sexgenderbody

Laws against Romani people in America

icanbecruelidontknowwhy:

For the person yesterday saying they find it hard to believe that there actually are laws against the Romani people in the United States. These are only a few,  some of which are still in effect, the one from New Jersey was only repealed in ‘98.

gypsies … for each county … shall be jointly and severally liablewith his or her associates [to a fine of] two thousand dollars (State Code of Mississippi, Section 27-17-191).

The governing body may make, amend, repeal and enforce ordinances to license and regulate … gypsies (New Jersey Statutes, 40:52-1).
After the passage of this act, it shall be unlawful for any … gypsies … to … settle within the limits of any county of this state [without having first obtained a yearly license to do so] (Pennsylvania Statutes,  Section 11810).

Any person may demand of any … gypsies that they shall produce or show their license issued within such county, and if they shall refuse to do so … he shall seize all the property in the possession of such [Gypsies] (Pennsylvania Statutes, Section 11803).

Gypsies [in the State of Maryland] must pay jurisdictions a license fee of $1000 before settling or doing business. When any gypsy is arrested, all his property and all the property of members of any group with which he may be traveling, can be confiscated and sold to pay any fine a court may levy against the arrested gypsy. Sheriffs are paid a $10 bounty for any gypsy they arrest who pays the $1000 fee after he is arrested (Logan, 1976).

Whenever …  gypsies shall be located within any municipality …  the county department of health or joint county department of health shall have power …  to order such [Gypsies … ] to leave said municipality within the time specified (Pennsylvania Title 53: Municipal and Quasi-Municipal Corporations, Chapter xvii, Section 3701).

It is illegal in Pennsylvania to be a Gypsy without a license … Any Gypsy who insists on being what he was born - a Gypsy - without a license, is liable to up to $100 fine and 30 days in jail. A constable may confiscate and sell a convicted Gypsy’s possessions to satisfy the sentence …  any person may demand to see a Gypsy’s license. If the Gypsy cannot produce a license, the person may turn the Gypsy in to any convenient justice of the peace (Smart, 1969).

Upon each company of … Gypsies, engaged in trading or selling merchandise or livestock of any kind, or clairvoyant, or persons engaged in fortunetelling, phrenology, or palmistry, $250 [is] to be collected … [from those who] live in tents or travel in covered wagons and automobiles, and who may be a resident of some country or who reside without the State, and who are commonly called traveling horse traders and Gypsies (Georgia Acts and Resolutions, 1927, Part I, Title II, Section 56, p.3).

Texas law refers to “Prostitutes, Gypsies and vagabonds” in the same breath, and charges the Romany people $500 to live there (Bernardo, 1981:108).
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, that it shall be unlawful for any band of Gypsies … to camp in tent, wagon or otherwise, on any public highway in this state, or lands adjacent thereto … Any person or persons violating the provisions of this Act shall be deemed guilty … and upon conviction shall be fined not exceeding twenty-five dollars or imprisoned in the county jail not exceeding thirty days, or both (State of Indiana Statutory Regulations, Section I). “This statutory law has been used so often against the Gypsies in that state, that Indiana has not been visited by Gypsies for a long time” (Marchbin, 1939:152).

So, there you go.

HEY SO IMMA WRITE Y’ALL A REAL LONG ESSAY ABOUT GADJE FEELS NOW

impossiblebreakfast:

So I’ve been quietly following a whole mess of Romani-focused blogs for a while now in attempt to educate my damn self (which is apparently an insult now?) after having a long time friend with a really upsetting fetish for the Romani people. Now, I’m not gonna sit here and play oppression olympics (because frankly that is pretty much a load of obnoxious white nonsense anyways), but can I just say that as a black woman and therefore also not real high up on the list of things white people are fond of, I may still be pretty far off from what y’all have to put up with, but I am a damn sight closer to understanding it than most and if it makes you feel any better, I would like every single one of you beautiful blog-running people to know that that word (I’m sure you know which) will now never, ever stop hitting my ears like every brick in a ten story shithouse. After educating my damn self via your beautifully run blogs, I hope you can at least have the very small comfort of knowing that for every belligerent refusal to take anything that has ever hurt and raped and mass-murdered your people with the slightest bit of seriousness or respect, there is someone else getting literally sick to their stomach because of what you and your fellow “social justice bloggers” (again, really confused as to why this is an insult) have taught them about your peoples’ past, and more importantly about their present. Being black is no joyriding picnic of a field day, but I see the things that show up in your askboxes, the way people respond to your honest, desperate efforts not just to put a stop to it but to help people understand why it needs to be stopped in the first place, I see people look at that and spit it right back in your faces and tell you all over again how you don’t matter, how you need to be educated, how they know and you don’t, and I swear sometimes I just have to close the tab, curl up with my cats and watch The Little Mermaid just to be able to sleep that night.

I see that word, and even if it’s not my word I know what those words feel like. I see that word and what I see is people dressing up as sexy niggers for Halloween, people going on about nigger magic and nigger fortune telling and how they just know they were a beautiful nigger princess in their last life. Photos of our nomadic nigger ways, memes about the magical nigger properties of magical nigger tears, the mysterious beauty of our exotic nigger women. Nigger fashion trends, nigger crafts and nigger jewelery and white people’s perpetual  fascination, their envy of the free-spirited nigger life style and how they are a 64th nigger on their grandmother’s side so shut up already god don’t you understand that nigger is a compliment and you should be grateful that people want to be niggers now and jeez can’t you just stop dragging it back to mean something racist when nigger is such a beautiful word, because nigger nigger nigger nigger!

And no, my precious, pearly white people, I’m not going to edit out all those niggers, and I’m not going stop exaggerating by taking a style choice and a celebration of life and an expression of your pearly white freedom and comparing it to such a dirty, ugly word, because if you’re going to open your dirty, ugly mouth and say something that’s just as dirty and ugly as the word for people like me (it’s nigger, by the way) then you damn well better know just how dirty and ugly you sound when you say it.

TL;DR I want you to see something nice in this tag for once because your blogs are beautiful and they do make a difference and I hope anyone who ever says otherwise drowns in their dirty ugly gadje tears.

Solidarity, man. Never stop.

Gadže and Appropriation

golden-zephyr:

I’ve seen discussion this morning of appropriation, racism (regarding dressing up and using racist slurs), and ‘white hipsters’.

However, it’s not just white people who use the word gypsy, dress up in costume, or even wear headdresses. 

For example, here is an Asian girl dressed as a “gypsy” and calling herself such:

I’ve seen just yesterday, several photographs of Black girls dressed as “Esmeralda” and tagged as ‘gypsy’ on the Tumblr tag.

This is why I tend to use the word Gadže and try and refrain from specifying further within that label. Anyone who is not Rroma … is Gadže, no matter their ethnicity.

I have also, unfortunately, seen many of these Gadže who claim to be descended from a ‘gypsy king’ or ‘the gypsy queen’, or who claim to have ‘gypsy heritage on their great aunts grandmothers side’ and therefore claim knowledge and right to the word.

This particularly upsets me and makes me realize why I feel so strongly that you SHOULDN’T claim ancestry less than 1/4 because there is a very strong possibility that you simply DON’T have a clue about anything to do with that ancestry. All these girls claiming 1/256th heritage are a good point. They claim the heritage because they identify it with the stereotype, not the reality.

Of the Rroma and Walking People I’ve met on the internet, so far I am one of the only ones who was raised in the tradition—and even then, it was a far different tradition than the one even my father was raised in.

However, all of that being said, if you follow the ‘gypsy’ or ‘gypsies’ tag here on Tumblr, you know that 99% of the crappy, stereotyped and racist imagery there is posted by white hipster girls who identify as “boho” “hippie” “hipster” and “gypsy”.. even though only one of these is an ethnicity, they fail to listen to anything we say.

So, we write and write posts like this… over and over, repetitive bullshit about why it’s wrong, who we are, over and over and god it’s fucking tiring!

