anna asks me why I am so racist at the very beginning of my blog.
(1) I don't think that Gypsies are their own race.
(2) This blog is really about gypsies so I am not using it as an epithet.
Anna says this is not about gypsies and I am a liar and this should be called the liar blog. I am wondering why she is reading over my shoulder and not getting brownies and ice cream like she said she was going to do.
That's right Anna. leave...
So believe it or not, this really IS going to be a blog about Gypsies. I don't know anything about gypsies other than they are descendants of the Roma people and can be found all over the world. Why? Who knows? I'll bet there is a good story there somewhere.
On my mission some gypsies cursed an apartment used by elders. They killed a cat and threw it against the door from the street. After that, there were always lots of dead animals and electrical malfunctions with the apartment. Actually there had always been lots of problems, this was Athens after all. We had lots of problems with Gypsies breaking into the church and stealing water. We would catch families taking baths in the font. Some of the missionaries got upset, but frankly I was just glad someone was finally using it (ba-dum ching).
The gypsies had whole townships on outskirts of the city where they would occupy abandoned shells of buildings and park their Hummers and Escalades out in front of them. The insides of the homes were mostly boxes and woven rugs. They would gather in big groups and roast dogs over open fire-pits.
Fascinating, huh? And those are all the stories I have about gypsies. So that is why I am right and anna is wrong.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
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6 comments:
I am so sad. I thought you knew everything.
I don't think your stories are racist (or ethnicist?). But it does bother me when someone says they've been gypped, because that has such a derogatory tone, and it comes from "gypsy."
There were gypsies in Berlin. Mostly in the east. They played cool music.
I don't know that I've ever seen a group of gypsies. Did we ever see gypsies when we were there?
ok, so I am not even quite sure how I wound up on your blog but I think you and your wife are great and funny writers. I finally figured out your daughter's real name. Thanks for a fun morning blog stroll.
I think the proper term is "Roma," right? You could say everything you just said, and worse, but insert Roma for Gypsy and you've got yourself covered.
Gypsies are the low man on the totem pole in Slovakia. Their housing situation is shockingly primitive. They do the menial jobs that no one else wants. One time my cousin was complaining about how the gypsies are so lazy and I said, so who is out there doing the roadwork right now? and right in front of his house the gypsies were doing the digging. It's just a habit of prejudice there. Which has been going on forever I guess because in some parish records I studied from 150 years ago, when the priest used to get called to baptize the gypsy babies, he recorded the baptism along w/ horrible remarks in the margins about the gypsies. Right there in the parish record!
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