Gypos

Gypsies

Often seen inhaling glue, begging, messing about and generally contributing to the collapse of civilisation

http://www.muthergrumble.co.uk/issue07/mg0704.htm

Yes, well, is it the case that they are marginalised because they always stick together or are they marginalised because they’re different and therefore they stick together? The Roma are a secretive people with their own language and distinct culture hailing originally from Egypt – hence the name – but earlier than that they are said to be of Indian extraction. Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights could be one such example of a Roma marginalised by a colonial upper class society with an intense fear of the ‘Other’ into which they transfer their dark desires and negative emotions thus raising themselves to the status of ‘civilised’ and demotion the ‘gypos’ to the status of ‘barbaric’ an artificial binary created through language. Accepting difference as soemthing positive would be an important step to understanding and allowing ‘gypos’ a place in society other than that of ‘othered’ pariahs. Using the West as a benchmark by which to measure other cultures by is essentially wrong. Whether the ‘gypos’ are thieving snivelly bastards is a question the West is not in a position to answer. What is true is that they are cleaner than we are and they recycle products which the decadent West considers ‘trash’. Their oppression in countries like Romania since the fall of the Iron Curtain has increased exponentially: under communism everybody was the same at least but under capitalism difference is necessary as is an underclass and a ruling class. L.P. Mackenzie (Moriarty)

Perhaps treating them the same isn’t the answer, as after the Collapse of Communism (despite being treated equally) they have reverted to type. As an interesting side note, the Mayor of Bucuresti is a Gypo. — Spectre

Your appraisal of the ‘gypo’ problem, Spectre, is far from enlightening and smacks of racism. It is well known too that the oppression of the Roma in Romania is a problem and surely should not just be allowed to persist because Roma ‘appear’ to have reverted to ‘type'(whatever that means). It is of course unfair to suggest that all Roma are the same as there are many different classes and tribes of Roma sharing different dialects and lineages and to say there is a Roma ‘type’ risks homogenising and generalising about a very diverse ethnic group. Roma houses have been burnt to the ground, Gypsies forced out of certain villages or made to live on the outskirts of towns in ghetto-like conditions. Lest we forget the half a million gypsies exterminated during the reign of Hitler: known by Roma as the ‘devouring’. (Moriarty)

Blacks and Jews were persecuted by the Nazis too, and you don’t see them begging and grubbing around on mass… o.. wai.. — Spectre