If you are not a Walking Person, you have no right to use the word gypsy, PERIOD. This is not something that’s negotiable.

poverty porn

golden-zephyr:

I am so tired of seeing only photos of poor and dirty Roma children or begging women on the corner of a street.

Yes, there are many, many of us living in exclusion, abject poverty, and terrible sanitary and social conditions…

but, not all of us.

In a way, this promotes another stereotype—to be a gypsy is to be poor and dirty and a beggar.

That’s not true for all of us though… but, I think that this stereotype feeds into the fact that we are not seen as Roma if we are not dirt poor and educated. Sometimes even having a house excludes us from being considered “true Roma”…

Sometimes, I feel like I can’t win.

Instead Of Using “Gypsy”: The Picture Dictionary

biggadjeworld:

Rather than wrongly lump all nomadic peoples under the umbrella term, “gypsy”, here is a guide of appropriate terms to use.

Terms to not use when referring to nomadic people or nomadic sub-ethnic populations:

gypsy [jip-see] noun
Usage note: The term gypsy is a degrading pejorative for persons who belong to the Romani ethnic population. 
A member of a nomadic Indo-Aryan people of generally dark complexion who migrated originally from India & Pakistan, settling in various parts of Asia, Europe, and, most recently, North America.

vagabond [vag-uh-bond] adjective
1. Wandering from place to place without any settled home.
2. Leading an unsettled carefree life.
3. Disreputable, worthless, shiftless.

vagrant [vey-gruhnt] noun
1. A person who wanders about idly and has no permanent home or employment.
2. An idle person without visible means of support, as a tramp or beggar.

drifter [drif-ter] noun
1. A person who goes from place to place, job to job, etc.
2. A boat used in fishing with a drift net.

hobo [hoh-boh] noun
A tramp or vagrant.

tramp [trӕmp] noun
1. A person who travels about on foot, usually with no permanent home, living by begging, doing casual work.
2. A long hard walk.
3. An iron plate on the sole of a boot.
4. (slang) A prostitute or promiscuous girl or woman.

pikey [paiki] noun
Usage note: A slang pejorative used in the United Kingdom to describe members of the Pavee sub-Irish ethnic population; commonly known as Irish Travellers.
1. A vagrant.
2. A member of the underclass (possibly derived from the term turnpike).


Words you should use when referring to nomadic people or nomadic sub-ethnic populations:

nomad [noh-mad] noun
A member of a people or tribe that has no permanent abode but moves about from place to place, usually seasonally and often following a traditional route or circuit according to the state of the pasturage or food supply.


ROMANI
An Indo-Aryan people who migrated from the Rajasthan & Punjab regions of India & what is today part of the nation-state of Pakistan following the invasion of the Persian Muslims and now live primarily in Europe and the Americas.





DOMARI
An Indo-Aryan people who migrated from the Rajasthan & Punjab regions of India & parts of what is now the nation-state of Pakistan shortly after the invasion of the Persian Muslims who now live throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, and across North Africa. Very closely related to the Romani.





HADZA
An ethnic group living in north-central Tanzania in the Great Rift Valley. The language of the Hazda is most closely related to the Khoisan language family, though they are genetically isolated from neighboring ethnic populations. 
 




BANJARA
An ethnic people from the Rajasthan region of India. They live primarily in north-west Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and the Eastern Sindh province. They are divided into two tribes; the Maturia & the Labana.





TURKMEN
A sub group of the ethnic Turkic people who live primarily in Turkmenistan & Afghanistan, northeastern Syria, Iran and Iraq. The language is Turkmen, of the Oghuz dialectal branch of Turkic. It is closely related to Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqui, Gagauz, and Salar.





NUKAK
An ethnic people who live between the Guaviare & Inirida rivers within the Amazon basin in the nation-state of Columbia. The Nukak are seasonally nomadic. Their language is a dialect of the Nadahup language.





PAVEE
Commonly known as Irish Travellers, the Pavee are a sub-ethnic group of Irish who live mostly in the Republic of Ireland & the United Kingdom. The Pavee speak a dialect of the Shelta language, as well as Irish Traveller Cant; which derives from Gaelic.






