week. It became a kind of tradition that some of us in the class would stop at the pub afterwards, just to be able to process what we'd learned that day.

If you're looking for a book on the topic that will seriously get your blood boiling, we read this in class.

I took a literal "History of Genocide" class during undergrad and it was probably the most mentally and emotionally draining experience of my academic career. This thread doesn't really effect me at all, I've been able to read through just about everything without any issues, but that class was just like getting ground down for a whole semester.

I remember asking my professor - a guy who works with lots of genocide-awareness NGOs and such - how he manages to handle it all mentally and he said "Scotch helps. Have you tried Scotch?"

lenoon
Jan 7, 2010

It's not as heavy as the systematic marginalization of indigenous groups in Canada or Australia (or their near complete destruction in the US), but the treatment of welsh speaking kids in large parts of Wales up until the 1950's shows that it happens everywhere.

My grandfather was caned, beaten and had his mouth washed out for speaking welsh throughout the 40's enough that by secondary school he couldn't remember any, despite his mother trying to encourage her children to speak it at home. He became a teacher in Cardiff in the mid fifties, and refused to cane kids for speaking welsh, leading to him being fired and having to teach in England, and later New Zealand, where he came up against rules stating no Maori was to be spoken in schools. Again, he lost his job in New Zealand for not hitting kids for speaking their own language (and moved back to England).

He's always told me that one of the great regrets in his life is being powerless to do anything but watch not one, but two languages reduced to obscurity (though welsh is now making a comeback) by governments determined to destroy non-anglophone cultures.

Zohar
Jul 14, 2013

Good kitty
Just to add to the chat about studying genocide, one of my most :wtc: experiences as an undergrad was a lecture about the Rwandan genocide where the lecturer basically just described what people had done to them in excruciating detail in a weary detached monotone for the better part of an hour. The Indonesian mass killings of communists were also something else, if you have JSTOR access take a look at this cheery translated article called "Am I PKI or non-PKI?". For context, the PKI was the Indonesian Communist Party, and in 1965 after an apparent botched coup and a series of events no one's quite sure about, Communists started being slaughtered across the country with the tacit or explicit backing of the military and, in some places, Islamic clerics. (The US was also probably involved in a tangential way.) Here are two choice excerpts (spoilered for :nms:):

quote:

It was pretty effective too. Each day, as Kartawidjaja's Son No. 2 went to, or returned from, State Senior High School No. 1, he always saw corpses of Communists floating in the River Brantas. The thing was that the school was located to the "kulon" (west) of the river. And usually the corpses were no longer recognizable as human. Headless. Stomachs torn open. The smell was unbelievable. To make sure they didn't stink, the carcasses were deliberately tied to, or impaled on, bamboo stakes. And the departure of corpses from the Kediri region down the Brantas achieved its golden age when bodies were stacked together on rafts over which the PKI banner proudly flew.

...

About 1 kilometer to the north of the Ngadirejo sugar factory, you'd find a lot of houses of prostitution. Once the purge of Communist elements got under way, clients stopped coming for sexual satisfaction. The reason: most clients -- and prostitutes -- were frightened, for, hanging up in front of the houses, there were a lot of male Communist genitals -- like bananas hung out for sale.

e: Actually this also reminds me of this article about one that most people aren't aware of, the killings of Koreans in Japan after the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake:. This one unnerves me more than most, because it broke out in a relatively developed country and the immediate cause was just rumours that spread after a natural disaster, it's like we're all teetering on the brink of straight-up insanity:

quote:

Every train was more than full. People sat even on top of the coal. All Koreans were dragged out. Immediately, they were executed by the army's swords and bullets. Japanese passengers yelled out "Long Live" victoriously. ... Our battalion was inspired by this blood fest and started Korean hunt in earnest.

...

"They were Koreans. Completely lost color, they were talking desperately some language which I did not understand. "Stop yapping, you loving..." One soldier raised the sword and dropped it right on the head of a man who was restlessly moving. ... "Ha, ha, ha. Just what they deserve." "All of them, kill all of them." "You loving animals." "You pigs go to hell." About ten soldiers raised their swords high in one action.

...

