Well, I AM American, but when I was abroad I kind of liked it when people asked if I was British because that probably meant I didn’t come off like the stereotypical American jerk.
Yeah, I’ve had “gweilo” and its Mandarin counterpart more than a few time, including once from some brat who thought I was the funniest thing he had ever seen until I put him in his place in Cantonese. It doesn’t really get to me that bad most of the time, though.
I’ve got nothing against Americans…some of my best friends are American 
It just gets old when for the millionth time you have to turn around and say, “No, I’m Australian. You know, the country with the koalas?”
When I was back in high-school ( a loooooong time ago) the school boasted a delightfully varied mix of 26 nationalities. Eighty-five per-cent of the 1200 kids were of Greek descent, and the other 15% was comprised of another 25 ethnic groups. As you can imagine, white anglo-saxons like me’self were in the distinct minority (I think we made up 2.5% of the kids), and we bore the brunt of many a racial put-down.
Gave me a good dose of thick skin, tolerance for difference and a love of pastitso and spanokopita.
God I love Australia! 
When in Hong Kong I lived in a white ‘ghetto’ and was called gweilo on a daily basis (as China Guy said, most Chinese in Hong Kong don’t think any Westerners can understand Cantonese. It totally freaks racist Hong Kongers out when one upbraids them in their own language.).
In Ireland I’ve been told to “get back to the war zone” by an auld fella in a pub who thought I was part of the British Army, and a girl once said “what the fuck do you know, you’re not even from this fucking country.” (I responded by calling her a “racist whore” - and got kicked out of the pub for calling her a “whore”, which I guess I deserved. Shoulda called her a “racist twatwhistle”).
I was supping a pint in a small village just outside Winsor. I asked a gentleman directions to the hotel where I was staying. He gave me them, and added in “Its run by Indians, you know”.
He asked if I was on business, I told him yes. He started to ask about my job, and what I did etc. He then asked “So, are you from Northern Ireland, or the south?”
I replied “Ireland”.
He said “Really?”, and turned his back to me.
I just supped my pint, and bought a ticket for the meat raffle of the nice old lady sitting at the bar.
Mmmm, meat raffle.
In my experience there’s more anti-Irish racism in England than there is anti-English racism in Ireland. Apologies.
…but I’ve never had anyone know without my telling them, so my experiences are plenty different. I have, however, had the following conversation:
OTHER PERSON: (talking to someone else, well within my hearing) Well, they’re (Gypsies) raised to be criminals.
ME: (not even looking at him) Not all of us.
OTHER: (chuckling) Oh, you’re a Gypsy?
ME: (turning to face him and speaking slowly) Yes.
OTHER: (still chuckling) When did that happen?
ME: (thinking for a moment) About nine months before I was born.
OTHER: (pause, no longer chuckling) Well, it’s not, um, a real ethnicity.
ME: (as evenly as possible) I’ll call my family and tell them.
OTHER: But there are Gypsies all over the place!
ME: Sir, I don’t presume to know your ethnicity from your name, but you would seem to be from a tribe that’s populated three continents and owned property on the other three. Come to think of it, I’d wager that there are more of you than there are of me on Antarctica right now.
He tried to convince me for a few more minutes that it wasn’t an actual ethnicity, then he backtracked some and argued that it wasn’t really a race, at which point I just stopped talking and looked at him. Either he realized that he was talking out of his ass or he was afraid of the evil eye, because he soon stopped, muttered something and went back to work.
And I agree with occ – the few times I’ve been in a snarky mood and pointed out the connection between “Gypsy” and “gypped,” each person has said, “Huh. I never thought about that,” and stopped using it (around me, at least).
I got quite a bit of homophobia in high school- I was called every anti-gay and lesbian slur in the book. My favorite was when they called me faggot. (The word is dyke, you person of unprecedented stupidity!)
Got slammed against lockers and had my bookbag spat on as well. Ah, high school.
stankow, that’s the most common way it happens to me, someone will be spouting off about Gypsies and, when they’ve given themselves enough rope, I hang 'em.
Another way is that I’ll be asked what I am. To the average British person I look foreign. If I’m not told that I look like a Gypsy (or Gyppo if they’re really stupid) it’s assumed that I’m either Greek, Spanish, Eastern European, part Indian or part Arab, so I clear the matter up for them.
The only people that I’ve told in a non-confrontational way are people who’ve identified themselves as Romani first, my wife and previous partners, close friends and some of my wife’s Indian and Pakistani co-workers (We had a great time comparing languages).
As a kid I travelled, so any school I went to knew damn well what I was - fun times were had by all :rolleyes:
My wife was shocked when I pointed out what the word gypped referred to and hasn’t used it since.
As to Gyppo, over here it’s now also become a term for anyone who shares the perceived characteristics of the Romani - Dirty, scruffy, thieving etc. A beggar on the street is a gyppo, poorly dressed kids at school are gyppos and the neighbours who have junk in their yards - maybe a rusting car or two - they’re gyppos too.
We’re lucky over here – I haven’t heard that one yet. It’s just “white trash.”
Not to hijack the thread or anything, but do people over there understand “Romani”? I used it for a while while I was in college, but everyone thought I meant “Romanian,” so I just go with “Gypsy” now.
This is asked in the spirit of genuine curiousity and ignorance - kal, stankow, do you find the term ‘diddakoi’ offensive?
Several times.
