The chapter analyses over 10,000 comments from Czech Facebook discussions under media articles reporting on the case of Stanislav Tomáš, a Romani man who died as a result of police intervention in the Czech Republic in 2021. This happened amid the Covid-19 pandemic and the peak of the Black Lives Matter movement re-sparked by the murder of George Floyd. A video went viral showing police officers kneeling on Tomáš’s neck; parallels were quickly drawn, the media caught on to the label of the “Czech Floyd,” and public outcry followed fuelled by the already active movement of Roma Lives Matter in Europe. The chapter focuses on how social othering is present in the debates to justify violent intervention. Specifically, the connection between the neoliberal discourses of deservingness and the ideas of law-and-order politics is made. The racialisation of these discourses of difference is examined along with its dehumanising strategies. Despite the presence of extreme racism, the anti-racist agenda of the Black Lives Matter movement is perceived as inauthentic for Czech society as race is made invisible by the over-emphasising of cultural differences. Thus, Tomáš, in parallel to Floyd, is being constructed as the ultimate Other—a poor drug-addicted Romani man with a criminal record, regardless of the conditions responsible for his death. However, resisting voices are calling out racism and insisting on the unacceptability of such violence from the police, which is perceived to be increasing since the pandemic.

错误:搜索内容不能为空,请输入英文关键词
错误:关键词超出字数限制,请精简
高级检索

The Czech George Floyd? Roma Lives Matter, Neoliberal Policing, and the Construction of Intersectional Marginal Identities on Facebook

  • Ester Kunštátová,
  • Andrea Průchová Hrůzová

摘要

The chapter analyses over 10,000 comments from Czech Facebook discussions under media articles reporting on the case of Stanislav Tomáš, a Romani man who died as a result of police intervention in the Czech Republic in 2021. This happened amid the Covid-19 pandemic and the peak of the Black Lives Matter movement re-sparked by the murder of George Floyd. A video went viral showing police officers kneeling on Tomáš’s neck; parallels were quickly drawn, the media caught on to the label of the “Czech Floyd,” and public outcry followed fuelled by the already active movement of Roma Lives Matter in Europe. The chapter focuses on how social othering is present in the debates to justify violent intervention. Specifically, the connection between the neoliberal discourses of deservingness and the ideas of law-and-order politics is made. The racialisation of these discourses of difference is examined along with its dehumanising strategies. Despite the presence of extreme racism, the anti-racist agenda of the Black Lives Matter movement is perceived as inauthentic for Czech society as race is made invisible by the over-emphasising of cultural differences. Thus, Tomáš, in parallel to Floyd, is being constructed as the ultimate Other—a poor drug-addicted Romani man with a criminal record, regardless of the conditions responsible for his death. However, resisting voices are calling out racism and insisting on the unacceptability of such violence from the police, which is perceived to be increasing since the pandemic.