Middle-class Romanians apply egalitarian principles to Hungarians but not to Roma

Evidence

Tileag a6 noticed the presence and infl uence of a societal taboo against prejudice, but this was embraced only half-heartedly, and reluctantly, by otherwise law-abiding, reasonable individuals. How to talk about the Roma without being seen as prejudiced or racist was a live concern. However, unguarded prejudices spilled unrestrained in the conversations between interviewer and interviewee. There was a sense that, somehow, it was acceptable to talk about Romani people in a direct, unguarded way. The operative relevance of principles of equality, justice or fairness was drawn upon when middle-class Romanians were talking about the Hungarian minority, but the same principles were not applied when talking about Romani people. — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice, 523

Categorization

• XREF: The selective application of moral principles prefigures the graded worth of lives seen throughout the reader’s notes on sacrifice and social exclusion.
• QUESTION: Worth investigating whether this selective-principle pattern tracks other societies where a specific group is exempted from general norms.

Related

• Prejudices against Roma are among the last socially acceptable prejudices (similarity 0.80)
• Roma are degraded and reminded of their degraded status (similarity 0.78)