~ARTICLE INFO~ U.S. News & World Report. This article is about a big racist mix-up in Czechoslovakia. Romas (or Gypsies) feel that they are being discriminated against. The foremost illustration of this is a 7-foot-high wall that was constructed in Usti Nad Labem, in the Czech Republic. The government claims they put it there as a sound barrier between a Romas housing plan and a row of houses adjacent to them. The row of houses were complaining about trash and noise pollution from the housing plan so the town built this wall. The Romas think the Czech are shutting them off. But they have lots of evidence of prior discrimination. The Government brands Roma job applications with the letter R. Roma people have been long thought of poorly in Czechoslovakia.
They have been so fed up with this that they are mobilizing west, and getting the heck out of town. Czechoslovakia is drafting new laws to help equalize Czech and Roma but still the Roma are leaving. "The street the wall boarders, Maricni Street, should be called Intolerance Street" says Czech President Vaclav Havel. Tickets from flights from Czechoslovakia to London were marked G to designate that the passenger appeared Gypsy. This was uncovered and has since ceased but that is a sign of the discrimination that takes place.
This article was well written and I think it brings up many key points. I believe that the Romas are fighting back properly and that they shouldn't be so steeply discriminated against. But they don't have a pure record themselves. They are accountable for most of the crimes that happen is Czechoslovakia. This is the identical way we discriminate against gangs. Every time there is a shooting or a crime of some sort, we associate it with gangs. We are frightened of them, knowing one erroneous move may get us killed. The gangs are kept to one area, as we know that area to be dangerous and we avoid it. We discriminate against them because of the crime. This is pertained to what it happening over in Europe.
Gypsies and Gangs are the analogy there. I think it was very unjust the way the airlines marked the flight records with G's and how the government distinguished job applications with an R. They really didn't deserve this but I presume it was appropriate for safety reasons. I probably would have done it myself.
November 8th, 1999
Page: 62
The Wall of Hostility on "Intolerance Street"
Author: Lucian Kim