created by Svarec on 19/03/2021 at 11:59 UTC
2096 upvotes, 166 top-level comments (showing 25)
I spent 2 years living in Great Britain as a czech and I was regurarly treated condescendingly and subjected to xenophobic abuse. My opinion was often disregarded in work, people were making jokes such as "Do you have TVs in your country" or "Can you fix my plumbing?". My GF confessed to me that her parents told her to be careful because I would turn out to be a drunk and beat her. And I had friends from Bulgaria and Ukraine who had it much worse than me, being straight up treated like lesser humans.
Comment by [deleted] at 19/03/2021 at 14:57 UTC
293 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I'm British and yeah there's a weird anti Slavic sentiment here which probably goes back to the cold war, and from migration of eastern Euros to western Europe. It sucks, I like eastern Europe, a lot of really cool history and Prague is a beautiful city.
Comment by [deleted] at 19/03/2021 at 17:53 UTC
150 upvotes, 8 direct replies
I agree because of my personal experience.
I am Eastern European and I lived for a year in Germany. Despite of the facade of tolerance, when I got to know people closer, I found that "average" opinion is very xenophobic:
Comment by Tradition96 at 19/03/2021 at 17:45 UTC
68 upvotes, 1 direct replies
As a Scandinavian, I agree. There is a lot of xenophobia against Eastern Europeans here, especially Poles and people from the Balkans.
Comment by ap0ll0sama at 19/03/2021 at 14:00 UTC
229 upvotes, 7 direct replies
I'm French in france, and yes, people from Eastern Europe suffer a lot of racist shit... If you are racist against black or magreb people it's really frowned upon, but if you are racist against slave, every body would take as a joke...
Comment by [deleted] at 19/03/2021 at 12:03 UTC
224 upvotes, 3 direct replies
I’d noticed it a lot where I work when we had a woman from Romania working with us.
They kept asking her to do the dirty jobs that they didn’t want to do.
Comment by Minskdhaka at 19/03/2021 at 19:59 UTC
51 upvotes, 1 direct replies
As a Belarusian living for five years in the US and 15 in Canada, I was a bit shocked at how easily North American entertainers (and ordinary people) do Russian accents and make jokes about Russians, when they wouldn't dream of doing this about, say, Indians (except the famous case of Apu), or non-Russian Slavs such as the Poles (something that used to be common decades ago, before my time). I'm not Russian, and I don't like Russia's foreign policy, etc., but yes, I find the casual way one can laugh at Russians in North American society to be one of the last few forms of racism still deemed acceptable by society.
Comment by [deleted] at 19/03/2021 at 14:00 UTC
135 upvotes, 1 direct replies
This isn't even an opinion.
Comment by Far_Preparation7917 at 19/03/2021 at 14:09 UTC*
116 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Well yeah you aren't wrong, I'm British so grew up with extremely common anti-polish sentiment around.
In Amsterdam now, I know people are somewhat xenophobic, but it is nothing like the overt anti Eastern European sentiment you get in the UK.
Although there is still inequity between immigrants from west and east. I know shitloads of italians, Spanish, greeks, French etc chefs, but very few Eastern European people. Although Eastern Europeans often work front of house. And all the uber eats drivers in the city are Eastern European, Middle Eastern or South Asian. With almost no Dutch or western Europeans doing the work.
Basically all the southern and western Europeans I know kept their jobs and have been getting a salary subsidy from the government during this pandemic. Most Eastern Europeans I know lost their jobs.
Comment by Gastkram at 19/03/2021 at 19:33 UTC
40 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I don't think this is an unpopular opinion, it's even just obviously true.
Comment by andrlin at 19/03/2021 at 16:41 UTC
116 upvotes, 3 direct replies
I have no idea how you can handle those jokes with no symmetric response.
- Do you have TVs in your country?
- Do you have a non-ugly woman in your country? Couldn't yet find one.
- Can you fix my plumbing?
- I can also fix your wife's plumbing.
Don't forget to say with corresponding eastern-european accent.
Comment by SecretSynth at 19/03/2021 at 12:08 UTC
135 upvotes, 3 direct replies
I live in Belgium. Most people here see Eastern Europeans the same way many Americans see Mexicans
Comment by tagrei06 at 19/03/2021 at 14:43 UTC
27 upvotes, 0 direct replies
it's so strange . cause as someone from the Caribbean it's like Europe is Europe an there is no distinction. but then we in the larger Caribbean islands look down at the "small islanders " while most people outside the caribbean cant tell one island from another. i guess people just like to look down on people from other groups
Comment by longsh0t1994 at 19/03/2021 at 14:30 UTC
27 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This is 1000% true and I figured would be largely agreed upon.
