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[Andir]

See that is the problem, you have it set in your mind that it must mean a certain thing!

I still pictured "gypsy" as having the same connotations as I do now: Swindlers, thieves, and otherwise immoral traveling types. And that character archetype is still offensive toward the actual people it's based on even if I don't know it's a stereotype of them, because some people do

Well no! I never had that picture in my head! I never connected gypsy to swindlers, thieves, or otherwise immoral travellers. You may have, but that doesn't mean everybody does. In fact a lot of people don't make that connection at all.

See, that's the problem.  You may not think of the word that way, but it doesn't mean it's less offensive just because of your ignorance.  Using my rock example above.  I never knew why they were called "niggerheads" by people in the town I grew up in... but that doesn't make it less offensive.

I've always pictured gypsy's as roadside sellers, sometimes con artists (see: gypped, whether or not gypped came from gypsies or gyp is greek for cheat... they are intertwined.)

[Vector]

Mmmm, bohemian (that used to be a word for the Roma, by the way!) appropriation.  I'm glad to see that it's alive and well.

[G-Flex]

I've always pictured gypsy's as roadside sellers, sometimes con artists (see: gypped, whether or not gypped came from gypsies or gyp is greek for cheat... they are intertwined.)

It's definitely from "gypsy". Heh, I can actually recall seeing some old cartoon or another with a quack medicine in it called "Gippo".

[Max White]

I think part of the problem is hyper sensitivity for a very old word that has changed in meaning. Heck, a bit of cultural tolerance and you will find a lot of things that are 'offensive' are a term of endearment.
Do you know what people from New Zealand will sometimes call Australians? "Roo-fuckers", can't get more blunt than that now, but does anybody really take offence? No, we do not! Because even though it might have started off as a slur, nobody uses it as a slur any more. I have had Kiwi friends call me that, and did not give a damn or feel sore, because there was no negative connotation.
That could be seen as a worse case scenario, what would be a blatantly offensive term used to describe a race of people, but nobody sees it as an insult because nobody means it as an insult.

So you know what, if I can take that and honestly not care for a second, you can grow some damn hide too and understand that just because something was a slur 500 years ago, does not mean people still mean it that way,

[G-Flex]

I think part of the problem is hyper sensitivity for a very old word that has changed in meaning. Heck, a bit of cultural tolerance and you will find a lot of things that are 'offensive' are a term of endearment.
Do you know what people from New Zealand will sometimes call Australians? "Roo-fuckers", can't get more blunt than that now, but does anybody really take offence? No, we do not! Because even though it might have started off as a slur, nobody uses it as a slur any more. I have had Kiwi friends call me that, and did not give a damn or feel sore, because there was no negative connotation.
That could be seen as a worse case scenario, what would be a blatantly offensive term used to describe a race of people, but nobody sees it as an insult because nobody means it as an insult.

So you know what, if I can take that and honestly not care for a second, you can grow some damn hide too and understand that just because something was a slur 500 years ago, does not mean people still mean it that way,

"500 years ago"? I hear it as a slur now. You are completely ignoring how many times I have to tell you that the negative stereotypes and prejudices toward the Roma people still exist, even in non-European countries. There is a big difference between "500 years ago" and "a couple generations ago in full force in my own culture, still a little bit today, and extremely severe in other places that speak English".

[Max White]

Maybe you just took it that way because you think that because it meant a bad thing in the past, now everybody who uses it meant a bad thing, so you keep hearing it and it reassures your beliefs.

[Virex]

I think part of the problem is hyper sensitivity for a very old word that has changed in meaning. Heck, a bit of cultural tolerance and you will find a lot of things that are 'offensive' are a term of endearment.
Do you know what people from New Zealand will sometimes call Australians? "Roo-fuckers", can't get more blunt than that now, but does anybody really take offence? No, we do not! Because even though it might have started off as a slur, nobody uses it as a slur any more. I have had Kiwi friends call me that, and did not give a damn or feel sore, because there was no negative connotation.
That could be seen as a worse case scenario, what would be a blatantly offensive term used to describe a race of people, but nobody sees it as an insult because nobody means it as an insult.

