The term "Gypsy"?

dennis

alton wrote: »

I wonder where he learned that it is considered derogatory?

He learned it in PC America. It's mainly a PC American thing. I have absolutely no problem calling anyone how they 'd want to be called, but as far as the Sinti community goes, they have no problem with using the word Gypsy. Sinti would be preferable but they take no offense to Gypsy (as long as it's used innocently). One thing that is sure to piss them off , is to call them Roma!

There are certainly some Roma campaigning for the word to be considered offensive, but I also know lots of Hungarian, Slovakian, Moldavian, Romanian Romas who openly use the word and have no problem with it.

Shemi

Do you have many Irish travellers in the US? Here in the UK, most people associate the word gypsy to them which confuses some people when I talk about Gypsy jazz.

Bones

There was another thread on this forum about this a while back. It could be called Jazz Manouche or something but most non-GJ people in the US might not know what Manouche is. As I recall the concensus on the forum was that in the context of GJ it is not considered offensive by the practitioners in Europe so NP but correct me if I'm wrong.

Ian Stenlund

dennis wrote: »

alton wrote: »

I wonder where he learned that it is considered derogatory?

He learned it in PC America. It's mainly a PC American thing. I have absolutely no problem calling anyone how they 'd want to be called, but as far as the Sinti community goes, they have no problem with using the word Gypsy. Sinti would be preferable but they take no offense to Gypsy (as long as it's used innocently). One thing that is sure to piss them off , is to call them Roma!

There are certainly some Roma campaigning for the word to be considered offensive, but I also know lots of Hungarian, Slovakian, Moldavian, Romanian Romas who openly use the word and have no problem with it.

Does it ever come up at festivals in Europe that have Gypsy in the title or descriptions? I assume that both gypsy and non-gypsy people are playing those festivals.

Thanks for the insightful input Dennis.

Bones

PS- BTW Denis, 'America' is hardly PC (I'm assuming u r referring to the US). Case in point: they elected 'the' Donald. QED

Ian Stenlund

Also, since there are many different clans like Roma, Sinti, Manouche, Gitan, I assumed that gypsy was just a catch-all term for a group of clans that have a similar culture and heritage. It seems there should be a general term since it would be almost impossible to know how to refer to each individual in terms of their clan.

alton

Shemi wrote: »

Do you have many Irish travellers in the US? Here in the UK, most people associate the word gypsy to them which confuses some people when I talk about Gypsy jazz.

I don't think that there are any where I live (not a very diverse area).

The only time that I have been aware of them was more than a decade ago, a story aired on the news about a Walmart somewhere in the South (perhaps Arkansas, Oklahoma, etc. I don't recall exactly) where a woman was caught on camera in the parking lot beating the absolute hell out of her small child. Store employees reported her and the police traced her license plate to a community of Irish Travellers living nearby. Her response was something like, "We raise our children the way that we want to, you raise your children the way that you want to."

Enter 20/20 or 60 Minutes or some other news program that did an expose on this community. I may misremember the exact details, but they found that in a community of several hundred people, most of them had one of three or four last names. It went a bit into their history in the U.S. The show stressed that they are a closed group that keeps to themselves.

That is about all that I have heard about the Travellers in the United States. Perhaps others can shed some light, as that show was likely a terrible misrepresentation of a group of people?

klaatu

Bones wrote: »

PS- BTW Denis, 'America' is hardly PC (I'm assuming u r referring to the US). Case in point: they elected 'the' Donald. QED

We can only hope that is an aberration (as he is).

Bones

Klaatu, we have become 'Idiocracy'. Another case in point, he appointed a guy to head NASA who has no science or space credentials. WTF??? Who needs brains?

Ian, good point, yeah it seems to be used as a catch-all term rather than a specific clan?

ChrisMartin

Ninine Garcia mentions in 'Les Fils de Vent' that he does not like certain terminology and implies that each 'tribe' (if that is the right description) prefers to have its own identity. Ok, but given the explanation of the historical context as noted by both Bob and Michael above, it would seem the identification of groups like Gitane, Manouche, Sinti, Tziganes etc all came later. The Reyes and Baliardos from the Arles region have been quite happy to play under the name Gipsy Kings for near thirty years now and I have not heard of anyone challenging that as not PC even though they refer to themselves as Gitanos. Sacha Distel explained also in the film 'Django Legacy' that these same people refer to themselves as Rom, which appears to imply Roma, or Romany are also correct. I would suggest Gypsy or Romany are acceptable terms in a historical context and need not be derogatory. All groups of the human race have been labelled with general racial terms, each having many sub-groups; think Negro, and then African, Zulu, Mandingo, etc, likewise many people are called Asian but there are many physical and cultural differences between, for example, Indian or Japanese people. The Semitic races include both Jews and Arabs, yet most people only know the negative term anti-semitic commonly used in the history of Jewish persecution, when correctly it could apply to all of the west Asian and Mediterranean races - even the Maltese. Not wishing to sweep anything under the carpet, or play down the importance of individual racial identities, but in this case I think Gypsy is not itself a derogatory term, although some will see it that way. The real meaning of any word is dependant also on how it is used or spoken. Although neither Jew, Negro, Black or even Irish are in themselves negative, if they are used in a negative context, or spoken with the deliberate intention of a slur, they can be taken as insults. Having said all that, it would seem the use of 'gyp' or 'gypped' in the context of being conned, mugged or scammed does have a direct link to the historical prejudice that all Gypsies were thieves. It does pay to have some sense of humour about this too though; remember Stochelo's joke about "how to make a Gypsy omeltte - first you steal a chicken............"