Andros, why are you ragging on me for how my friend acts? Besides, the question is why they act like that, not what is the politically correct term for them. And what the hell is a beaner?
Marge: “You know, Homer, it’s very easy to criticize.”
Homer: “Fun, too!”
I’m not “ragging on you for how [your] friend acts.” I don’t give a shit how your friend acts or what (s)he says. However, you used your friend as an example of your own point, and I hardly think you have any room to backtrack with the weak justification “well, I didn’t say that, I was only repeating it.”
Funny how “politically correct” has turned into the epithet du jour, huh? When you can’t manage to justify your own point you attempt to dismiss mine by telling me I’m just being PC. Cute.
Nevertheless, I didn’t want to call anyone a racist. Again, I only wanted to make sure everyone’s terms were defined. Call an asshole an asshole, but I don’t know that these assholes are in any sense “gypsies.” 'Nuff said?
Salishan, Marko, welcome aboard. Being as how this is the Pit and all, I’m being much more abusive than is my wont, but in General Questions and Great Debates we’re all a fairly civilized bunch. . .
-andros-
You know what, I think my use of the term “gypsy” was off base. “Travelers” might have been better. I used it in the spur of the moment right after seeing the Dateline segment. Just as I wouldn’t assume all blacks are crack dealers or professional athletes or whatever, or that any ethnic/minority group fills some bill, I think my definition of “gypsies” as scam artists needs some rethought.
I had always thought of “gypsies” as these scam artists and not some specific ethnic group. People obviously disagree with my definition. Since “gypsy” turns out to be a specific group with which people claim heritage, I can’t disparage an entire ethnic group.
I still hate these fuckers that pulled the shit I described, but it’s unfair to lump all “gypsies” into a general ethnic category. Scammers come in all shapes and sizes and colors.
Courbet-I was unfair. Thanks for the insight.
Andros-I never thought that you called me a racist, I was referring to an earlier post regarding my OP. And, you made some good points. But I said “‘gypsies’ for lack of a better term” with quotes for me meaning the uncertainty. Small comfort for someone that’s been slighted.
Andros-since it’s the Pit–your sister calls me Floppy because my dick hangs between my knees and she’s not hot enough to get it hard.
courbet
I appreciate the sentiment you express here, and I would ask that if you believe as you say, please reciprocate and do not hasten to throw the blanket of `racism’ over others.
The issue of the Gypsies is a delicate one in our racially sensitive culture. Whether or not the reputation of the Gypsies of history is deserved, there are many Gypsies living today who don’t deserve it and would very much like not to be branded as thieves or con artists any more than an Itallian-American would want to be branded as a mafioso simply by virtue of being Italian.
But just as I don’t mean to indite all Italians when I say that there is undeniably such a thing as a uniquely Italian criminal subculture, I also don’t mean to indite the entire race of Gypsies when I say that there is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, such a thing as a uniquely Gypsy criminal subculture with charistic language and modi operandi which has not only existed for many years but which has been active among and influential with the criminal subcultures of all the locations and ethnicities with which it has come in contact.
Jan Yoors, who ran away from home as a child and was accepted among Gypsies in the thirties and who witnessed their persecution under the Nazis, extols the virtues of this fascinating culture but does not flinch from the fact the company he was with practiced thievery and swindling as a way of life, and that although they were persecuted, their taking ways were not motivated by a reaction to the persecution they recieved but by the belief among the Gypsies that non-Gypsies were not quite human. And although not all Gypsies practiced it to the extent that the band that took him in did, it was not frowned upon.
Marko Courbet, don’t misunderstand me. We, the Gadje, have been intensely curious about the Rom for centuries. But the Rom have been secretive about their own culture for a long time, distrustful of outsiders. Nearly all knowledge we have of your culture comes from contact with its raconteurs. Clearly, the web page you mentioned shows that this is changing. And with more knowledge will come different attitudes. Please feel free to speak for your people to whatever extent one man can speak for his people. But don’t dismiss the attitudes born of centuries in which we did not and could not know your people beyond the predators among you as mere racism. And of the true racism that you have no doubt suffered, please don’t throw that blanket over all of us.
