01. Gypsy is a slur & there is no âpositiveâ or âacceptableâ way of using it if you arenât Romani. It should not be part of your vocabulary â the same goes for the term âgyppedâ. If you want to talk about the slur censor it or simply call it âthe g slur.â
02. Anti Romani racism exists everywhere and there is a slur for the us in every language. Gypsy is the slur used in the English language but there is also Zigan, Tigan, Cigan, Gitano, Zigeuner, etc. - a lot of them stem from the Greek word for âslaveâ and are considered even worse than the Gypsy slur. However all of them are still slurs and shouldnât be used by you if you arenât Romani.
03. Gypsy has never been anything other than a derogatory slur against Romani that has been screamed at us while we have been branded, enslaved, hunted down, murdered, put through a genocide and a holocaust, segregated and discriminated against.Â
04. Romani is the proper name of the people that are being targeted by the G slur. Some people write it as Rromani which is also correct. The term Roma/Rroma can be used too, however not all Romani are Roma.
05. Romani and Romanian do not mean the same thing. Romani are the people that are being targeted by the G slur and we are brown people originally from India. Romanians are people from the European country Romania.
06. The official term for racism directed towards Romani is called âAntiziganismâ, that term however is offensive since it includes the word âZiganâ which is a horrible slur against Romani. Please do not use that term and instead use âAnti-Romani racismâ, âAnti-Romanismâ, etc.
07. Anti-Romani racism is very extreme in Europe (segregation in housing, education and health care, forced sterilizations, evictions and demolition of settlements, police brutality, etc), which is why we even received the title of âEuropeâs Most Hatedâ, but itâs not an exclusively European thing. Anti-Romani racism exists in America and Canada as well. (Canada even has an immigration ban on Romani.)
08. âMy Big Fat Gypsy Weddingâ does not display actual Romani people as far as I have heard so it does not represent Romani people/culture at all.
09. Your believes that Romani âdonât want to workâ, âdonât want to send their children to schoolâ, âsteal childrenâ, âare dirtyâ, âgenetically prone to crimeâ, âare lazyâ, etc. are nothing but racist stereotypes and left over Nazi propaganda. All of them are untrue as well. (Also: Romani would love to work and go to school but the extreme discrimination against us in the field of education makes that very hard. And the widely spread traditional anti-Romani attitudes and prejudices donât make it any easier either.)
10. Stereotypes such as that all Romani women are âsexual temptressesâ and promiscuous disregarding of age are obviously incorrect too. Virginity is actually considered important in Romani culture. Believing in those stereotypes is very harmful and dangerous as well because despite Romani being only a minority in most European countries we make up the highest % when it comes to sex trafficking victims.
11. Romani culture doesnât have anything to do with witchcraft, wicca, paganism, etc. We didnât create tarot, palm reading or crystal balls either. You can stop calling yourself a âGypsy Witchâ and faking Romani heritage now. The only reason why assumptions like that came to exist is because of racist believes and lies spread by the church. Our skills with medical herbs and palm reading were seen as âevidence of heresyâ and from the 16th century onward we were outlawed, expelled and persecuted, culminating in the organized killing of our people.Â
12. Fortune teller costumes are racist. Romani women have always been stereotyped as fortune tellers which is why the stereotypical image of a fortune teller is always linked with Romani women - dark skin, messy black hair, a big nose, a âweirdâ accent, a headscarf, big hoop earrings, gold coins added to clothes and an âuntrustworthy/deceivingâ nature, etc. (A lot of people even use the term âfortune tellerâ like a synonym for the G slur nowadays.) A personâs race/ethnicity is not a costume, so if you ever consider dressing up as a fortune teller chose something different.Â
If you are Romani too please feel free to add things onto this list and please correct me if I made any mistakes.
