Flowing from what Uboa observed about clashing social and cultural norms, I'm very interested in the role a clash of economic systems plays in situations like this, or at least the hypothetical resolutions to these causal loops. African Americans and Jewish people, as social groups, don't seem to have a cultural aversion to capitalism, and I'd argue that they've gained social acceptance partly through their participation in a free market society: once they've scraped together some wealth, more products are marketed to them, people of their cultural group get into movies and commercials, and away you go. I think we've been seeing this with homosexuals since the 1990s. I'm hugely oversimplifying one aspect of what could probably be termed "cultural integration" of course, but I'm wondering if this economic participation theory is at least one factor at play, and how important it is.
Of the groups I'm more familiar with, I'd have to guess (albeit blindly) that Native Americans could be compared to the Roma, since both groups are typically viewed as living in inward-looking, non-integrative communities. There's a compulsion on the part of a white economist to say, "Hey Indian man, get off your reservation and get a job!" and yet something keeps significant tracts of Native Americans in reservations (...nevermind the fact that the Wise White Man forcibly stuffed them in there to begin with).
Likewise, the Roma seem to be locked into ghetto-like communities similarly lacking in opportunity. There's also a nomadic streak within their culture that would seem non-conducive to participation in capitalism (your workplace doesn't typically move with you unless you have a job you can perform over the Internet)...but nevermind the fact that majority societies keep rejecting them, forcing them to move in the first place.
I'm kind of rambling here, but just trying to wrap my mind around the Roma situation through analogy to something a bit more familiar to a typical American. Identifying all the underlying issues is the first step toward resolving them.
