I've invented a new word. Areaism.

The BBQ Pit
81

Kal, as tom~ pointed out above, people are described as gypsies who are in fact Irish. The Irish and the Romany are not the same ethnicity, therefore gypsies are not an ethnicity, and “gypped” cannot be an ethnic slur if it is derived from gypsy.

And not a single one of the dictionary definitions I pulled up for “gypsy” indicated that it is considered offensive, though a couple noted that it was slang.

I did not endorse the statements made in the article you linked in that thread, I merely argued that they are more properly characterized not as racist but as generalizations and negative stereotypes about a class of people.

But it’s clear to me that you really want it to be “racism”, because racism is treated as a far worse evil than simple stereotypes about groups. The person in that article was being an asshole, but that’s not enough for you, you want him to be a racist asshole too.

This whole language thing is so fucking ridiculous. Perhaps we should just take a poll, ask every ethnic group which comprises a minority of a population somewhere in the world or presents a sufficient resume of past or current oppression to list all the words they don’t want anybody to say, then put a crack team of expert etymologists to work on the list to identify any and all derivitive words, and we can put that massive fucking database somewhere in a computer script and just filter every one of those words out of all written communication? Would that satisfy you? Well, it wouldn’t satisy the OP, because he wants majority groups to have the same privilege too. So tack a little more onto the database. Any words left that are ok?

Look, anybody could say word X is offensive to them as a member of group Y, but clearly there has to be some further criteria for excluding word X from use. Nobody ever uses the N-word without racist intent, every time it’s uttered as a descriptive term it means the same thing as the list of associated negative racial stereotypes. That combined with the word’s link to a history of oppressive treatment makes it a racist word worthy of placing on the “don’t ever say this word” list. People who say “gypped” aren’t thinking about the etymology of the word, they aren’t thinking of the connotation re: “gypsies”, and therefore it does not mean “I got ripped off as if I were dealing with those lying, swindling gypsies” or any such combination of negative stereotypes. The word has become divorced from it’s origins, if in fact those were the origins, and so it lacks the offensive impact. And if very few people actually know that slang’s origins, or think about those origins, then it cannot be contributing to a negative image of “gypsies”.

82

The difference is that when you say “I got jewed”, you and everyone who hears you knows that it means “jews are swindlers.” If you say “I got gypped”, you and everyone else who hears you is probably completely unaware of this potential etymological link between that phrase and “gypsies”. Therefore, the first phrase actively contibutes to a negative stereotype about a religious and ethnic group. The second phrase does not. The only way people would figure it out is if they either looked it up or deduced it from stereotypes about gypsies that they already knew.

Intent is a key to meaning, and the many times I may have said “i got gypped” in my life, I had no intent to slander gypsies since I didn’t know the connection, and since nobody ever pointed it out I assume they didn’t either.

83

So does this mean i can’t sing “Gypsies, tramps and theives” anymore? What a gyp!

BTW, the dictionary definition claims it is taken from Egyptian. Are you going to argue that Egypt should change the name of it’s country as well because it offends you? Or will you grow a brain and stop finding offense where none exists. This is as dumb as the black women suing over “eeiny meenie miny moe”

84

Can I get a cite for this? I think people are so used to assuming this statement is true that no one even thinks about whether it is true or not anymore.

The negative effect of this is that racism will never really go away because people will believe that racism exists whether it does actually exist or not.

85

Briefly, because my head exploded a few minutes ago and I don’t know how long I’ll be able to type before the last little piece of brain slithers out of my shattered skull and drops to the floor:

You may as well be saying that it can’t be a slur because it originates from Egyptian. Look, it’s really simple - Gypsy was originally coined as a name for Romani people. I understand that, in English, it can have a more general usage but that does not negate any offensiveness that it, and words derived from it, may have.

Maybe they didn’t bother to ask any Romani people about it?

The problem with that idea is that the only people in Slovakia known as ‘Gypsies’ are the Roma. In the article I linked to, it is pretty fucking clear that the statements made were in reference to the Roma as an ethnic minority and not to ‘Gypsies’ as a class of people.

No. I want him to stop sterilizing Romani women.

That’ll have to do for now, that last little bit of brain is halfway down my cheek.

::splat::

86

My ex-stepfather is black, my mom is white, and my mom’s relatives won’t speak to her because she was with a black man. But you’re right, there are no barriers (in Head in the Sand land):rolleyes:

87

Tars Tarkas:

The main offense I am taking is over the incorrect claim that we are not an ethnicity and statement that just because Hitler said we were doesn’t make it so. See to me, the claim that we are not an ethnicity in reference to Hitler is the denial of the genocide committed against us. It ain’t genocide if you’re just killing off a class of people, is it?

