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[ SECRET POST #3238 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3238 ⌋

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I want to have a discussion about this with someone, but I don't really have a venue for it, so I'm turning to you guys. :)

So, I'm an American, and I feel pretty secure in saying that, in general, in American mainstream culture, the word "gypsy" is not a racial slur and is not said with any kind of perjorative meaning or angry or demeaning intent. There are Roma in the US, but they are not a sizable ethnic/cultural minority nor one that gets much national/media attention over here, and I'd guess that most Americans have never interacted any people who identify as Roma or Romani, nor do they have an immediate mental association with "Roma" and "Gypsy" until someone explains the two.

Take, for example, the reason for me thinking about this tonight -- listen to this Fleetwood Mac song (written by the American Stevie Nicks), and try to argue that the word "gypsy" is being used in a negative sense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX8tFvInN3Y . It's not: it's being used sincerely to mean "not tied down, free".

I understand that in the UK and other parts of the word, "gypsy" is used as a slur, but in the US, it simply is not. (No more than any other word can be used as an insult when someone means to -- for ex, I'm a short of height, and if you said, "You're short," in an angry or contemptuous tone, I'd be hurt by your intention to insult me, but the word "short" is not itself an insult.)

So when I say my favorite Fleetwood Mac song is "Gypsy," I'd like English speakers from places other than the US (and Canada?) to understand that no insult is being communicated, either from me or from the song, and that it's fruitless to badger me or other Americans into agreeing that we shouldn't say that word in the US, when over here there is no negative feeling attached to it.

Kind of like how I can understand that the UK television series title "Spooks" is not meant as a racial slur against black people. The title had to be changed to "MI-5" when it aired in the US, because "spook" does have a racist connotation over here. But I ~somehow~ manage to not go to Spooks fans' blogs and berate them for daring to use the name of their favorite show and call them racist for doing it, so....can't it work both ways?

I've lived in the UK and the US.

I think gypsy is mostly a word without much context. There aren't enough Roma people for anyone to really have an image of them, besides like Esmerelda in Hunchback of Notre Dame, who was also specifically called a gypsy. I don't think people tend to think of the word as describing an actual ethnicity or nation of people so much as the image of wandering performers. The word itself just sounds like a job or way of life, of sorts.

Definitely different in Europe, when gypsy is a lot more derogatory. There are still groups of Roma people who are seen as wanderers, but they are almost always associated with crime and causing trouble. As far as I know, there is no real equivalent in the US, so that dynamic is hard to understand.

But then again, something can be wrong even without contextual background. I'd say blackface is wrong even if your country has no history of black slavery of minstrel shows, for example. So if the word "gypsy" is incorrect and offensive to real Roma people, then it's not so much about intent as it is about being respectful to the people who've been victimized because of it.

This is like the word "cunt." I'm from Australia originally; the word seriously doesn't carry the same weight there as it does in the US (in most cases it's not offensive at all, in fact), and good lord did I learn that the hard way.

just out of curiosity, what sorts of words do most australians find incredibly insulting/offensive?

Well, "abo" is kind of the go-to racial slur, kind of on par with the US and "nigger." "Dole-bludger" has some nasty connotations that usually tie into racism too. Some people might tell you "bogan" is insulting, and it kind of is...sort of like white trash? But the term's sort of softened a little as it's become more of a subculture thing. My uncle calls people "drongos" sometimes when they're being spectacular fuckwits, but that's a really old-fashioned term. ("Fuckwit" is pretty common though!) "Slag" for "slut." I'm not really sure what else, though, haha, most of the time people insult each other affectionately, so it can be hard to draw the lines between what's fucking with each other and what's genuinely insulting.

lol, I remember when some blog--maybe Feminists with Disabilities?--posted a long tirade about how all words ending in -wit (so fuckwit, dimwit, nitwit and even twit) were derived from "lackwit," which was an archaic term for people with developmental disabilities, which made all the -wit words as ableist as "retard."

nayrt- "Dimwit" I could potentially see having the connotations they mean, even if the speaker did not intend it in that way. "Fuckwit" is completely different.

I see, that's interesting! most of those are words I've never heard of before, so I appreciate the additional explanation, too. kindly appreciated, anon.

Glad to help! :)

I think wog is similar to nigger, in that it is reclaimed but if you're not you can't use it.

Abo I would argue as worst, as there is no reclaim attempt.

I did see a tumblr post with a few k Notre saying people shouldn't call abo fic abo, even though context (fandom/fanfic) is obviously meaning alpha/beta/omega. I almost through a shitfit because IMO that word should be ignored and not talked about outside of specific social conversations in an Aussie context. I dread American SJW discovering and using it. Let the word DIE.

I was visiting family last year and we happened upon a group of tourists that thought "abo" was just short for Aboriginal (said they were going to head on over to the Abo Heritage Museum), without knowing the context at all. My grandpa was about to bust his gut from laughing, but my aunt and I were mortified and had to run over to explain the situation before they got themselves into some real trouble. And once they realized what they were saying, they were mortified too!

