Brno, Czech Republic

Brno’s demography of where people live in the city is very interesting to me. There is segregation of the majority population and the Roma people (not by law necessarily). We learned that most of the Roma people that live in Brno live away from the majority population—the Roma people live in the “ghetto” of the city. There are 4 different schools Roma children go to—85% of those schools consist of Roma children. If Roma people try to move out of the ghetto, they are not able to. Relators discriminate against Roma people. This is all segregation, even if it isn’t by law. It reminds me of the United States. There is still segregation of people of color and white people. People of color are still discriminated against in areas of housing, school, work, and basically all aspects of life. This is an aspect of Brno’s geography that is very messed up, but it is a continuous cycle.

My favorite academic experience in Brno was definitely the Roma Museum. We were provided a guided tour which was great, but the discussion with the social worker afterwards was fascinating. The tour provided us with information of past oppression of the Roma people and the Roma culture, whereas the social worker provided information on the status of the Roma people today. Above, I discussed how the Roma people are segregated in living and school systems. 85% of the schools the Roma children attend are Roma students. Yet, most, if not all, the teachers are non-Roma. They are part of the majority population. This in itself is messed up, especially considering many of the teachers discriminate and are prejudices to the Roma population. On top of this, the Roma children are brought up speaking a different language than the majority population. Yet, once they get to school, they are expected to speak the dominant language. Because the children cannot, many are viewed as having lower intelligence levels, which is absolutely not true. The social worker even said some Roma students were put into special education classes, not because they needed it, but because they were assumed to need it. In reality, there is just a language barrier. On top of all of this, many Roma children cannot get into kindergarten—already putting them behind of the majority population. All of this is a continuing cycle. If the Roma students are basically set up for failure, there is no way they are going to be able to get themselves out of poverty. The physiological consequences of the teachers having negative views on their own students is huge! If a teacher doesn’t believe in an individual student, especially at a young age, that student is going to grow up believing what the teacher thought of him or her. It is internalized. The social worker also mentioned how in history textbooks, there is exactly  sentence saying the Roma people were discriminated and killed during the Holocaust. 1 sentence. That is so, so messed up. The mainstream society just ignores it! no wonder the oppression of the Roma people continues the way it does today—students aren’t even educated about it.

My favorite extra-curricular activity in Brno was going to the lake and relaxing. The majority of our group took the tram there the first day we arrived. We just set out towels down and had a nice, relaxing afternoon.

The food in Brno is cheaper than many of the places we have been to! I would recommend eating at Adria Restaurant, which is close to the city square. It was cheap and delicious! We all got some sort of pizza or pasta. Plus, the waiter was really nice!