One time, while walking in downtown Brooklyn, I passed by a group of black youths who started shouting “Heil Hitler.” It was done only to get a rise out of me, so I didn’t give them the satisfaction and completely ignored them. What I wanted to do was give them a little history lesson and inform them that the person that they were giving “Heil” to would have gassed them just as soon as he would have gassed me.
One more…
Another time, about two years ago, a man shouted at me in the street “How did you kill Jesus today?” I was just so dumbfounded at the question that I just looked at him sadly and walked away.
Zev Steinhardt
stankow - If you pronounce it Roam-ann-ee, they know what you mean but the correct way is often mistaken for “Romanian”.
jjimm - While I personally don’t like that word, it has a couple of meanings. To describe someone who is part Romani is fair enough I suppose. To use it in the same way that I’m bemoaning ‘Gyppo’, is obviously an insult.
Okay, thats the hijack over. I’m moving on officer.
I am one, but I’ve never actually heard it used – my family mostly went one or two generations in America before they started outbreeding, so few of us are quote-pure-endquote anyway.
As Kal said, it’s all intent. If someone sneered while saying it, I’d kick him or her directly in the ass, but if they were using it clinically, I wouldn’t mind.
I had a few unpleasant incidents in Korea, mostly from drunken, out-of-shape salarymen who wanted to kick some “way-gook” ass. (Language note: The character for country, pronounced guo in Mandarin and gaku in Japanese, is pronounced “gook” in Korean, which, I think, must the origin of that particular slur. “Way-gook” means the same thing as “gaijin.”) I had a Korean come up to me in the subway, look at my arm, and say “You are hairy like monkey.” I also got punched in the face by a drunk guy calling me a “Miguk sang nom” (American bastard) as I was walking through the Taegu bus station. I, too, could go on and on.
In Japan, I was ridimg the Nozomi shinkansen between Kyoto and Tokyo and I heard a guy say (in Japanese) “The foreigner smells bad.” I sweetly smiled and in my best Japanese said, “I apologize, but I had a bath today.” Tee hee.
How did they know you were Jewish? It’s not something you can tell by looking.
I will be called nazi at least 3 times this week, it averages about 5-6 times a week. It doesn’t even bother me anymore. I’m not even German, but I apparently am what most people think of when they think of what a nazi should look like. I have been called that by friends, and even my girlfriend has called me nazi once or twice.
Gee, and I’ve only had one experience…
I was in an auto dealership in North Hollywood back in 1991, shopping for a new car with my Dad. We had sat down with a dealer, started talking about models and options and prices, and in the process of doing the paperwork the salesguy asked me for my driver’s license, so he could make some photocopies of it. No problem, says I, and I gave it to him.
Salesdrone takes the license in the back, and comes out two minutes later with the photocopies. As we resumed discussing, I glanced down at the desk and saw that his photocopy of my license had the phrase “Ugly gook!” written beneath my picture (which isn’t even accurate, since I’m a chink, not a gook, but it’s the thought that counts ).
At the next break in the conversation, I told my Dad what happened, then we simply got up and left, leaving a confused salesman in our wake. I got a call from him later that night, where he begged me to forgive him and tell his manager that I was “okay” over the insult, because he might lose his job as a result.
Needless to say, I didn’t. After all, if he was truly concerned about his job, he wouldn’t have been insulting the customers in the first place…
And for whatever it’s worth, China Guy, I’ve banned gwailo from our house.
That boggles the mind. I can see somebody thinking an ugly racial slur, or maybe even muttering under one’s breath, but writing it? While trying to make a sale??? Stupidity and racism do go together.
I;m confused. I thought that “gook” was an all-purpose slur against East Asians, but “Chink” referred only to people of Chinese origin. So as all Chinese are Asian, but not all Asians are Chinese, to quote Archie Bunker, “All Chinks is gooks, but not all gooks is Chinks.”
My own thought is that is comes from Korean. In Korean, guk (pronounced “gook”) means “country,” so Hanguk means Korea, Miguk[ means the United States, and Chungguk means China. When US soldiers during the Korean War heard the Koreans call them Miguk, they started referring to the Koreans as, well, you know… That, in turn, got passed on to the Vietnamese and all Asians by extension.
Oddly, not all countries have the -guk attached. Germany, for instance, is called Dogil, Japan is called Ilbon, and Australia is called Hoju.
In the short time I’ve hung around SDMB I’ve had a couple of xenophobic slurs thrown at me already. Some less than stellar intelligences that felt that they needed to Euro bash me a little.
What did I do? What I’ve always done, I took them to town and debated it. Well on one occasion, I took it to the Pit and massacred his argument with invective rhetoric…but that’s a form of debate, no?
I’m kind of sensitive about things like that. I react very strong when anyone is categorized with a slur. Maybe it’s because I grew up in foreign lands and I always felt to be the subject of subtle xenophobia and prejudice. I always did the same thing… asked them to come again and then gave them a piece of my mind. I’m kind of defensively offensive about it. Funnily enough it doesn’t just apply to slurs directed at me. If for instance a taxi driver starts (they tend to be a colorful bunch as far as re language and opinion…oops I just generalized!) dropping slurs about fellow drivers or what not, I always stop them and step out to take a new taxi. It’s not because I’m so fucking PC, but I fire at all cylinders at ‘racial’ and ‘ethnical’ slurs. It’s knee jerk and as I said self-defense.
Don’t you dare call me Euro Trash
Sparc