On September 4, the first truck arrived, carrying handcuffed Koreans. They had already been attacked on the way and many were injured and wore bloody clothes. Trucks continued to arrive in the police station. The news of the Koreans' arrival attracted the vigilantes to the station. The men, armed with swords, carpenter hooks, and spears, violently assaulted the Koreans. An eyewitness stated the violence was unspeakable: the mob lined up children in front of parents and cut their throats; they then nailed parents to the wall by wrists and ankles and tortured them to death (haritsuke in Japanese). One Japanese man was sawing off an arm from a living Korean. Most Koreans, according to this witness, did not resist.

...

... The judge smiled and pointed to Yoshinosuke that the long sword that Yoshinosuke used was a litle too much of a big deal. Yoshinosuke also smiled and answered: "[laughter] I could not find anything better than that ... When I got to the Kumagai temple, someone said 'let's do it,' and then we all stabbed Koreans." This statement was contradicting his previous statement. The judge reproached him saying: "But you said earlier that you yourself were determined to behead Koreans." "Yes, I did, but I could not get the head off." As for the large rock [that he used to kill Koreans], he made a large circle. The coutroom was filled with chuckles and giggles.

Zohar has a new favorite as of 18:40 on Aug 6, 2013

Phlegmish
Jul 2, 2011



Avshalom posted:

Next time someone mentions that to you, tell them that because there's no real endemic culture of antiziganism in the States, Romani people are able to get jobs and education and the end result is that they integrate as functioning, happy members of society. See if they get the point.

Chicken, egg. A lot of the hostility that exists towards the Roma community stems from the fact that many of them do have a rather insular, ethnocentric mentality. As a general rule, they have little interest in becoming 'functioning, happy members' of whatever host society they happen to live in - which is of course the entire reason that they've managed to survive as a distinct group over the centuries. The idea that the problem is purely due to discrimination is fairly nonsensical, since many Western Europeans had the exact same attitude that you do when Roma people first started immigrating to Western Europe in the nineties and early 2000's.

I'm not sure what else to say. I'm certain this post will be condemned as xenophobic, but I genuinely believe that you have a very one-sided view of the issue.

SheepNameKiller
Jun 19, 2004

Phlegmish posted:

Chicken, egg. A lot of the hostility that exists towards the Roma community stems from the fact that many of them do have a rather insular, ethnocentric mentality. As a general rule, they have little interest in becoming 'functioning, happy members' of whatever host society they happen to live in - which is of course the entire reason that they've managed to survive as a distinct group over the centuries. The idea that the problem is purely due to discrimination is fairly nonsensical, since many Western Europeans had the exact same attitude that you do when Roma people first started immigrating to Western Europe in the nineties and early 2000's.

I'm not sure what else to say. I'm certain this post will be condemned as xenophobic, but I genuinely believe that you have a very one-sided view of the issue.

I'm not sure what you think your post is if it's not xenophobic since you're basically sticking up for people that discriminate based on cultural heritage.

Inevitable
Jul 27, 2007

by Ralp

Phlegmish posted:

Chicken, egg. A lot of the hostility that exists towards the Roma community stems from the fact that many of them do have a rather insular, ethnocentric mentality. As a general rule, they have little interest in becoming 'functioning, happy members' of whatever host society they happen to live in - which is of course the entire reason that they've managed to survive as a distinct group over the centuries. The idea that the problem is purely due to discrimination is fairly nonsensical, since many Western Europeans had the exact same attitude that you do when Roma people first started immigrating to Western Europe in the nineties and early 2000's.

I'm not sure what else to say. I'm certain this post will be condemned as xenophobic, but I genuinely believe that you have a very one-sided view of the issue.

My grandma says the same thing about Mexicans.

Phlegmish
Jul 2, 2011



SheepNameKiller posted:

I'm not sure what you think your post is if it's not xenophobic since you're basically sticking up for people that discriminate based on cultural heritage.

I'm pointing out that late-nineties Western Europeans literally believed that, unlike in backwards, racist Eastern Europe, there's no real endemic culture of antiziganism in Western Europe, Romani people are able to get jobs and education and the end result is that they integrate as functioning, happy members of society. Social-democratic governments, both at the local and the national level, have instituted various measures to accomplish this integration over the past two decades. For example, to get Romani parents in Ghent to send their children to school, the municipal government offered pupils free meals if they attended. None of these attempts were successful in the long term.