Regarding the word ‘Gypped’: I am fully aware that most people who use it are unaware that it is a slur, so I cut them slack. I’ve seen it around here quite a few times and, for someone who finds offense where none exists, I have curiously never complained to the Mods or Admins about it. Gosh, I’m a hyper-sensitive swine.

That said:

You’re so cute when you’re being a wanker.

88

I’d argue it was. Systematically killing off the Boy scouts would still count as genocide in my book.

89

Listen, can I ask something which has often left me wondering, without, if possible, any animosity?

The phrase “white trash” has often left me confused, because I wonder if it there to differentiate between “white” trash and other “trash”, or is it there somehow to lead one to infer that many others are “trash” anyway, therefore “white” is needed as a further description/modifier?.

Plese, bear in mind, I am not from the U.S.A. and this is a genuine “I wonder” question - no axe to grind. Just a matter of wondering about phrases, terminology etc, as I do for other phrases, not only the ones that might be contentious, like this one.

Genuine help in eliminating my ignorance would be much appreciated.

Ta - all of youse :slight_smile:

:slight_smile:

90

Kal, don’t you just love it when other people determine that something isn’t offensive to you?

91

Will personal experience do TaxGuy?
I’ve been in a store in Virginia where the clerk tried to wait on me first rather than the black woman who had obviously been standing there.
I talked my out of a ticket in Chicago. The officer requested that I wait until he pulled out first. I passed him on the side of the road giving the ticket (he’d already filled in the date and time) to a black guy.
I was tending bar in Austin-a little piano bar that had a strong set of regulars.
It was later on a Sunday night and the only couple left was multi-racial.
A regular, a lobbyist,came in and asked me to get rid of them as he was disgusted by the sight of a black man and a white woman.

And ** monstro**, you’re right about prejudging people.
It’s how we interact as humans and it’s perfectly acceptable to judge people on the basis of how they behave.
It’s not acceptable to judge people because of their race, religion, sex, or even their their accents.

92

So if somebody was arguing that Jews are better described as a religious or cultural group than an ethnic group, is that person necessarily a holocaust-denier? Of course not. Is he diminishing the evil of those actions? No.

The problem here is that people have ascribed a mystical evil to the word “genocide”. Even if eliminating the racial component would make it no longer “genocide”, it would still leave it as “systematically butchering a large group of similiar people due to hatred of that group.” That’s bad enough, isn’t it? Whether or not you can attach the word genocide to it doesn’t make it more or less evil. Hitler targeted homosexuals for extermination too, and that wasn’t racial genocide. So is it less evil to kill homosexuals than it is to kill for racial reasons, because one can be called “genocide” and the other is merely (merely?) mass-murder? Of course not. So the only reason you would feel an overriding need to describe it as “genocide” is to have a convenient label that evokes emotional response. If we were being honest with ourselves, we wouldn’t care whether a group that was victims of mass-murder was a group by way of race, religion, sexual orientation, geographic origin, gender, or age.

See, I have never asserted anything even remotely close to an endorsement of anti-gypsy/Roma/Travellers/whatever persecution. All I’m questioning is the need to bring race and ethnicity into the discussion of that treatment. You have apparently taken my attempts to reclassify a bit of slang as the anti-Romany equivalent of holocaust denial. That’s quite a leap.

93

I’ll give you my opinion. . .

While theoretically anyone can be considered “trash,” it’s usually reserved for Whites. I think the reason there is that in the US, Whites are (for the time being) the majority, and have been for some time. Everyone else is already viewed as being “lesser.” Thus, it’s “necessary” only to point out the segments of your own “superior” group as being trash.

For example, poor White people in trailer parks are routinely referred to as “trailer trash,” despite the fact that a ton of Blacks live in them, too. But you’ll never hear of ghetto/project dwellers referred to as “Black trash.” It’s sort of a group consciousness of “Well, they just can’t help it.” For your own group, the idea is “Well, they should be better than that.”

Just an opinion. Don’t have a single thing to back me up. . .

94

I’ll explain my logic for you:

For years, Romani groups around the world have fought to be recognised as either ethnic or national minorities by both their host countries and the international community as a whole. In the UK, for example, despite having lived here for about 500 years Romani people had to wait until the late 1980s to be legally identified as an ethnic group.

That’s why the claim that we are not an ethnicity pisses me off.

For years the German government denied that they had committed genocide against the Roma and Sinti. They argued that they had been killed because they were criminals. It wasn’t until the early to mid 1980s that this genocide was admitted.

It took a hell of a lot of fighting to get them to admit that.

I have not claimed that you asserted an endorsement of anti-Roma persecution. I’m trying to get you to understand that you are wrong to state that we are not an ethnicity. As a people, our ethnicity is pretty much all we have.

95

the “Irish travellers” are Pavee. Like the Romani, Domari, Sinti, and various other flavours of nomads, there are all lumped together under the title “gypsy”.

the word in and of itself isn’t offensive, but it can be depending on its usage.

