I am not intimately familiar with concepts of race in Serbia and Croatia, but in much of the former Soviet Union the conflicts are understood by the participants in racial terms. To use an example I am more familiar with, Romania historically (up through the end of the last century anyway, I don't know about the last few years) seen itself as a bastion of Roman culture surrounded by Slavs. Similarly, the Romanians have seen themselves as innately superior to the Romani, justifying centuries of oppression. Both of these conflicts are understood in local terms as questions of racial difference, of genetic determination. While Romanians, Hungarians, and Romani have relatively similar coloring and would all be called "white," the situation -- particularly in the case of the Romani -- is far more complicated.

On that note, as far as the terms of discussion for RaceFail, how does one discuss the position of the Romani in Europe?