Speaking of Gypsy scams, check out this Chicago Tribune article: http://www.chicago.tribune.com/news/metro/chicago/article/0,2669,ART-40639,FF.html
(Hope that works ok)
Two women were arrested for pulling a classic psychic scam. Their last name, “Bimbo” is one of the main criminal Gypsy clans in the U.S.
As the article notes: “Wiberg said some con artists are part of a group the Chicago Crime Commission classifies as Eastern European Organized Criminal Travelers, which traces its roots to Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia and has been investigated for other con games, such as accident fraud and home-repair scams.”
In Ireland, they are called “Tinkers”. The name is derived from their skill in doing minor metal repair work. For instance, a group will descend on a village and go door to door, asking if the Missus needs any pots and pans repaied. If so, they take the pot/pan to their vehicle (it used to be a horse drawn caravan), and fix it by riveting a dam over the hole. It usually gives way after a while, which brought about the term “Not worth a Tinkers dam.” While all this is going on in the front of the house, the women are ransacking all they can from clothelines, etc. in the rear of the house.
Ethnically, they do look Irish. Most very fair, blondes and redheads.
In this country, they have been in trouble in Dallas recently, buying trucks with little down, and an forged ID card and SS # of someone who has good credit.
They also follow Circus’s, and work them. Some do minor auto body work in your driveway.
I’ve always rooted for the underdog and was just laughing my ass off reading about these scams.
But then it’s been awhile since I’ve worked in a restaurant and I don’t have to clean up after people unrelated to me anymore.
But part of me wants to cheer these folks on – damn!
I mean, Sears (a good retail example) grossly over-prices its plastic clothes (do NOT light a match anywhere near the ladies’ department) and what about those shoddy Craftsman tools (shame on Bob Vila) – they can afford to give over a power screwdriver or replace a polyester bathrobe once in awhile.
I suppose I should feel sympathy for any gypsies or Rom folk who think they have an image problem and who cringe when these news accounts pop up.
But I can’t fault them. They’re a very small group of people in a big, unfriendly country, and they’re steadfastly maintaining a way of life. They’re holding on, not giving in, doing it their way.
Not being specialists on bear’s dicks, none of us responded. We didn’t want to look like fools. Joe Lansdale
Well, heck, in that case we ought to just get rid of all fraud laws. I mean, it’s obviously all people who are too stupid to live anyway.
David – that’d be a good topic for another thread. How much time, effort, money and other resources go into protecting us from our own stupidity and greed?
Too many people fall for pyramid schemes, bank drop fraud and other scams where they think they’re getting something for little or nothing, then go crying to the BBB or the police when they lose their money.
I know what these folks are doing isn’t right, but like I said, I root for the underdog.
Now if they were gonna shakedown my mom, I’m sure I’d feel differently.
Precisely. Many of the people they rip off are the elderly – the woman who can’t see very well and notice that the driveway is just being painted black or the roof hasn’t really had any work done. These people aren’t stupid, just vulnerable. Ok, some of 'em are stupid, too, but that’s still not an excuse to commit crimes against them.
Well, I suppose it’s encouraging that we’ve moved on from ‘gypsies’ in particular to scam artists in general.
One of my current favorites is painting sub-contractors who low-bid the job, then batch their latex paint 50/50 with water. Thanks to the largesse of the local court, I am now the proud owner of one of these concerns.
Anyone want to buy a 1983 Chevy van in three colors of primer, four bent ladders, two thrashed out air compressors, and a handfull of clogged spray guns? I’ll be happy to let the whole thing go fer a case of decent ale . . .
Dr. Watson
“We live, we learn, then we learn some more.”
I have heard “gypsy” used to describe a nomadic lifestyle without implying that the people were Rom. It’s entered the language that way. “Bugger” (not booger) supposedly comes from a reference to Bulgarians, as bizarre as that sounds, and there are “Indian summers”, “French kisses”, and “English muffins” that never saw India, France, nor England. Oh well. I call tramps, wanderers, and scammers what they are, if I can. I call ethnic gypsies “Rom”; it’s their own name, and they’re not Egyptian anyway.
