Whoopi Goldberg suspended for racist comments
auntblabby
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Honestly I wouldn't know if I met a gypsy unless they looked like this and were holding a crystal ball
auntblabby
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Honestly I wouldn't know if I met a gypsy unless they looked like this and were holding a crystal ball
my folks told me who the gypsies were. one Romany family at least made a regular circuit around our town, selling hand-hewn yard furniture in the back of the flatbed truck.
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99.9% of black people wouldn't know if they ever met a Jewish person or Gypsy.
I used to get called "Gippo" all the time, or "Where's your caravan?" by black kids, I had long hair and a beard at the time but I wouldn't have thought ex-army clothes would trigger the association. I was very briefly in a relationship with one so maybe that had some effect on my aura.
The View's official Twitter account posted an apology video from Goldberg shortly after the episode aired.
"You know, when you're a certain age, you use words that you know from when you're a kid or you remember saying, and that's what I did today and I shouldn't have," the 67-year-old actress explained. "I should have thought about it a little longer before I said it, but I didn't, and I should have said 'cheated' and I used another word. And I'm really, really sorry"
Multiple Twitter users commented how they were unaware that "gypped" was an offensive word. But here's why the term should be retired.
"Gypsy" is a word that's been used to describe the Romani people. Merriam-Webster defines being "gypped" as being cheated, defrauded or swindled, and notes, regarding its etymology, that it is "probably short for gypsy." For years, some have casually used the word to describe when they've received less than they paid for, or if they've gotten something stolen. Obviously, "gypped" doesn't have the best connotation.
"I encounter a lot of people who tell me that they never knew the word 'gypped' had anything to do with gypsies, or that it's offensive — especially when the word is heard not read," University of Texas at Austin professor Ian Hancock, who was born in Britain to Romani parents, explained to NPR in 2013. "My response to them is, 'That's okay. You didn't know but now you do. So stop using it. It may mean nothing to you, but when we hear it, it still hurts.'"
I am another one that never connected "gypped" with gypsies. I have not heard "gypped" in a really long time though it was common when I and Whoppi grew up.
Grew up in the same era as you and Whoopie. I also havnt heard "gypped" in a long time. But for a long time I knew it derived from "Gypsy", but thats probably because ...someone (Mom, and Dad, or some grown up expert on TV) explained it to me sometime when I was a like 12.
Whoopie saying "gypped" is like you or I describing a product or a person being "sleazy". In the early 1800s when the Industrial Revolution began to spread beyond Britain, Britain had the reputation for making the quality stuff, and other places (like the US at one point) had the reputation for making shoddy knock-offs. Another place with that rep was the German state of Silesia (now in Poland). Stuff made in Silesia was "Si-leazy". So if you call someone "sleazy" are you making an anti-German ethnic slur? No because the geographic derivation of the expression is a forgotten fossil embedded the word. Gyp is like that. On the other hand...dont ever use the expression "Jew me down" (to bid down a price too low) on TV. Thats a more obvious ethnic slur.
So I agree that Whoopie is getting excessive punishment.
Back in the days of old in Europe Gypsies who go around village to village offering their service as tinkers fixing your pots and pans. And today in our part of the US you still get dark haired folks going around with tools in pickup trucks
crusing through your neighborhood offering "to straighten out that dent I see in your fender, and give it some prime". We all assume that they are Rom, or Gypsy.
I deejayed once for a wedding reception of folks who ...turned out to be...Gypsies. It was quite an...experience! Like being an anthropologist living among a strange tribe in the jungles of New Guinea. Quite a uniqe subculture they have here in America. Had deejayed for Whites, Blacks, yuppies and rednecks. And none of those crowds were anything like this bunch. Its a long story. It caused to be wary of dealing with them (yeah...theyre the one ethnic group I am a bit prejudiced against- but only in business deals). But also got me quite fascinated by them. Have bought books about gypsies, and have collected CDs of their music since.
Just watched the popular US morning radio show "The breakfast club" and host Charlemagne (in reference to Whoopie Goldberg) said that while southern black people use the term "Gypped" to mean cheat the term was simply adopted during slave era and entered their vernacular,
He literally repeated the exact words I used - every single black person who uses the term has no idea it refers to gypsies. Charla goes on to say "I have never met a gypsy in my whole life and I wouldn't know how to identify them if I met them".
According to the online dictionary - verb cheat or swindle (someone). (no reference to Gypsies)
Whoopie being crucified for nothing
ASPartOfMe
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He literally repeated the exact words I used - every single black person who uses the term has no idea it refers to gypsies. Charla goes on to say "I have never met a gypsy in my whole life and I wouldn't know how to identify them if I met them".
According to the online dictionary - verb cheat or swindle (someone). (no reference to Gypsies)
Whoopie being crucified for nothing
If you lived in or near urban areas you have probably seen a few gypsies.
Whoppi is in good company
Michelle Obama criticised for allegedly using racial slur
Before these songs are canceled
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In that case case Bruce Springsteen and Fleetwood mac may be cancelled as they use Gypsy in songs in a pejorative manner
There are probably several hundred Hollywood movies that use genies and belly dancers and gypsies. Should they all be shutdown??
I honestly think Whoopie (like every other black person) was not thinking Gypsy when they use the term.
ASPartOfMe
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There are probably several hundred Hollywood movies that use genies and belly dancers and gypsies. Should they all be shutdown??
I honestly think Whoopie (like every other black person) was not thinking Gypsy when they use the term.
How are Bruce Springsteen and Fleetwood Mac using “gypsy” in a pejorative manor?
Why do you think only black people are not thinking of the the origin of “gypped” when use the term?
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There are probably several hundred Hollywood movies that use genies and belly dancers and gypsies. Should they all be shutdown??
I honestly think Whoopie (like every other black person) was not thinking Gypsy when they use the term.
How are Bruce Springsteen and Fleetwood Mac using “gypsy” in a pejorative manor?
Why do you think only black people are not thinking of the the origin of “gypped” when use the term?
I think that Cyber is overstating his case, and doesnt know when to quit when he is ahead. Overstating it to the point that he is making himself look like an ignoramus who doesnt even know that Gypsies are real, and not mythical.
I agree with Cyber that Whoopie is blameless. And blameless because she probably cant even spell the word "Jip". Thats how I assumed it was spelled when I was a child. But then I saw it in print one day, and I after I had heard other kids in high school use the term "Jew me down" I deduced that "gyp" must be "like that " and must be derived from "Gypsy" because of the common weird spelling, and because Gypsies are viewed with distrust by non Gypsies. But most folks dont break words down the way I did, and still do, that way.
Blacks in the south heard southern Whites use the expression, and the Whites inherited the expression from their British Isles ancestors -who had had distrustful dealings with Gypsies centuries before in Elizabethan times. Unlettered living Blacks and Whites alike in the south probably are rarely aware of the origin of the term.
ASPartOfMe
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Offtopic a bit, usage of gypped had mostly gone away naturally without any “help” from language police or people not wanting to be racist. That process probably would have continued as older people died off.
I did not hear “Jew me down” or “Jewish Lightning” (burning a place down to collect insurance) until the last 20 years or so. But those terms I see only occasionally now. I had to google “Jewish Lightning” when I first read it online and that was maybe five years ago. Back then it was “k*e”, “cheap Jew”, “Jew bastard” and not occasionally. “k*e” had largely gone away but the White Nationalists have resurrected it.
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off topic but here's a line from Sprinsteen's "Brilliant disguise"
We stood at the altar
The gypsy swore our future was right
But come the wee wee hours
Well maybe baby the gypsy lied
It draws on millennia old belief that gypsies lie and cheat
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