So you know what, if I can take that and honestly not care for a second, you can grow some damn hide too and understand that just because something was a slur 500 years ago, does not mean people still mean it that way,

"500 years ago"? I hear it as a slur now. You are completely ignoring how many times I have to tell you that the negative stereotypes and prejudices toward the Roma people still exist, even in non-European countries.

To support that, the French president recently voiced his intent to specifically deport Roma's from France on ethnic grounds...

[RedKing]

There's a type of plant called "Wandering Jew". Is it anti-Semitic to own one/call it that?

It depends, am I racist for calling a large rock just poking out of a field a "niggerhead"?

That one's a little trickier, IMHO. Just like my grandfather used to call Brazil nuts "n****r toes". It wasn't meant in a particularly racist way, that was simply the local name for them. But obviously it comes from a racist etymology.

To be honest, I'm not even sure why the plant is called Wandering Jew, other than it's a vine that spreads all over the place.


To go back to your argument that the term must be offensive because it has roots in a stereotype, let's return to the counter-example of "Yankee". One solid argument for the derivation of the term is that it came from the British soldiers derisively calling the residents of conquered New Amsterdam (later New York), "John Cheese" because the Dutch were known for their cheeses. In Dutch, this would be rendered Jan Kaas and pronounced roughly similar to "Yankees". So....the term Yankee comes out of a negative stereotype of Dutch colonists. Somehow I don't think the Dutch take offense when someone else gets called a Yankee.

I realize my example is a fair bit more convoluted than the path to the word "gypsy", but the principle is the same: just because a word was born out of a stereotype doesn't make it verboten for the rest of time.

I still maintain that because of the absence of any significant Romani population in the United States (and Australia), there is no deliberate connotation of relating to the Romani people (or any associated stereotypes) when the word "gypsy" is used. It's seen as a (often romanticized) lifestyle, not an ethnicity. There's a dim understanding that it's modeled on a people that existed at one point in Europe, but it's a very tenuous connection for most.

I think part of the problem is hyper sensitivity for a very old word that has changed in meaning. Heck, a bit of cultural tolerance and you will find a lot of things that are 'offensive' are a term of endearment.
Do you know what people from New Zealand will sometimes call Australians? "Roo-fuckers", can't get more blunt than that now, but does anybody really take offence? No, we do not! Because even though it might have started off as a slur, nobody uses it as a slur any more. I have had Kiwi friends call me that, and did not give a damn or feel sore, because there was no negative connotation.

ROTFL...at first I thought you were going to say, "No, we do not, because we don't do that anymore!" 
Isn't "sheep-shagger" a counterpart not-really-a-slur going back the other way to New Zealand?

[Max White]

To support that, the French president recently voiced his intent to specifically deport Roma's from France on ethnic grounds...

Did he say gypsies, or Romas?

Isn't "sheep-shagger" a counterpart not-really-a-slur going back the other way to New Zealand?

Heck yea it is, and they don't care either. It is a friendly back and forth, similar to a sting pong match. You only get hurt if you have thin skin, everybody else has fun and becomes good mates.

[DJ]

Mmmm, bohemian (that used to be a word for the Roma, by the way!)

I thought Bohemia = Czech Republic?

[palsch]

Anti-ziganism reading.

Also I've been trying to dig up some Roma sources on the use of the word. This post is worth reading.

I have seen that website before—and it’s something that I agree with. As I have always maintained on this blog, and elsewhere, it is up to the ethnicities covered by the word ‘gypsy’ to decide how and if they will embrace or reject that word.

What I take issue with is NON-Walking People (or NON gypsies) using the word and then defending that use. It’s not their word, they have no business tagging every other ‘hippy’ picture with it.

Sure, I could say that I’m proud people believe that’s what a gypsy is, here in the US.