BEDOUIN
An Arabian sub-ethnic population who live mostly throughout the Arabian Peninsula, as well as in Egypt. The Bedouin are divided into various tribes, each of which generally speaks one of three Arabic dialects; Najdi, Hassaniya, or Bedawi.





YUPIK
The Yupik are a people indigenous to regions of Alaska and the Russian far east. They include the following tribes; Alutiiq, Central Alaskan Yu’pik, Siberian Yupik, and the Nuakan, Chaplino, and Sirenik. The Yupik language is still widely spoken in both Alaska & Russia. There are five Yupik dialects.





HMONG
The Hmong are an ethnic population living in regions of China, Vietnam, Laos, & Thailand. The Hmong have many ethnic sub-divisions & speak their own language; Hmong.





MAASAI
A sub-ethnic group of the Nilotic people living in Kenya & Tanzania. The language they speak is Maa, which is a member of the Nilo-Saharan language family. Many Maasai also speak Swahili & English fluently.





LORI
The Lori are an ethnic population who live in Pakistan & Iran. They are divided into two sub groups; the Sarmas-Lori & the Zabgisgahi. The Lori are speculated to have migrated from India. They speak the Balochi language.





This in no way accounts for all peoples who were ever once or are still nomadic by culture, tradition, oppression, or necessity. Each nomadic population belongs to a certain ethnicity. Certainly, not all nomadic peoples are related, and thus, we cannot be placed under umbrella terms & misappropriated words.

It is most respectful to always ask what a particular individual prefers to be called. Self identification is important to all human beings no matter to which race or ethnicity we belong. Ascribing English adjectives, derogatory terms, or pejoratives from the English language to various nomadic peoples is insulting & ignorant.  

We are more than nomads. We are people; human beings with emotions who identify with & embrace a particular heritage & culture. Please respect us as such.

(Source: big-gadje-world)

France declares war on illegal migrants: Riot police smash camps and hundreds rounded up for deportation as Socialists take on gipsies [Daily Mail]

golden-zephyr:

French police were yesterday breaking up gipsy camps and deporting illegal immigrants found in them. Dozens of officers in riot gear descended on a settlement near Lille shortly after dawn to oversee the evacuation of some 200 Roma living in mobile homes.

One hundred people were evicted from a site in Lyon, with similar round-ups happening in other major cities including Marseille. Caravans and huts were destroyed in the Belleville area of central Paris on Wednesday, making another 100 people homeless.

‘Many of those evicted will be flown home to Romania,’ said an interior ministry source, who insisted the deportations were aimed at ridding France of ‘illegal’ communities.

Greece has also begun a crackdown on immigrants, with Athens claiming the country faced an ‘invasion’.

The policy being pursued by France’s socialist government was formulated by former conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy, who was frequently accused of pandering to the far right. His government linked Roma camps with crime, suggesting that many of the thieves and muggers operating in big cities were homeless Romanians.

Many expected the more liberal socialists to show a more relaxed attitude toward immigrants, especially those from European Union member states. But Manuel Valls, the new interior minister, said the camps were a ‘challenge’ to ‘people living together’.

He insisted the police would uphold all court orders aimed at dismantling them.

Neighbours of the camps often complained about noise and anti-social behaviour, as well as serious crimes, said Mr Valls.

Humanitarian organisations have also linked the camps to ill health, including serious diseases such as tuberculosis.

Mr Valls said everything would be done to ensure that vulnerable people, and particularly ‘children and pregnant women’, were rehoused as quickly as possible.

Mr Sarkozy started a purge on Romas in the summer of 2010, pointing to the fact that up to 15,000 were living in camps across France. Mr Sarkozy even proposed that police travel to Romania to fight trafficking and other crimes committed there by Roma.

In turn, Roma groups accused Mr Sarkozy of ‘ethnic cleansing’, pointing to the fact that gipsies had been targeted by the Nazis during the Second World War.

They said that the purge was all part of a generally racist strategy adopted by Mr Sarkozy against all foreign groups, including some six million Muslims living in France. 