Comment by nahjulia at 19/03/2021 at 15:23 UTC
54 upvotes, 2 direct replies
UK is really bad for this in my opinion. I'm from Finland but lived in the UK for 6 years and when the whole brexit thing went down I was told several times that "I'm a good type of immigrant, we don't mind people like you" and then with the same breath complaints about Polish people, although I worked at the same job as many slavic immigrants did.
Comment by phystods at 19/03/2021 at 13:39 UTC*
90 upvotes, 4 direct replies
I lived in the US as a PhD student/worker and I'm Greek. For the most part it was fine; many people would tell me about how they always wanted to visit and about the history. However, I did receive the occasional poverty/laziness "joke" (funnily every Greek they knew in my university was a workaholic but still). I was asked by a Canadian dude once when planning a video call from Greece "Oh you have internet in Greece?".
One of my best friends is Bulgarian and when I first met her I noticed that she almost acted embarrassed about her heritage: she despised her accent, acted uncomfortable when people asked her where she was from etc. Initially I thought it was odd. As I had more experiences with her and other people from Slavic countries, I noticed how people behaved differently towards them than towards me. The funny thing is that she was way more "americanized" culturally than I was, yet she was treated like an outsider more than me.
I recently moved to the UK and I look forward to seeing what I will discover here.
Comment by ffuucckktthhiiss at 19/03/2021 at 12:09 UTC
106 upvotes, 6 direct replies
Absolutely true. My friend (also a Slav) went to USA (not Western EU, but still the "western world") as an exchange student and was asked questions like "do you ride horses and use swords". Like wtf....
Comment by veggiebuilder at 19/03/2021 at 15:12 UTC
46 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Oh yeah, large portions of the british population are racist/xenophobic towards eastern europe, especially Romanians.
I have no idea if minority, majority. I live in an area with hopefully less but seeing racist parties do fairly well makes me think a significant minority
Comment by 00rdyx at 19/03/2021 at 16:44 UTC
44 upvotes, 5 direct replies
europeans often like to shit on americans about racism but they are often then not equal or worse when it comes to racism in europe. just ask them about the goddam romani
Comment by Mishung at 19/03/2021 at 16:18 UTC
22 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I would argue that nationality is just an easy thing to grab on to when trying to insult someone. I am a Slav (not Czech) living in Prague and have been insulted for my nationality by Czechs multiple times. From what I can tell they just wanted to be mean, didn't know me, the only thing they knew about me was that I don't speak czech and bam! I was instantly a fucking [insert my nationality]
Comment by Danel-Rahmani at 19/03/2021 at 14:07 UTC
39 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I am not an Slav or other eastern European(I'm a Tajik from Afghanistan) and in the Netherlands I've not experienced much racism but I definitely noticed my bosian friends experience quite a bit compared to what racism I faced although in the Netherlands most racism is focused towards Moroccans due to the popular politician Geert Wilders
Comment by [deleted] at 19/03/2021 at 18:08 UTC
19 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I am from Serbia, and on few occasions I've been asked online stuff like do we have power/water, is the war still going on here and generally being marked as thief or something alike. OP has a point.
Comment by [deleted] at 19/03/2021 at 12:03 UTC
122 upvotes, 4 direct replies
I'm a Romanian in Spain and I can tell you, I had my differences, but I lived here for a very long time and my personality changes their point of view, plus, I can be very toxic when I encounter any type of racism, so I scared some people off, I remember once someone asked me "what do you do here? In my country", and I told him " I work, not like so many disposal pieces of shit from your country who live on public help or their parents back, and don't want to get a fucking job and grow up as adults, or others who steal on the streets or sitting on a chair in the institutions", his friends forced him to apologize, more because he was actually living on public help and his parents back as I later found out.
Comment by [deleted] at 19/03/2021 at 16:13 UTC
29 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I’ve kinda noticed how some European countries are kinda shitty and mean and act all high superior.
Comment by Reckless_Waifu at 19/03/2021 at 21:12 UTC
13 upvotes, 0 direct replies
That's what you get for wearing socks with sandals. (Zdravím kolegu z Čechistánu)
Comment by [deleted] at 19/03/2021 at 13:05 UTC*
30 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Im half slovenian and noone ever gave me shit for it in germany . On the other Hand most people are a bit intimidated by me when they First meet me but i dont think thats it.