I find it bizarre that people here seem to dismiss the very possibility that the problem might come from two sides. No, a much more logical conclusion is that those naturally fascist 'Europeans' are simply indulging in their irrational hatred for this particular minority group. Is that what you really believe? None of this excuses base antiziganism, but when looking at broader patterns I think it's fair to say that the mentality of many Roma people is part of the problem.

Inevitable posted:

My grandma says the same thing about Mexicans.

Sure. I know this discussion cannot possibly end well for me if I go on about this subject, I just found Avshalom's posts to be self-righteous and (perhaps ironically) fairly Americentric.

Phlegmish has a new favorite as of 20:00 on Aug 6, 2013

SheepNameKiller
Jun 19, 2004

Phlegmish posted:

I'm pointing out that late-nineties Western Europeans literally believed that, unlike in backwards, racist Eastern Europe, there's no real endemic culture of antiziganism in Western Europe, Romani people are able to get jobs and education and the end result is that they integrate as functioning, happy members of society. Social-democratic governments, both at the local and the national level, have instituted various measures to accomplish this integration over the past two decades. For example, to get Romani parents in Ghent to send their children to school, the municipal government offered pupils free meals if they attended. None of these attempts were successful in the long term.

I find it bizarre that people here seem to dismiss the very possibility that the problem might come from two sides. No, a much more logical conclusion is that those naturally fascist 'Europeans' are simply indulging in their irrational hatred for this particular minority group. Is that what you really believe? None of this excuses base antiziganism, but when looking at broader patterns I think it's fair to say that the mentality of many Roma people is part of the problem.

The problem always comes from two sides, but the actions of the insular or oppressed in contributing to their oppression can't be pointed at in order to insinuate that the victims should share the blame. What happens when one side holds all the power is both sides gently caress up repeatedly at fixing things, but the side without any power bears the brunt of the consequences. It's also endemic to racism to refer to any group of people as holding a uniform system of beliefs or attitudes, so to lump every Romany into a category which says they simply haven't tried to fit in is ludicrous.

I see what you're saying but you're definitely toeing the line of a stance that's very real and inspires numerous groups of bigots in the world.

Dr. Quarex
Apr 18, 2003

I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

TOVA TOVA TOVA
I am just glad to have abruptly learned the term "antiziganism" as I have never seen it in my life and now it is ALL OVER THE PLACE

(Regarding Mexicans: The situation with the Romani may be exacerbated by the same things that create problems in the USA for Mexican immigrants, namely that depending on what facts you want to care more about/what percentages you think are more compelling, you can probably justify [with numbers at least] any view you want to have on the subject)

Terra-da-loo!
Apr 6, 2008

Sufficiently kickass.
Just to add a little more to the discussion, there is a film directed both Errol Morris and Werner Herzog that came out last in the US last month, and it is a documentary of sorts about the Indonesian genocide of communists. This genocide was mentioned earlier and I thought I'd bring this up. It is called The Act of Killing and what the two legendary filmmakers did was to have the actual people who were involved in the genocide act out their roles as they did them, creating this sort of meta vibe. I'm pretty excited about it, myself. Here's a trailer for it, and here's the wiki.

coleman francis
Aug 8, 2007

Tap tap
The ketchup bottle
None will come
Then axolotl
Hair Elf

Zohar posted:

(The US was also probably involved in a tangential way.)


HEAVILY involved. As in funded and supported.

Zohar
Jul 14, 2013

Good kitty

coleman francis posted:

HEAVILY involved. As in funded and supported.

It was mainly gving out "medicine" that's thought to have actually been small arms as I recall, it had enough momentum of its own that the US didn't really need to actively do anything other than just sit back and watch, then support Suharto when the smoke cleared up. Might be misremembering though.