I guess the point I'm trying to make is, if we ignore the word entirely, it's not as though the pain it inflicts goes away with it, and it could certainly come up in manners unintended. If anything, I think we need more dialogue surrounding the language.

I can see tourists (and children) mistaking it as similar slang to smoko etc and not realising the implications.

While we certainly need more discussions around language, I would still disagree. Unless it's a really relevant social discussion (someone screaming the word on a bus at children and the follow up chat needed with them) - it's the kind of word I'd prefer to fade out into different meanings and no longer connected to racist history/implications.

Re: The word "gypsy"

(Anonymous) - 2015-11-16 08:27 (UTC) - Expand

Re: The word "gypsy"

caerbannog - 2015-11-16 20:06 (UTC) - Expand

If you mean people should mutually understand the difference between how most people in societies view things before getting offended, I agree. If you expect Americans to understand the offensive connotations we have for certain things don't exist to you and therefore we are stupid for being offended by them (one that comes to mind is an old tweet from a Brit complaining about "black cab drivers," in which "black cab" is a cab that operates at night, but Americans don't know that and got offended because they thought she meant black people who drive cabs) but it's okay for you to get mad at Americans who say "gypsy" because we should also know it is offensive to you... wow run-on sentence, but yes, that's a double standard that happens and needs to stop.

But in both cases I think it's also best for either side to actually stop using a word around someone if they still say it offends them. I don't say "gypsy" anymore unless I'm referring to something like the song you mentioned, and if I were talking about the song to a European I'd probably throw in a quick mention that I know it's not a good word but most people here honestly have no way to find out what it means in Europe. In turn I expect Europeans not to show off their cosplay photos where they paint themselves brown to be Korra or something and act like it's fine because nobody cares about blackface in their country. People's right to not be hurt is more important than other people's right to say "but it's okay if I say/do it because it's not offensive in my culture."

What if brown Europeans are okay with people painting themselves brown for cosplay and don't think it's offensive?

Then they should keep it in their own country and stop flaunting pictures on the internet and telling brown Americans who see them to suck it up and not be offended.

Although I'm sure there are more brown Europeans who are offended by it than are willing to say so. There was an enlightening radio segment about this a few years ago, about a country (not European) I'd seen people from on the internet claim had never had a heavy history of racism and so their racial minorities weren't bothered by casually racist things. Turns out that's not as true as they think.

Sorry, I forgot that the rest of the world isn't allowed to do things that hurt Americans' precious feelings. My bad.

Ugh, US-centric "social justice" is so infuriatingly juvenile.

Blackface, as an offensive parody of what black people are supposed to look like, was/continues to be a thing WORLDWIDE. It is not only in America.

"Making your skin darker in any way shape or form" is not blackface. Blackface is a specific thing with specific roots, and diluting it the way you're doing is an insult to the legacy that actual people have lived.

Re: The word "gypsy"

(Anonymous) - 2015-11-16 02:36 (UTC) - Expand

No one is forced to be offended. But a huge portion of people WILL find it offensive, and if you've painted yourself brown you don't get to pretend it's fine because you met some brown people who didn't get mad.

"Gypsy" isn't just a slur, it's a term inextricably connected to a specific ethnic background in a way that "spook" isn't. It's like if someone wanted to say how angry they were and called themselves an Apache. I think it's possible to make something like that stop being offensive, but it would take several centuries of language evolution.

I agree. The USA doesn't seem to have a lot of antiziganism, and "gypsy" is really not a major slur. There's a tiny bit, just as there's some anti-Polack and anti-Irish sentiment, but it's not a major thing--unless you're Romany yourself, and maybe not even then.

"Gypsy" motifs are very common and not intended to be insulting. A bit like "Eskimo" motifs. Trying to stamp them out just seems silly.

In my (limited) experience, Americans seem more likely to despise Russians or Mexicans than most European ethnicities.

No, it's definitely still a slur. You just don't realize it because most Roma and Romani don't let you know that they are. But look at how we even portray them in media here when we see them, even in modern stuff: shady people who move from town to town, often with a criminal background.

No, that is Irish travellers. Lead nicking scum that they are, although to be fair that describes most paddys. Irish travellers are so bad that even the gyppos (FTR, Gypsy is non racist, gyppo, gypo, gyp, roamer -that is a good one, because it is close to Roma in pronunciation so you can call the gyps roamers and get away with it if you slur like an Irish-, and diddy are the racist terms; I know my racism) hate being lumped in with the Irish Travellers. That is a reason a lot of Gypsy groups in the West of the UK prefer being called Gypsies so as not to be confused with the Irish Travellers and will get insanely violent if you do confuse them or if the Irish try to call themselves Gypsies. The Irish do that all the time too, because even they know the gypsies have better public image than they do.

Not to mention that while all Roma are gypsies, not all gypsies are Roma. It is an Eskimo/Inuit/Northern First Nations situation thing going on. So calling someone who is one of the non-Roma gypsies Roma is a pretty big insult to them too.

Hope that is clear now.

oh man, you posted this so late, anti-Irish!anon. step up your game yo.

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