ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the historically entrenched practice of minority scapegoating during epidemics, exemplified by the return of anti-Roma racism as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It begins by explaining the legacy of discrimination, bias, rejection, and exclusion experienced by the Romani people on which the present-day racism is built. It then addresses a need to acknowledge these challenges, arguing that a failure to promptly attend to them will increase the risk of atrocities, violence, and hate crimes against the Roma. This chapter concludes with a plea to governments and intergovernmental organizations to craft anti-racist, humane, and protective measures in response to the pandemic, which recognize and address the legacy of structural inequalities and cater to the racialized vulnerability they have generated.
