rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

according to pops, gypsy is an acceptable usage when applied to gypsy romany people, not to any type of itinerant or eastern european. but this was in the prison system in the '80s.

No, I think the term in and of itself is totally fine when used to describe actual romany gypsies but there are so many negative associations with gypsies that is feels "bad" somehow.

hey guys is this song racist, it came on when a friend was over and he said it was p racist, I guess I didn't even think about it being racist because I liked it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyiU1Kkzg9A

kind of amazed that so many are/were unaware of the meaning of "gypped/jipped". thought it was pretty well understood that that's a slur. but i just checked with my gf, and she defended it, first saying that it's spelled differently, then that "there aren't many of them here" (in america). uh...

then again, i thoughtlessly used "mongoloid" to mean idiot in a conversation with a chinese friend a few years ago, and she went off on me quick.

I never put 2 and 2 together on "jipped" because I hear the word 'gypsy' like twice a year. My Mom's nickname was "gypsy" when she managed a band some 15 years ago, not her choice but certainly not something I thought was offensive

"Mongoloid" is one I never thought about either, only time I hear it is in the Devo song

I don't think it's necessarily offensive to be like 'oh yeah I've been a gypsy over the last few years, lived in chicago, baltimore, dc...' - there's nothing inherently offensive about associating gypsies w/ nomadism I think?

i think that was supposed to be a joke? but "Negro" is a word. but it's a proper noun, i guess, so maybe it doesn't count? i have devoted too much thought to this.

believe it or not it wasn't a joke, it was the only five-letter word I could make and apparently it didn't take

maybe the 'sting' of it is taken out b/c my wife's nickname has always been "La Negra" which isn't really supposed to have any racial connotations

No, I think that would be OK. Using "gyped" is pretty offensive those because it's sort of similar to when people use "jew" as a verb like he "jewed" me down.

x-post -

...

Is that a nickname that her family thought of?

btw gypsies are a lot more common in Europe. When people there refer to gypsies they usually mean either one of the following two groups:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers

Probably and I'd assume that it's because she's the darkest out of them. I'm pretty sure I've heard spanish ppl use Negra as a nickname in that context before too and it would never have ocurred to them that it was a racist thing to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5lM4gwnaSU

tried to play "jewy" on a triple word score in words w/ friends just the other day, but no dice

Is that a nickname that her family thought of?

no, her grade school friends did as she had the darkest skin out of anyone there (though it's lightened up considerably after 18 months in Wisconsin!)

No, I think that would be OK. Using "gyped" is pretty offensive those because it's sort of similar to when people use "jew" as a verb like he "jewed" me down.

oh yeah, I got that, it's just associating "gyp" with the "gypsies" is something I wouldn't have done on my own

My friend, who works in a bar, set his FB status today to "I hate naggers" because he was fed up of people complaining. Can anybody guess what his iPhone auto-corrected it to?

Yeah I didn't realize this until a couple years ago until someone pointed it out to me tbh. I still sometimes say things like, "This bag isn't even 1/2 full - what a jip/gyp!" because I'm just so used to it.

x-post

omg

maybe the 'sting' of it is taken out b/c my wife's nickname has always been "La Negra" which isn't really supposed to have any racial connotations

― frogbs

her grade school friends did as she had the darkest skin out of anyone there

― frogbs

well

My friend, who works in a bar, set his FB status today to "I hate naggers" because he was fed up of people complaining. Can anybody guess what his iPhone auto-corrected it to?

― Sugary pee is not normal (aldo), Thursday, January 19, 2012 1:48 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i call bullshit

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I2If0jRpJT4/TB2tbAYC4yI/AAAAAAAABjE/tHpdATG5VEM/s1600/princess_and_the_frogBS.jpg

I don't think it's necessarily offensive to be like 'oh yeah I've been a gypsy over the last few years, lived in chicago, baltimore, dc...' - there's nothing inherently offensive about associating gypsies w/ nomadism I think?

I've been pretty Chinese for the last couple years, considering I eat a lot of white rice.

x-post - Yeah, would a phone really have ni***rs in its dictionary?

omg phil d

I don't think it's necessarily offensive to be like 'oh yeah I've been a gypsy over the last few years, lived in chicago, baltimore, dc...' - there's nothing inherently offensive about associating gypsies w/ nomadism I think?