However, I know the truth of what that word means OUTSIDE of the US and it’s not all flowing skirts and sunlit fields. That word has been leveled in hatred at whole communities of people—fathers, mothers, women, children, men, grandfathers, grandmothers—and used to kill, maim, and expel them. I wish people would open their eyes and see the truth.

Personally, I don’t like the word because it was a racist slur used against me when I was growing up. I don’t care if other Rroma choose to use the word—that’s their choice to make. My grandfather used to say, “I am gypsy. They call me gypsy. I talk like gypsy. I am gypsy. They mean that I am a bad man. But, I know the truth of gypsy and it’s that I am a good man”.

… and I believe him.

[Durin Stronginthearm]

Mmmm, bohemian (that used to be a word for the Roma, by the way!)

I thought Bohemia = Czech Republic?

Both correct:

The term "Bohemianism," when used to mean "social unconventionality", comes from the French bohémien "Gypsy" "because Gypsies were thought to come from Bohemia, or because they perhaps entered the West through Bohemia."

[G-Flex]

Maybe you just took it that way because you think that because it meant a bad thing in the past, now everybody who uses it meant a bad thing, so you keep hearing it and it reassures your beliefs.

... No, I don't assume that. In virtually all cases when I've heard the word "gypsy", it's been to refer to the actual ethnic group or a very clear stereotypical portrayal of them. Please stop assuming weird things about my life, country, and linguistic background.

You're also still discounting the fact that anti-Roma sentiment/prejudice is extremely bad and a serious issue in Europe, so you might want to lay off stereotypes in general, whether you personally think they're divorced from the group itself inside your own head or not.

[RedKing]

Mmmm, bohemian (that used to be a word for the Roma, by the way!)

I thought Bohemia = Czech Republic?

No, no...all Czech people are effete, snobbish artists and musicians. (See where we're going with this?)

EDIT: From that Wikipedia article on Antiziganism:

It is common to refer to the operators of certain types of travelling con artists and fortune-telling businesses as "gypsies," as the term in the United States has come to designate any peoples with a nomadic lifestyle rather than a specific ethnic group.

@G-Flex: I haven't seen *anybody* deny that anti-Roma prejudice is a problem in Europe. Anybody. That hasn't been the issue.

[Max White]

You're also still discounting the fact that anti-Roma sentiment/prejudice is extremely bad and a serious issue in Europe, so you might want to lay off stereotypes in general, whether you personally think they're divorced from the group itself inside your own head or not.

You are still forcing a connection between the word gypsy and the Roma people. I think it is you who has a stereotype build in their head, and can't see past it.
If the leader of France tries to export the Roma population, then yes, that is a bad thing and racist, but that dosn't mean that when somebody says gypsy they are thinking of a Roma person.
Regardless of what happened in the past, here and now, it relates to free sprites and travellers, for example...

I have seen that website before—and it’s something that I agree with. As I have always maintained on this blog, and elsewhere, it is up to the ethnicities covered by the word ‘gypsy’ to decide how and if they will embrace or reject that word.

What I take issue with is NON-Walking People (or NON gypsies) using the word and then defending that use. It’s not their word, they have no business tagging every other ‘hippy’ picture with it.

Sure, I could say that I’m proud people believe that’s what a gypsy is, here in the US.

However, I know the truth of what that word means OUTSIDE of the US and it’s not all flowing skirts and sunlit fields. That word has been leveled in hatred at whole communities of people—fathers, mothers, women, children, men, grandfathers, grandmothers—and used to kill, maim, and expel them. I wish people would open their eyes and see the truth.

Personally, I don’t like the word because it was a racist slur used against me when I was growing up. I don’t care if other Rroma choose to use the word—that’s their choice to make. My grandfather used to say, “I am gypsy. They call me gypsy. I talk like gypsy. I am gypsy. They mean that I am a bad man. But, I know the truth of gypsy and it’s that I am a good man”.

… and I believe him.

Outside of the US it might be seen that way, but for the western world, it is flowing skirts and sunlit fields.