By the way, people who don’t tip well are “niggards”, not “niggers”. It’s a real English word, meaning “people who give lousy tips.” REALLY.
A new world order has been formed/between the cheque book and the dawn/A new renaissance man is born"
Jim Moginie/Peter Garrett/Martin Rotsey(Midnight Oil), “Renaissance Man”
Weird.
As I look at this thread (8:45 PM, 2/14/00) it is at the top of the BBQ pit with the last post showing being that of Crick&Watson from 1/19/00.
Beatle, you need to refresh your screen. Your server is displaying a cached page, that’s all.
Of course, you probably won’t see this til you get a current page, not a cached one.
Lynn
If it’s helpful, I’ll compare everyone to Hitler so we can get this
over with as soon as possible.
I am Romani. My father is a doctor who was in practice for over 30 years before he retired. He helped co-found a clinic giving free treatment to the poor. He was an assistant college professor. My uncle is a world-known physicist. My family has several published authors and other professional sorts, including an assistant district attorney, a surgeon, and two other college professors.
If you want to debate what Romani people look like, I’d like to inform you that most of you are wrong. We are of Northern Indian descent and largely–and predictably–look like Indians who have somewhat mixed with Caucasian DNA. Some look like they are complete Indians and others can be blond-haired and blue-eyed, depending on how much is in their genetic makeup. The bottom line is YOU CAN’T TELL what we are by looking at us.
Any hippie can put on a long skirt and hoop earrings and I’ve run into plenty who like to immitate what they think being a “Gypsy” is. It’s usually these immitators that bring so much embarrassment to us. For example, one fellow I knew who liked to pretend he was a Rom would steal things and leave a note, “Stolen by the Gypsies…” This sort of bad behavior is very common and, if people actually spoke to us, rather than just about us, so much they would know what our cultural norms are and are not.
One thing is for certain though… A good half of the stuff that I see written about my people on this site would never be tolerated in mainstream America if the racism were directed at nearly every other minority group.
The only reason my family came to this country was to escape racial murder in the first place. Those who stayed behind, thirty years later, almost all were slaughtered down to the last child. We had 1.5 million killed in the Holocaust. Our land has never been returned. Our funds from our bank accounts hasn’t been either. Before that genocide, my family were slaves, like half the Romani population were slaves, in Eastern Europe because we had blacksmithing and metalworking technology that the Europeans needed to protect themselves from Turkish invasion.
Today we have no justice. Pogroms still happen in Europe and the press never bothers to write about it. Our women and children are still forcedly sterilized without their knowledge. In hospitals, we are told that we gave birth to stillborns so that the we don’t notice when our children are trafficked by governments who sell them into the international sex slave trade.
I myself was a victim of a hate crime because of my heritage and knew at the time and still do know that, in America, which has not ever once prosecuted violence against us as a hate crime, that if the reason for the attack–my heritage alone–was known to police, they would throw the case out automatically.
The bottom line is this. Don’t romanticize us. Don’t villainize us. Don’t think that we live inside a crystal ball and are just aching to do nothing more than sit around and tell yet another boring twit their fortune. A lot of what I’ve read in this page about hating us doesn’t sound that far a cry from the mind-set the people who murdered my family were in. Ask yourself: do you want to speak like a human being…or speak like Hitler?
Just so you know, you’re responding to a thread from more than ten years ago.
Um, the racism was in like one or two posts, and was swiftly corrected.
Putting this zombie out of its misery.
Welcome to the Straight Dope, Galina Trefil. I probably should have explained myself a little better when I closed this thread. This thread is ten years old. We call older threads, zombies, because the discussion was dead and now has been revived. It’s fine for you to start a new thread on this topic if you wish to discuss it. If you think it’s relevant, you can post a link to this thread in the thread that you start.
Gfactor
Pit Moderator