Re: [Callers] Gypsy Synopsis

On 10/30/2015 2:08 PM, John Sweeney via Callers wrote: Here's an article from 2003 about a guy who was at the time the official international ambassador of the Romani people to the United Nations, which seems pretty close to being an official spokesperson. http://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2003/romani.html QUOTE: What's in a Name?: Professor takes on roles of Romani activist and spokesperson to improve plight of his ethnic group Ian Hancock is not a gypsy. He is a Romani. The difference in nomenclature is so important that Hancock, a professor of English, linguistics and Asian studies at The University of Texas at Austin since 1972, has devoted most of his adult life to dispelling ignorance about the ethnic group into which he was born. Romanticized, fictional representation of 'gypsies' from cover of song book Romanticized, fictional representations of “gypsies” leave the general public with little accurate information about Romanies. “Most people don’t know that appending the name ‘gypsy’ to my people is both wrong and pejorative,” says Hancock, the official ambassador to the United Nations and UNICEF for the world’s 15 million Romanies and the only Romani to have been appointed to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. “‘Gypsy’ is simply a shortened form of Egyptian—that’s what many outsiders thought Romanies were. Using a little ‘g’ in ‘gypsy’ also compounds the problem because that indicates that as a common noun it’s a lifestyle choice and not that we’re an actual ethnic group. “Most people don’t even have a minimal education about Romanies. They don’t know that seventy percent of the Romani population of Nazi-occupied Europe were murdered during the Holocaust. Or that we’re the largest ethnic minority in Europe but have no political strength, military strength, economic strength or a territory. Or, for that matter, that there are over one million Romani Americans.” Educating the public about Romani history and culture has been a colossal task for Hancock because most individuals do, unfortunately, have a graphic mental image of the “typical gypsy,” but they have formed their ideas from all the wrong information. According to Hancock, most people are only familiar with the surfeit of romantic fairytale myths that surround the diverse collection of individuals erroneously termed “gypsies.” Novels, poems, plays, films and songs over the past several centuries have portrayed ‘gypsies’ as free-spirited, promiscuous, indigent criminals who dance around campfires and are fortunetellers, thieves and liars. ‘Gypsies’ are carefree and enjoy an almost childlike innocence and release from duty. ‘Gypsies’ practice witchcraft, steal babies in the dead of night and are filthy and unkempt, so the stories say. “This ridiculous fictional image has taken on a life of its own,” says Hancock. “The cliché description of Romanies is so deeply rooted that it may never totally be eradicated. There are countless representations in films and books of Italians as Mafia members, but no one actually believes that all Italians are Mafia members. That is not true for my people.” So he doesn't like cap-g Gypsy because that implies its an ethnic group and his ethnic group is called "Romani", and he doesn't like small-g gypsy because that implies that it's a lifestyle choice, etc. (The article goes on to discuss horrific oppression of Romani people in Europe, etc.) I think this bolsters the idea that some 'gypsies' find the use of the word 'gypsy' offensive and problematic. I don't think we can expect people to look into our hearts and tell that we're not being racist when we use a term for their people that they find offensive. (It's problematic. I might want to have a discussion about a genre of music popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s, usually written by white songwriters but in which the speaker is black; they called these "coon songs". If you want to have an academic discussion - what are the themes, what was the demand for them, was the demand higher in the South than the North, who performed them, all of which are interesting questions - can you call them "coon songs" and expect black people to find that completely inoffensive just because you're using the correct historical name, which was at the time not intended to be any more offensive than any other way of referring to black people in common currency except perhaps "Negro" - because YOU know you're not being racist? ) Everybody's gotta make their own call on this. You haven't convinced me; I doubt I'll convince you. -- Alan