[Callers] Progressive politics? Ha, ha

Thu Oct 29 07:18:47 PDT 2015

" I suggest that you do some research into the countless number of times that "progressive" people have screwed over minorities who weren't in their own demographic."Inapplicable analogy.   By"screwing" you mean political or economic discrimination.   Contra dancers are not of any particular demographic. and are not "screwing" people not in their own demographic.
Please re-read the messages pointing out that in Europe, particularly, "gypsy" still definitely gets used as a hateful slur.
The connotations of words vary from country to country.   Without more information about the extent to which and in what nations/regions "gypsy" has serious negative connotations,  Judgment should be withheld based on undocumented  comments in this thread.     Quite a few callers form our side of the Atlantic have called in Europe.    We have not input from them about how or if the dance figure we call gypsy has been handled.
This discussion may leave all our dance gypsies nameless Michael Fuerst      802 N Broadway      Urbana IL 61801      217 239 5844 

     On Thursday, October 29, 2015 8:51 AM, Aahz Maruch via Callers <callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

 On Wed, Oct 28, 2015, Michael Fuerst via Callers wrote:
>
> I have been contra dancing for 30 years or so and this is the first
> time I've encountered a question about "gypsy" being controversial.
> The people who contra dance on average are well left of center
> politically--people who would never use an ethnically offensive
> word.(Finding a bumper sticker at a contra dance gathering supporting
> a Republican candidate is quite impossible.)As you noted, language
> evolves, and the use of "gypsy" in contra dancing never had any
> offensive baggage or intent. Given the thousands of left-wing contra
> dancers who have guiltlessly gypsied over the years, having a single
> individual (who may not well be a member of the allegedly offended
> group) come to a dance, and for some reason makes the connection she
> did, does not seem adequate to drop the word.

<belly laugh>  Your suggestion that progressive people promoting
political correctness always stick to their progressive principles is
risible.  I suggest that you do some research into the countless number
of times that "progressive" people have screwed over minorities who
weren't in their own demographic.

To save you a bit of time, here's one specific example that consumed
large amounts of time and emotional energy in one of my other social
groups:

http://fanlore.org/wiki/RaceFail_%2709

> Your examples of "nigger" and "faggot" are not comparable, as they are
> today often sill used with intended hate.

Please re-read the messages pointing out that in Europe, particularly,
"gypsy" still definitely gets used as a hateful slur.  And I don't know
enough about *ALL* of American culture to presume that "gypsy" isn't used
that way here in significant subcultures.  Certainly "gyp" (as a verb)
does get used.
-- 
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6                        http://rule6.info/
                      <*>          <*>          <*>
Help a hearing-impaired person: http://rule6.info/hearing.html
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers at lists.sharedweight.net
http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sharedweight.net/pipermail/callers-sharedweight.net/attachments/20151029/21942e4b/attachment.htm>