Race in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe: How Black Lives Matter Protests Revealed Selective Silence on Anti-Roma Racism

This paper aims to examine how the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement resonated in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (CESE) through a race-conscious approach. Although BLM protests were staged in many CESE capitals, they were aimed largely at solidarity with US movements, with little contextualization to systemic racial inequalities faced by Roma, arguably the largest racialized group in the region. Patterns of selective silencing of race and of externalizing issues of racial inequality become apparent when examining how protests were organized and by whom. The absence of broader support for a shift to issues faced by Roma illustrates the generalized stigma towards Roma, the lack of visibility for their experiences and their exclusion from regional debates on race. This paper instead argues that in order to effectively challenge racism in CESE, one must address the paradox that racism is denied and projected outward while simultaneously entrenched and enacted against Roma.