For many Roma discrimination is just a part of being Gypsy. Centuries of �bad press� have built up the common attitude of discrimination of Roma as an acceptable behavior. In Eastern Europe where resides more than three-quarter of Europe�s 10 million Roma these attitudes find their way into the infrastructure of society, from law enforcement � to the educational system � to the political institutions where Roma complaints are sometimes answered to with �get out of here you crow�
�They bring it upon themselves,� is often the justification. �They tirelessly study how to avoid their daily rounds of work.� �They live only for the present, and they do not care about the future, therefore school is not important for them,� comments a Hungarian schoolteacher. Or in the case of illegal sterilization of Gypsy women in Slovakia health care system, �they purposely create imbecile children in order to get more money from the state,�
�Prejudice begins at home, it�s commonly said, like a virus spreading into the playgrounds, social centers and workplaces. �Tzigan� in Romanian, Tsiganes or Bohemian in French, Zingari in Italian or Zingeuner in German each hold negative connotations. �Don�t be a Gypsy,� or �don�t drown like a Gypsy� are some common sayings flung across the East European streets where the term �Gypsy� refers to both an ethnic group and mischievous character. Even the Gypsies are believing it: �when the Lautari (Gypsy musicians) from Morunglav, Olt say, we are not Gypsies, they mean that they do not want to be identified with most Roma which �everyone� knows as wild, lazy, misfits, potential delinquents,� write Speranta Radulescu in her book �Chats About Gypsy Music.� Inside the public train stations parents can be overheard quieting down their rambunctious children with frightful tales of the Gypsy bogyman. Literature and film meanwhile repetitively portrays them in anti-social positions, asbeggars and thieves, witches, or lascivious woman. In Hugo�s Hunchback of Notre Dame they steal babies.
�A situation exist today in which those who write for the popular press feel quite at liberty to say the most outrageous things about Gypsies, while they would be aghast if they were ever expected to put their names to the same kind of articles about, say, Italians, or Jews or Afro-Americans,� writes Dr. Ian Hancock professor of Romani studies at the University of Texas in his book �The Pariah Syndrome;
�In my opinion, several reasons stand for this situation. Stereotypes and prejudice towards Roma people are deeply rooted within the majority,� says Nicoleta Fotiade, program manager at Monitoring the Press Agency in Romania who�s agency found that even after new protective guidelines had been established the press continued producing a high number of negative articles on the Roma. �The word with which Roma are identified � �Gypsy� � has a profoundly pejorative connotation as it is associated with antisocial acts � �steal like a Gypsy�, �dirty like a Gypsy� � �deceitful like a Gypsy,� and so on. Most journalists prejudice towards Roma is similar to the majorities�. I remember this meeting with a journalist from a local newspaper in Zalau. We had happened to monitor the newspaper where she wrote some editorials that were simply hate speeches towards Roma. I tried to explain to her the harm that she was doing� To my amazement and totally against my efforts, she said most calmly and plainly that she did not think that she was doing anything wrong towards the Roma. I remember her saying, �but how come I am doing something wrong? Everybody thinks that way.��