rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

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.

This thread is the gift that keeps giving. Every time I refresh it's full of new wonders.

that show the riches w/ minnie driver + eddie izzard was about travellers

x-post - What Darragh? You mean using "gypsy" to describe a traveller?

that show the riches w/ minnie driver + eddie izzard was about travellers

― Mordy, Thursday, January 19, 2012 3:09 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

HOLY SHIT YOU'RE RIGHT

That's why they had such funny accents! I remember thinking that they just had bad ones at the time but now that I know what travellers sound like I realize that's what they were doing. Woah. I wish I knew then what I know know. Maybe I could have watched more than 2 eps.

WGW, I'm not entirely sure anybody would be telling any other people were your hypothesis true.

However, I should probably butt out of this since I am a Britishes.

Mitt Romani

there's literally no way his iPhone corrects a word in merriam websters to the most offensive word in the english language

http://c.cslacker.com/8009l.jpg

seriously dude is either
a) a dude who types n-bombs all day
b) a liar who's trying to get on Damn You Autocorrect
c) someone trying to pass off South Park bits as his own original comedy

no matter what, this dude basically sucks imo

x-post - hahahaha

okay nobody cares about this autocorrect controversy

true

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l9rxafmE0W1qakobno1_500.jpg

Seems like a riff on this tbh.

xp why can't you just call yourself "nomadic"

no madd doggie

I mean, when people in North America are talking to other people in North America about "gypsies" and they have no idea it's a real people, and there's no ill intent, etc. then it's not really a big deal. I just kind of think the world is a little smaller than it used to be and stuff like this looks really glaring when brought to light.

Over lunch I mentioned this thread to my friend and she said that one of her coworkers, an acquaintance of mine, said "jewed" as a verb in front of her a while ago and then looked really anxious and sheepish. My friend is Jewish. It just like... didn't occur, and then it did. But if you lived in a small town and never knew anyone Jewish and Jews were kind of these people who lived in big cities and that you learn about in history class....

btw ENBB I bet you've seen bad "gypsy" stereotypes in film, especially if you've seen the Guy Ritchie film "Snatch"

although they were called "pikeys" which is just another slur for romani or irish travelers...

Holy hell this thread. It took me 10 minutes to fully skim it while eating my lunch.

I thought w/ the ton of new posts it would be a clusterfuck, but it seems like it's all pretty cool (w/ a notable exception....)

brad pitt's pretty great in snatch fwiw, tho yes everyone in that movie is a terrible criminally minded cliché, including, i'd point out, anyone from london and several orthodox jews

One of my college roommates went on a cross-country thing with her Hebrew school and they made several stops along the way. Some place (I can't remember where right now and I really really wish I could) someone she met, upon learning she was Jewish, asked her where her horns were. They really truly believed that Jewish people actually had horns and since Jen was the first Jewish person she had met she wanted to see them. ._.

that's the kind of story i daren't believe

MH - I've actually never seen Snatch. I heard Pikey a lot while living in England but I always thought it sort of meant something similar to "Chav". I didn't realize it was gypsy/traveller specific.