Petiso
Apr 30, 2012



Phlegmish posted:

Chicken, egg. A lot of the hostility that exists towards the Roma community stems from the fact that many of them do have a rather insular, ethnocentric mentality. As a general rule, they have little interest in becoming 'functioning, happy members' of whatever host society they happen to live in - which is of course the entire reason that they've managed to survive as a distinct group over the centuries. The idea that the problem is purely due to discrimination is fairly nonsensical, since many Western Europeans had the exact same attitude that you do when Roma people first started immigrating to Western Europe in the nineties and early 2000's.

I'm not sure what else to say. I'm certain this post will be condemned as xenophobic, but I genuinely believe that you have a very one-sided view of the issue.

As a western european I see your point and agree that just claiming "pswah, bigotry" oversimplifies the issue and ignores the problem altogether.

I'd like to point out that most hatred expressed towards this collective actually goes towards those extremely ethnocentric groups he mentioned that explicitly say that don't acknowledge any law other than their own. Usually nobody has a problem with a romany per se (they comprise a big porcentage of the population in Andalusia, where I come from, and in fact, unless you're good recognizing facial patterns you'll have a hard time distinguishing a romany from most mediterranean "whites"), so it's not about hating a group of people for what they are but for what they do.

The authorities' stance on the matter doesn't help improving the relations either. I usually hear stories about how abusive America's police is towards minorities, in this case is the complete opposite, unless a serious crime is involved, authorities are usually passive to their felonies since they know there's no point (their income is normally undeclared so from the state's perspective they can't pay fines), so seeing them getting away with no consequences just adds more fuel to the conflict.

What I really mean is that, although I and most people know discrimination is awful and they have suffered a lot during history I'd be lying if I said I didn't understand how an otherwise decent person might not have a liking for certain groups.

StrangersInTheNight
Dec 31, 2007
ABSOLUTE FUCKING GUDGEON
It couldn't possibly be that efforts to integrate the Romani are patronizing and strive to erase their cultural heritage, which makes them hesitant to try an join, and leaves them a marginalized culture that has the same survival behaviors as any poor, lower class peoples. You can't call efforts to basically fold them into your culture and erase theirs sincere integration efforts, and it's no wonder they resist. If their culture is being treated as something that needs to be taught 'out' of them, then of course you're having trouble; that's a basic lack of respect that's going to turn anyone away. And it is their fear, as well; that by assimilating they will lose themselves.

StrangersInTheNight has a new favorite as of 12:04 on Aug 7, 2013

AlbieQuirky
Oct 9, 2012

Just me and my 🌊dragon🐉 hanging out

StrangersInTheNight posted:

It couldn't possibly be that efforts to integrate the Romani are patronizing and strive to erase their cultural heritage, which makes them hesitant to try an join, and leaves them a marginalized culture that has the same survival behaviors as any poor, lower class peoples. You can't call efforts to basically fold them into your culture and erase theirs sincere integration efforts, and it's no wonder they resist. If their culture is being treated as something that needs to be taught 'out' of them, then of course you're having trouble; that's a basic lack of respect that's going to turn anyone away. And it is their fear, as well; that by assimilating they will lose themselves.

It's like there wasn't even a bunch of posts earlier in the thread about the horrors of residential schools/"Indian schools"/the Stolen Generations/English-only schools in Wales and Ireland/somehow we missed the English-only schools for Maori, but them too.

"Oh, but the Rromani really are different, you don't understand!" is an unbelievably threadbare argument. Every single argument people in Europe make about the Rromani has been made/is made about ethnic/cultural/racial minority groups in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand---arguments the same Europeans will rightly call ridiculously racist when applied to indigenous Australians or First Nations Canadians or Latino immigrants in the US.

AlbieQuirky has a new favorite as of 16:30 on Aug 7, 2013

Dr. Video Games 0081
Jan 19, 2005

Zombie Raptor posted:

Just to add a little more to the discussion, there is a film directed both Errol Morris and Werner Herzog that came out last in the US last month, and it is a documentary of sorts about the Indonesian genocide of communists. This genocide was mentioned earlier and I thought I'd bring this up. It is called The Act of Killing and what the two legendary filmmakers did was to have the actual people who were involved in the genocide act out their roles as they did them, creating this sort of meta vibe. I'm pretty excited about it, myself. Here's a trailer for it, and here's the wiki.