Its like calling the Cherokee, Lakota, Commache, Chocktaw etc. “Indians”.

If the fecking U.N. can recognise them as an ethnicity, why can’t you?

96

White trash was coined to indicate the lowest rung on the social ladder that one could hold without actually “descending” to another color.

Interestingly, it has been used by both whites and blacks for over a hundred years as opposite sides of the same coin. Whites (from the middle and upper classes–along with the “respectable” poor-- have used it to indicate that the group was trash and that the only thing that saved any member from being totally unacceptable in public was that at least they were not black. Blacks have used it as a term of derision to indicate that the person is so lacking in worth that only their skin color prevented them from being treated as poorly as a black person.

In the last twenty or thirty years, some of the class and race distinctions have fallen out of the public consciousness, although the phrase has lingered on in speech. I have seen it used by people who repeated the phrase, completely unaware of the social and raciual implications. (I have never seen it used as a compliment, although Ernest matthew Mickler used it humorously as a self-deprecating phrase in his cookbooks, White Trash Cooking, White Trash Cooking II, and Sinkin Spells, Hot Flashes, Fits and Cravins.)

97

Here you go RexDart, from the CIA World Factbook 2002: and, where relevant, the 1995 edition (1995 edition in italics, bolding mine):

You’ll note that no only does the CIA regard ‘Gypsies’ as an ethnicity, but they now appear to show a certain amount of respect and refer to the Romani people by the correct name.

You gonna admit that you are wrong?

Tars Tarkas: You know, it takes a special kind of wanker to do what you did. Right at the start of the thread, this was quoted:

Then you decided to ignore what Lynn had said and not only post “What a gyp!”, but to do it in front of a member of the ethnic group that word relates to.

That’s very classy.

I did try to “grow a brain and stop finding offense where none exists”, but you wouldn’t seriously claim that no insult was intended now would you?

Zoe: Yeah, love it. It’s even better when people come up with convoluted reasons as to why something isn’t offensive to me.

98

Getting back to “Areaism”, I’d like to share this very amusing joke forwarded to me by a friend. I don’t know who wrote it originally.

Subject: Subject: Army Life

Mr. and Mrs. Braithwaite Backus, Bald Buzzard Ridge,

Mountainville, MS

RFD 2

Dear Ma and Pa:

Am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the

Army beats working for Old Man Minch a mile. Tell them to join up quick

before maybe all the places are filled. I was restless at first because

you got to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. (but am getting so I like to sleep
late.
Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot and
shine some things – no hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to
split,

fire to lay. Practically nothing. You got to shave, but it is not bad

in warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice,

cereal, eggs, bacon, , , , , , , , , etc., but kind of weak on chops,

potatoes, beef, ham steak, fried eggplant, pie and regular food.
But tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit between two city boys that live on
coffee. Their food plus yours holds you till noon, when you get fed.
It’s no wonder these city boys can’t walk much.
We go on “route marches,” which, the Sgt. says, are long walks to

harden us. If he thinks so, it is not my place to tell him different. A

“route march” is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city

guys all get sore feet and we ride back in trucks. The country is nice,

but awful flat.

The Sgt. is like a schoolteacher. He nags some. The Capt. is like

the school board. Cols. and Gens. Just ride around and frown. They

don’t bother you none.

This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals

for shooting. I don’t know why. The bull’s-eye is near big as a

chipmunk and don’t move. And it ain’t shooting at you, like the Higsett

boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it.

You don’t even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes.

Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other

fellows get onto this setup and come stampeding in.

Your loving son, Zeb

P.S. Speaking of shooting, enclosed is $200 for barn roof and

ma’s teeth. The city boys shoot craps, but not very good. -

99

The phrase “white trash” dates back to slave days, when the gap between rich and poor was incredibly wide in the South. I believe the statistics they gave us in US History were that roughly 10% of the white people owned 70% of everything. There were the rich, the middle-class, the slaves, and the poor whites. Like some modern Republicans, people tended to blame the poor for their lifestyles, which were dirty, verminous, and trashy. “Quality” folks would have gotten enough money somehow to have land, slaves, fine clothing, and plenty of food. Or at least have managed to keep the rats and lice out.

The term has survived as meaning a white person who was lazy, shiftless, dirty, stupid, or lacking in ambition.

100

Unless you have a cite for the coinage, I don’t think that’s quite right. I’ve heard usage (sorry no cite, except maybe some Flannery O’Connor) to the effect of: “they’re real white trash. Why, there are even some darkies with more class than them.” Or “Heck, I’d rather sit next to one of those decent city niggers than some old white trash.”

I think you basically had it right the first time, Celyn; it reflects a racial-superiority mindset that says that non-whites are expected to be “trash,” whereas its’ exceptional for a white.

Not that most people using it today think through the implication; in fact, I have heard African-Americans use the term.