I've been pretty Chinese for the last couple years, considering I eat a lot of white rice.

― mh, Thursday, January 19, 2012 2:52 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

MH - I think Iatee's actually right in that situation and that you can use gypsy to mean nomadic or in terms of fashion, music etc.

my phone has "naggers" in its dictionary, weirdly

x-post "In North America, the word gypsy is commonly used as a reference to lifestyle[32] or fashion, and not to the Romani ethnicity."

Won't anyone think of the shiftless, agoraphobic gypsies.

Yeah, but do you not see how that in itself is problematic?

xpost

Call bullshit all you like, he told me himself 5 minutes ago. A common friend told me just before that (when he wasn't there). Xposts

I don't think it's necessarily offensive to be like 'oh yeah I've been a gypsy over the last few years, lived in chicago, baltimore, dc...' - there's nothing inherently offensive about associating gypsies w/ nomadism I think?

how about "the wandering jew"

i was a gypsy for a while in the early 00s, mainly because i would stroke the cheek of those who crossed me with the feather of a black rooster, cursing them with seven years and seven days ill fortune

tried to play "jewy" on a triple word score in words w/ friends just the other day, but no dice

I would have seriously scored 90+ points on "PIGBERT", but alas

alas what

Call bullshit all you like, he told me himself 5 minutes ago. A common friend told me just before that (when he wasn't there). Xposts

well I seriously doubt any phone comes with the n-word programmed into its dictionary (mine doesn't even recognize "fuck") so he must have put it in there himself? I mean 'naggers' is still a word isn't it?

alas what

alas, I lost

wait is frogbs scott adams, this makes so much sense

Em - I do, sure. I'm just saying that it's really not akin to the example that MH used. I think it's mainly used to describe lifestyle and associated things here because we really don't have Gypsies as a distinct visible ethnic group like in the UK and the rest of Europe at all.

dammit xposts cost me a Scott Adams joke

i always think of the adventure game writer which explains why i was like

I guess it's just whether you want to distinguish between 'Racism Lite' and 'Racism' - I accept that no harm is meant in using it as a term for a certain sort of lifestyle, but then, if you don't know where the term comes from, saying "gypped" isn't an indicator of a desire to harm. To appropriate a term for a group of people to use as you like just because there aren't many of them around still strikes me as pretty offensive.

I guess you can say 'is the fact that americans treat gypsies as a magical creature like elves a bad thing? yes'

but otoh romani don't even want to be associated w/ the word gypsy so maybe it's good that we keep the word in the magical creature zone and just teach people about the romani

My friend, who works in a bar, set his FB status today to "I hate naggers" because he was fed up of people complaining. Can anybody guess what his iPhone auto-corrected it to?

― Sugary pee is not normal (aldo), Thursday, January 19, 2012 2:48 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This means the phone is autorecognizing a word he types a lot, so basically fuck your dumb friend

"Lived/moved around like a gypsy" might be a little safer.

/ 'is it racism if you have no idea that the people to whom you're being racist actually exist?'

"If a man say a slur in the forest, is it still racist?"

Like even if you get a triple-letter, you still don't want to play RAPE against a female friend

Just last night I saw something in my sidebar that said "M_____ played a word in Words With Friends: RAPE". Both players were female but still.

stupid bark-skins

"If a man say a slur in the forest, is it still racist?"

depends if he's in the black forest

i've literally never yelled at a kid, black or white, and couldnt imagine a single situation where i'd have to tell a black kid he was snobby, let alone it happening so frequently in my life that I'd seek anonymous advice on the internet on how to handle this constant and unwelcome occurance

― deltron the escape g.o.a.t. (Whiney G. Weingarten),

couldn't imagine, ladies and gentlemen.

btw gypsies are a lot more common in Europe. When people there refer to gypsies they usually mean either one of the following two groups:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers

not so much in the latter case, tbh, quite a passé term

but then, if you don't know where the term comes from, saying "gypped" isn't an indicator of a desire to harm

Well, right - obviously not. I never said otherwise.

Em - It is offensive but I don't think people realize that because I seriously doubt most Americans would know that Gypsies are an actual ethnic group. I think most would just assume they were mythical story characters or something. I would put money on that actually.