it's only private racism, you see. as for the sexism, who cares?!

i promised i'd make a collection of links to media and other coverage of the incident in may when romanian president traian basescu addressed a female journalist who was bothering him as "hey, pussy" then took her cell phone away from her and later remarked to his wife (in a conversation accidentally recorded on the stolen phone) that the journalist was such an "aggressive," "stinky gypsy." so here are some links from a wide variety of sources:

---"“Aggressive... stinky Gypsy” (Romanian President Traian Basescu)" (Romanian Indymedia)
---"Aggressive Stinky Gypsy Woman" (Rroma.org)
---"Romanian president in fresh controversy" (Financial Times)
---"Basescu's tainted triumph" (The Economist)
---"Romanian Press Club to submit criminal complaint against President Basescu" (Hotnews.ro)
---"Romanian president apologizes for calling journalist 'stinky Gypsy'" (NCTimes)
---"Basescu chided for 'gypsy' remark" (BBC)
---"CNCD – warning sanction for Traian Basescu. The President will challenge the decision in court" (Nine O'Clock)
---"Romanian president invited to wear anti-racism shirt" (People's Daily Online)

one of the "great" parts of the aftermath of this incident was that basescu never apologized directly to the journalist, but had his spokespeople issue a statement about how he was sorry his private conversations were made public in this way, but he hoped that such non-democratic methods of condemning people as the security did before '89 would not be employed again in romania (!); he barely even mentioned his racist and sexist statements at all, let alone truly apologize for them. and of course the mainstream press and the majority of the public ate this stuff up, and lamented at length the aggressivity and ruthlessness of romanian journalists today (even if this was in the press and they were actually talking about their own people and tactics - a problem that they don't give a damn about addressing when it's the real subject of discussion) and the issue of "censoring" people's "private" comments. see the title of this article from The Diplomat Bucharest ["The magazine for informed internationals" indeed]: "Basescu under fire for private thoughts" (the article itself is ok).

not surprisingly, after he was given a warning from the cncd (the national council for combating discrimination), basescu played the "real victim" some more, threatening that he would sue them for judging the situation unfairly (since he never made any mistake, as he'd argued all along).

but the discussion around the real issues involved, the deep racism running through romanian society, as well as the rampant and completely normalized sexism, was downplayed at every turn, by almost all public figures as well as the public at large. it would have been a great opportunity to talk about addressing these... or at least to recognize that they are important issues to address. it didn't happen.

after the initial protest by several ngos (protest letter and press release from the roma rights group Romani CRISS), there was another protest "against basescu's racism and sexism" (poorly attended, not covered in the media at all --> call in romanian), an open letter [another romanian link] from a noted (feminist) scholar, and then the cncd decision and the attempts to make basescu publicly express anti-racist sentiments (which by the way worked so well that basescu actually eliminated a program aimed at addressing the virulent racism and anti-gypsyism present at sporting events among fans and players). that was it.

i could go on and on about the glaring problems with how this incident was approached, from a feminist point of view: even though basescu made both racist and sexist remarks, the sexist one was completely downplayed (even in the cncd decision), then in the coverage, even when the voices and protests of roma rights activists were included, they were exclusively male... but it's all so predictable, i might as well not bother (here and now).

-----

in other news, romania gets its first romani mayor! (the link is to a transitions online article that also paints a vivid picture of the reality of the institutionalized discriminations, hardships and obstacles facing roma communities today)