DUmmies Discuss Gypsies

[GOBUCKS]

Jack_Dawson  (1000+ posts)      Fri Sep-18-09 10:25 PM
GF is a Racist
She has this fear / loathing of "Gypsies". When I ask her who are these "Gypsies" she never
has a clear answer. I ask her where they are from and apparently they are from nowhere, but
they are dark skinned and live in "villages" and steal a lot. They also beat up friends of hers
when she was 5 in what was then Czechoslovakia.

She is otherwise a very intelligent, college educated, rational person.

Can anybody shed any light on this for me? Thx.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6583491#6583524
Gypsies. The only ethnic group on earth whose entire culture is based on crime. The only
people with tolerance for gypsies are those who have never had direct contact with them.

Captain Hilts  (1000+ posts)      Fri Sep-18-09 10:28 PM
1. Well, in Europe, they DO mug folks. A friend and I saved a young fellow from a swarm of them...
but they have been completely screwed by all the European states and were thrown in concentration
camps in huge numbers in WWII. The book "Bury Me Standing" is a great history of their plight.

Gypsies in Europe use swarms of little gypsy kids to surround tourists and steal everything they
carrying. I have seen it happen, and got swarmed once myself in Rome. It felt so strange to be so
frightened of a dozen 10-year-old kids. They were trying to get into my pockets until I actually
started swinging my fists at them. There was an episode on "60 Minutes" years ago where Diane Sawyer
interviewed a bunch of the kids. They ended up stealing her cameraman's watch.

Tangerine LaBamba  (1000+ posts)      Fri Sep-18-09 10:32 PM
6. That IS a terrific book -   I had a gypsy grandfather. A very rough history there, and it's shocking
how so many people have absolutely no knowledge of what happened to them under Hitler.

DUmmy TLB with all her stupid two inches of periods. I'll bet even her gypsy grandfather would
know the qualification requirements for Medicaid.

virgogal (1000+ posts)      Fri Sep-18-09 10:29 PM
2. Is this a teaser or are you really in the dark about this?

DUmmy virgogal knows anyone who speaks honestly about gypsies will lose DUmp cred.
 

Touchdown  (1000+ posts)      Fri Sep-18-09 10:31 PM
3. Long History of Roma hatred in Central Europe.
Gypsies were the 3rd most persecuted group in Nazi Germany, and there's still animosity
towards them today. I'm not a European, so I don't really know why.... but then, hatred
never needs a reason, does it?

I think Roma is the term used for them, but I could be wrong. Gypsies originate in Romania,
south-east of the Czech Republic. The Carpathian Mountains share the border between
Slovakia and Romania.

People whose entire culture is based on theft tend to be disliked.

AllieB  (1000+ posts)        Fri Sep-18-09 10:32 PM
5. Racism toward the Romany is centuries-old.
even extremely liberal and tolerant Europeans display incredibly racist attitudes toward them.
There were recent incidents in Italy of Romany settlements being burned. I have an Italian
friend (a very liberal guy) who also displays these attitudes toward them. It is far worse in
Eastern Europe where there is a larger population of romany.

 

Critters2  (1000+ posts)        Fri Sep-18-09 10:32 PM
7. When I was a kid in Wisconsin, there were "gypsies" who would come around our small 
town once a year or so, and camp out at the local parks and campgrounds. I have no idea
what group they actually were--Roma, Irish Travellers, no idea. Everyone said they were
thieves and would really lock down things when they were around, but I never actually
heard anyone say they'd been victimized by them. I'm still curious as to who they were.

Whoever they were, there was a lot of prejudice against them. 

When I was a kid, gypsy caravans would come through town. The police would meet them at
one side of town, and escort them through. They were never allowed to stop.

[mamacags]

Touchdown  (1000+ posts)      Fri Sep-18-09 10:31 PM
3. Long History of Roma hatred in Central Europe.
Gypsies were the 3rd most persecuted group in Nazi Germany, and there's still animosity
towards them today. I'm not a European, so I don't really know why.... but then, hatred
never needs a reason, does it?