Just a heads up but Herzog and Morris are executive producers on the film, not directors. The director is Joshua Oppenheimer. I haven't seen the movie yet but I would very much like to.

new phone who dis
May 24, 2007

by VideoGames
Morbid Hound

Quarex posted:

I am just glad to have abruptly learned the term "antiziganism" as I have never seen it in my life and now it is ALL OVER THE PLACE

(Regarding Mexicans: The situation with the Romani may be exacerbated by the same things that create problems in the USA for Mexican immigrants, namely that depending on what facts you want to care more about/what percentages you think are more compelling, you can probably justify [with numbers at least] any view you want to have on the subject)

In general Mexican immigrants are all about becoming Americans and integrating into society. There are certain elements of their culture they preserve, but generally if they are operating on the fringes of society in camps or whatever it's because of the lovely labor system that put them there. They're much less insular than other cultures, notably many Asian ones. Where sometimes you would have to go to Chinatown or some other similar ethnic enclave to get an authentic cultural experience, Mexican culture seems to embed and hang on wherever it ends up. It's remarkably resilient and adaptive, and many tenets of it are fairly similar to already existing American ones. The only real difference between a Cinco de Mayo celebration and a 4th of July one in practice is usually the food and the music. Other than that it's typically a beer-fueled BBQ with fireworks.

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Phlegmish
Jul 2, 2011



StrangersInTheNight posted:

It couldn't possibly be that efforts to integrate the Romani are patronizing and strive to erase their cultural heritage, which makes them hesitant to try an join, and leaves them a marginalized culture that has the same survival behaviors as any poor, lower class peoples. You can't call efforts to basically fold them into your culture and erase theirs sincere integration efforts, and it's no wonder they resist. If their culture is being treated as something that needs to be taught 'out' of them, then of course you're having trouble; that's a basic lack of respect that's going to turn anyone away. And it is their fear, as well; that by assimilating they will lose themselves.

AlbieQuirky posted:

It's like there wasn't even a bunch of posts earlier in the thread about the horrors of residential schools/"Indian schools"/the Stolen Generations/English-only schools in Wales and Ireland/somehow we missed the English-only schools for Maori, but them too.

"Oh, but the Rromani really are different, you don't understand!" is an unbelievably threadbare argument. Every single argument people in Europe make about the Rromani has been made/is made about ethnic/cultural/racial minority groups in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand---arguments the same Europeans will rightly call ridiculously racist when applied to indigenous Australians or First Nations Canadians or Latino immigrants in the US.

Except that the original point of criticism was that European societies supposedly don't offer them any ability to gain employment or education, not giving them the opportunity to integrate. Now it turns out that giving them that opportunity actually constitutes an attempt to erase their culture. So which is it? Maybe at this point you should just come right out and admit that there is literally no course of action that European states could possibly follow in this scenario without them being the bad guys somehow.

D&D goons are mostly unable to interpret social reality in a way that everything doesn't basically boil down to 'institutional oppression'. Every negative aspect of every non-dominant group's cultural traits is due to past or present discrimination by the dominant group. In many cases, there is a lot of truth to this view. The problem is that it's an oversimplified way of looking at things in the specific case of the Romani people, which is why people in this thread are having to twist every which way just to push the traditional oppression narrative.

Unlike Mexicans in the US, North Africans in Europe, indigenous Australians or any of the other groups mentioned in this thread, the Romani 'ethnicity' is to a large extent defined by the semi-nomadic lifestyle that is associated with it. They have managed to survive as a distinct group in Europe for almost a millennium, continuously moving from country to country. This impressive feat was partly made possible by the evolution of certain cultural traits, including clannishness and ethnocentrism. This attitude often leads to behavior that is intuitively seen as unacceptable by the native population. The crimes commited by Romani people are usually petty, and they obviously aren't the only demographic group that commit crime. Thing is, it is the type of crime that specifically eats away at the mechanisms of mutual trust and social capital that are supposed to be at the heart of Western European societies. People get the impression that Roma people feel absolutely no empathy or solidarity with the native population, and this makes them more likely to have a negative view of that particular community.

Phlegmish has a new favorite as of 17:56 on Aug 7, 2013

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