I was a pale Roma baby - it's always been a family joke that I was stolen

[siobhanc92]

The joke doesn't seem so funny now - the case of blonde child Maria has exposed widespread prejudice about Romany people

If we were to make a list of reasons as to why a child should be taken into care, "being blond" would probably not make the cut. This week, however, two Roma children in Athlone and Dublin were snatched from their families for

Comments

[spyral_out]

Damn it, Greece, get your shit together.

[sfrlz]

This whole situation is so incredibly fucked up and I feel so bad for that poor child. My mom is blonde in a family who all have dark brown hair - it's called recessive genes.

[silver_apples]

The adults in my family are all brunets, but over half the kids are born blond, and their hair darkens to brown around adolescence. I have a niece with red hair, which no one else in my family has. My sister-in-law thinks her great-uncle may have had red hair (she only remembers him with gray). But that's one relative on one side, and not even in the direct line. So yeah, genetics are funny, and blond kids don't always stay blond.

[beoweasel]

Yeah, my cousin and his wife are both dark-haired, while all four of their boys are bright blonde.

[liliaeth]

The more I hear about the Maria case, the more I want them to give that little girl back to her adoptive parents. And then hearing about the other case... it does feel and sound like utter racism. And it's a kind of racism that people rarely seem to speak up about.

(just remembering one of the few Criminal Minds eps I've truly despised, which was also about Roma kidnapping kids)

[booksforlunch]

Oh god, yes, this is what bugged me so much in the coverage I heard so far (especially in the Blöd, sorry, BILD).

Blonde child! Blonde! Have we mentioned the child was blonde yet? Twelve times? Oh. Anyway, GAZE UPON THIS BLONDE, BLUE EYED GIRL!!!!!

[hermionemalfoy]

Relatedly, I was watching a doc about decreasing treatments for infections, and this little girl's mom described her as "perfect" - "blonde, pale skin, blue eyed, thin". I was like, "Are you hearing yourself?" Beyond the creepy adherence to male-dominated media's definition of beauty, it was almost a minute before she described any personality feature that made her perfect and it was only to say that she was "spirited". Like, who isn't? A zombie? But don't get it wrong--the most important feature of her child was that she was blond. Ick.

[skittish_derby]

I saw that episode of Frontline too and I was struck by the same thought.. like, OK she is blonde and thin, and then AFTER she describes how perfect her kid looks does she describe how healthy and active she is (the pertinent details!)

[hermionemalfoy]

Seriously, wtf! And the way the editors timed it with the music, they were building it like we were supposed to be empathizing more with her because of her "physical perfection". When the mom described her as "thin", my first thought was, "that's bad when you get seriously sick, which is where this story is going." And, of course, they never revisited how that aspect of her body might have affected her health when she was unconscious/having difficulty eating. UGH

[silver_apples]

Blond, blue-eyed, fair-skinned child is an angel. Please draw your own conclusions about what that makes her brunet, brown-eyed, and dark-skinned parents.

The kid's biological parents are Roma, and from what I can see, both have dark hair. But we're not going to talk about that. It's better to figure out what they can be charged with (there's talk about charging them with selling a child, even though both set of parents have said no money changed hands).

[booksforlunch]

Oh how I hate that "blond" = "Angel" stuff.

I once literally threw a book to the ground for pulling this.

[ms_mmelissa]

I don’t blame you.