Capitalist society, not just attitudes, are to blame for social exclusion of the Roma population.

The Roma population in Romania, 86% of whom live in appalling conditions that force children to beg and hunt through trash to survive, are the target of major, normalized racism by their non-Roma neighbors; similarly so in Bulgaria and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. In this episode of “On the Barricades,” Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski discuss this problem – not from the perspective of blaming such racist attitudes prevalent – but in terms of how wider cultural and economic-systemic factors push the vast majority of society toward or under the poverty line, while eroding solidarity and thus fuelling racism. We can also measure the problem of racism, and see that it’s not inherent in those who espouse it, by looking back into recent history to compare the massive difference in the state’s ability to take care of the population during socialism versus in the present.

And here is the second episode in this week’s show: