Madonna Booed After Gypsy Discrimination Outcry

August 27th, 2009 by Castina

Tagged as: Madonna

Thousands of fans booed Madonna after she spoke out against the discrimination of Gypsies in eastern Europe during a concert in Romania on Wednesday night.

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The Material Girl paused in the middle of her two-hour show and remarked that Gypsies, also known as Roma, were being discriminated against in eastern Europe. She noted that the treatment of Gyspies makes her “sad,” adding that nobody should be discriminated against.

Thousands in the crowd of 60,000 began viciously booing…..Madge did not respond.

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8 Responses to “Madonna Booed After Gypsy Discrimination Outcry”

On August 27th 2009, Ragerten wrote:

She better try living among gypsies for a period of time, (without her bodyguards, I mean…), and only then open her mouth!
On August 27th 2009, Ioa wrote:

Were you even there? If you watch the footage closely, you will see people were very much ok with the gypsy music she played. They were in fact also receptive when she mentioned discrimination against the romani people. It only blew up in her face when she pronounced “Eastern Europe”. She knows nothing about our country, she just threw us in with the rest of the crowd and she insulted us. I didn’t pay Madonna to insult me. She had no right to take a moral highstand and scold us for whatever reason on our time and money. I am totally for equality and have no problem with any social category. Why did I boo her for one? Because as we don’t send our artists in the U.S.A. to preach to them about how evil they are for allowing Guantanamo Bay, Ku Klux Klan or other crap like that, Madonna had no place preaching to us. That is not how you send a message, by judging people based on what you heard on tv and the general area where they live. Had she said “I support equality for all and stand against discrimination”, she would have fared much better, but coming to our country and pointing fingers at us is just rude. It was adding another insult to the fact that she had us wait 1 hour for her. But, hey, I guess we’re just Eastern Europeans, who gives a damn about us?…
On August 27th 2009, Chitzul wrote:

Before speaking about Roma discrimination, she should really get informed. Romanians, and these are the majoritary population of romania, ARE NOT Roma’s or Romani. This is a misfortunate word association, and while Romanis count 0,5 to 2 millions, romanians count 20 millions. Romanis never intended to integrate in any country, all they know AND WANT to do is to mug, to steal, to rob, rape, beat the **** out of people. They never go to school though the education is free. They almost never work legally as they prefer to steal from people. Some of them do integrate, but just because they want that. Romanians are sick and tired of everyone telling us to “love thy neighbour”, when the darn neighbour will love us back with a club whack. So if Madonna loves them so much, she should take some of them with her.
On August 27th 2009, Adrian wrote:

There are a few reasons Romanians don’t like the gypsy. Top of the list, probably, they make us look bad in the EU. Then there are issues concerning their traditions and way of living, which may be amazing from a cultural and anthropological point of view, but is very far from that in real life. They have little schooling, have difficulties getting jobs, and are quite poor, and this, combined with their typical way of life, free-life, creates a special situation for them, from which it is difficult to get out of alone. The society tends to marginalize them as a result of their different way of life and social problems, and their social problems grow deeper. Madonna is right in a way to try and make a point on this issue, as it is us, the Romanians, who should break the cycle and extend a helping hand. But such mental barriers are difficult to break, as Madonna probably already knows.
On August 27th 2009, liana wrote:

What does Madonna know? Is she an authority in human rights or Romania’s internal affairs? Has she ever stepped foot outside her hotel while in Bucharest? Has she ever met with people who actually live in Romania day in and day out? People did not boo because they are racist, they booed because her crass generalization was an insult. And ironically, they paid up to $270 to be insulted by this fake, superficial being who may or may not have a high school diploma, yet appears to care so much and be so very knowledgeable. MOST Romanians have nothing against the Roma population per se. Naturally, when you’re transiting a Roma village by car and your windows get smashed with rocks one might feel a tad bit different. However, Romanians do not hate the Roma by default, they hate the criminals and the gangs because they affect the overall quality of life, not because of the color of their skin. I live in Romania, I know how it feels to have to deal with a drunk Roma ethnic and I also know what it feels like to deal with a drunk Romanian ethnic. The only difference is the far greater incidence of the first case. Madonna wouldn’t know any of this. She is an overpaid entertainer who, like many of her species, believes that mysticism combined with activism equals undeniable cool. This is exactly what her statement was meant to bring her. Just a touch of extra-cool and a bit of media buzz. Deep down, she’s still a teenage girl who wants to hang with the cool kids and in order to prove herself she has to be outrageous. Whether that comes by toning up her old body to make it look 20 or by buying an idiotic outfit and then pretending it has a deeper meaning that eludes everyone else or by getting a brand new boy toy or by exhaling wanna-be-wisdom, is less important.
Wakie-wakie, you’re not in Junior High anymore, Madge. And Romania is so not the new Malawi.
On August 27th 2009, Kevin wrote:

Madonna should take a lesson through this public reaction. Not everything is in black and white. She offended the romanian audience that aspires to the European values, to the western civilization principles. I totaly agree with what happened and I just hope that so widely apreciated artists as Madonna, won’t make this kind of errors in the future.
To not fullfill the regular social duties, imperative for anybody in a society, yet to expect to be treated equaly it’s a nonsense and is dangerous for the self existence of a state of justice. Also, ranking a statisticly delimitated group, on performance criteria doesn’t seem to be an act of racism. The romanians fight to be separated from the image of the gypsy ethnic group and the term confusion (rrom, roma-in english, for gypsy) because of the reason mentioned above. It’s not a question of race here, it’s a question of culture. I know that the poetry of the nomad way of life attracts anybody. Also the “free from the system” life it is a permanent temptation, but, while they are made on the expense of others, they can’t be socialy aproved.
In Romania nowdays, through the principle of “positive discrimination”, gypsies have more civil rights than the romanian majority. Everybody agrees and complies with it. Even so, they (I meen “the majority of the gypsy ethnic group”) persist in maintaining the same values that make difficult under this conditions of a normal social coexistence. For example, even after several media scandals and decades of government and public pressure, the gypsy families still mary their youths through interfamilial agreements at ages between 5 and 15.
Other example is that the romanian education system offers an amount of free of tax places at superior level of education to minorities, to study in their own language, of which the gypsies receive a big part too. The applications for these places, or for the free of tax places to study in romanian language, came from the gypsy minority are minimal.
Not to speak about infractionality, organized crime, slave traffic (I know it sounds awkward but I have 1st hand infos), drug traffic, etc. At these chapters statistic numbers makes them the most “active” ethnic group in Romania, almost equal rivals of the romanian majority, which is ten times more numerous.
What to say more? Racism, these days, became in some cases an excuse to sufficiency, crime tolerance and political failure. Decent, regular, working people are treated unfair meanwhile behind racism accusations are hiding cultural or interest groups, harmful to the sane, civilized way of life, that feed the “parasite way of life” phenomenon and that recruit, for their support, wrongly informed but influent voices, faces or characters.
On August 27th 2009, Musica wrote:

Imagine that being booed for making polittical comments. Does anyone else think a Forign National that is there to perform should do that instead of being a nusiance? The US has freedom of speech but, the Bill of Rights does not extend to Americans in a Forign Country, their country, their laws. Before you jump on a soapbox and become indiginant put it in perspective that she was outside the US making inappropiate comments, no matter what you think or believe it is their country.
On August 27th 2009, pissed wrote:

A message to Madona and the rest of the world, since you love “TIGANI” (aka Gypsies) so much and we discriminate and hate them, having to put up with their unsocial behavior (crap) for 600+ years, you have them (adopt them), but don’t you F _ _ _ _ _ dare send them back with the bus load like the Italians, British, Irish and the rest.

Also please don’t associate us with them by calling them Romanians, they are not and have no association to our roots. They are from Northen India and speaking personally with asian Indians about “TIGANI” they and their relatives are not exactly liked there either.