Romania has been a full member of the European Union since 2007, and its citizens can enter France without a visa. But they must get residency permits if they want to settle long term and work. Britain, like France, has transitional controls on Romanians seeking to settle in the UK.

Until next year only those Romanian migrants who have a job or can support themselves are allowed to stay in Britain.

[Daily Mail Online - Video available at the end of article]

Something I get asked about a lot:

golden-zephyr:

Yes, there are ‘Gypsies’ in India today. The Bopa, Banjara, and Lambadi are some of these groups. 

They did not historically refer to themselves as Gypsies. That word is a Western bastardization of the word Egypt.

Yes, the Romani migrated out of Northern India (centuries ago).

However, there are no Romani in India.

The groups who are currently known as Romani became known as that ONLY after settling in Europe (technically, we were erroneously called “Gypsies” until establishment of the first World Romani Congress in 1971).

The Sinte, Kale, Calo, and Dom/Lom (and some others) are all separate groups which took different migratory paths and most do not consider themselves related to the Romani (this is especially true of the Sinte and the Dom/Lom).

Genetics research has (at this time) only been able to show that we are related to people from the Indian subcontinent. We share some DNA and some physical traits (for example, did you know that the blood group B- is highly correlated with Indian DNA? As are certain medical complications and disorders which have a high incidence in Romani populations), but it cannot link us to a specific tribe (since centuries of slow and unremarkable travel across the globe have ‘muddied’ our heritage).

However, the Romani (and other groups) are NO LONGER Indian. We do not claim anything but historical ties to Northern India. To tell us to “Go back there” is like telling white Americans to “Go back” to England. 

Just so you know.

(this also goes as a shout out to Mr. Anon who told me to (and I quote) “fuck off back to India, whore”)

ROMEA: Czech Republic: Neo-Nazis assault eight people, injuring four

golden-zephyr:

During a nighttime spree of violence last Thursday, five drunken neo-Nazis attacked a total of eight young people in the Czech town of Slaný. The series of three unprovoked attacks resulted in injuries to four people. A 25-year-old man has been hospitalized with a serious head wound. News server Romea.cz has determined that several of those who were assaulted are Romani.

“On Thursday 28 June after 10 PM the Czech Police emergency line in Slaný received a report of a violent assault. After arriving at the scene, the patrol determined a total of eight people had been attacked. The five assailants, the two oldest of whom were 19 years old, first attacked people in a parking lot on Ouvalova street, then in Šultysova street, and lastly in the local Hamburk restaurant. Three of the perpetrators are from Kladno, one is from Prague and one is from the Slaný area,” Jana Steinerová, spokesperson for the Kladno Police, told news server Romea.cz.

Pavel Štěpánek, director of the Slaný Municipal Police, said the “drunken youths came to Slaný to fight.” The Central Bohemian Regional Police Directorate says it is possible the attacks were committed by members of the ultra-right.

After the assault, four of the victims sought medical aid. One, a 25-year-old man from Prague, ended up in the intensive care unit in the hospital in Slaný with serious head injuries. MUDr. Jiří Šimák, director of the hospital, has confirmed that the injured youth has been stabilized and was transferred to a normal room today. The exact extent of his injuries will be known after a CAT scan of his brain.The other victims are also male and aged between 15 and 25.

Members of the Czech Police arrested three of the assailants that same evening in Slaný. After obtaining preliminary consent from the state prosecutor, they apprehended a fourth later on in Kladno. The fifth disorderly person turned himself in to police last Friday.

Initial procedural intake has been performed for all five assailants and they have been temporarily placed in a cell for preliminary detention. “At this moment all five have been charged with the crimes of rioting, committing violence against a group of individuals, and intentional battery. The racial motivation of the attack is under investigation,” Steinerová said.

Police monitored Romani localities in Slaný, Pražská street in particular, during the late hours of Thursday evening and early morning hours of Friday. The case is being followed by the Coordinator for Romani Affairs and Alien Integration at the Central Bohemian Regional Authority’s Department of Social Affairs, Cyril Koky. “On Tuesday I will go to Slaný to determine the details of the attack,” Koky told news server Romea.cz.

Source: ROMEA.CZ