I think Roma is the term used for them, but I could be wrong. Gypsies originate in Romania,
south-east of the Czech Republic. The Carpathian Mountains share the border between
Slovakia and Romania.

Wrong, Gypsies actually originated in India.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) states that a gypsy is a

"member of a wandering race (by themselves called Romany), of Hindu origin, which first appeared in England about the beginning of the 16th c. and was then believed to have come from Egypt".

The name Gypsy comes from the name Egypt.

The Romani (also Romany, Romanies, Romanis, Roma or Roms; exonym: Gypsies; Romani: Rromane) are an ethnic group of Europe tracing their origins to medieval India.


I only know this stuff because of my incredibly love for the movie Snatch and the "pikeys" in the movie.

[Tantal]

Well, you've got you garden variety Romanian gypsies that blatantly steal anything not nailed down. Mrs. Tantal  took care of some of these when one of their women was having a baby. Each room has a computer in it. She goes to chart the most recent vitals only to find that one of the relatives had unlawfully liberated the keyboard.


Then, you've got your Irish Travelers......another bunch of thieving bastards. They're famous for roofing and driveway repair scams.Not content to merely swipe your shit while you're not looking, they take great personal satisfaction in swindling you out of it.

[Chris]

What kind of broke-ass loser do you have to be to steal a computer keyboard?  They cost five dollars new.

[Vagabond]

What kind of broke-ass loser do you have to be to steal a computer keyboard?  They cost five dollars new.

With some people, it's just a matter of principle.  It's also interesting that the Gypsies are a matriarchal culture, if you can call them a culture at all.  They profess Christianity when in areas with Christians and Islam in areas with Muslims, and no, they don't have much respect for anyone else'e property.  They also, within the last decade or so, began propagating the blatant lie that they were the last vestiges of the old Roman empire, which is when they started calling theselves Romany.

[GOBUCKS]

Then, you've got your Irish Travelers......another bunch of thieving bastards. They're famous for roofing and driveway repair scams.Not content to merely swipe your shit while you're not looking, they take great personal satisfaction in swindling you out of it.

There's a town in South Carolina, Murphy Village, near Augusta, Georgia, built by dozens of
Irish Traveler families. The town is spooky, all McMansions, and from spring through fall only women
and children are there. Every one of the men is gone, fanned out all over the country running
roofing, driveway, and home improvement scams. The men are at home all winter, and most of them
claim to have the same name, to make them harder to identify. They all drive luxury cars, the
homes are beautiful, and every dime has been made from theft and fraud.

[The Village Idiot]

So, they're rolling ACORN members?

[mamacags]

They also marry their girls off really young.  They have "beauty shows" where girls as young as 1 are marched around in full makeup, pagent dresses, and heels, so they can be "promised" to men or boys in the tribe.

In England they will see a field somewhere and just take it over with their R.V.s.  It doesn't matter who owns it.  For some reason the owners then have an almost impossible task of getting them to leave.  Some areas have gone as far as erecting fences around open areas with a manned security force.  That just sucks.

[JohnnyReb]

There's a town in South Carolina, Murphy Village, near Augusta, Georgia, built by dozens of
Irish Traveler families. The town is spooky, all McMansions, and from spring through fall only women
and children are there. Every one of the men is gone, fanned out all over the country running
roofing, driveway, and home improvement scams. The men are at home all winter, and most of them
claim to have the same name, to make them harder to identify. They all drive luxury cars, the
homes are beautiful, and every dime has been made from theft and fraud.

....and rumor has it that "one" prince breeds all the women.

With my luck, if I were a gypsy, the best I could hope for was to get to hold his horse while he did his "thang".

[Karin]

Jesus, the OP's girlfriend has reason to be prejudiced!  I've never met one personally.  Interesting that Gloria Swanson has them in her lineage.