STFU, Gadje!

peace-nazi liked your post:

*sideye*

You, with the Nazi url - you realize I am Rromani, yes?

Why do you think this is appropriate?

When I heard that a big-budget Hollywood movie was going to be made of the musical Les Miserables, starring Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman and a bunch of other very attractive people, I was apprehensive.

I couldn’t say exactly why I was apprehensive. I just was. I have a few friends who are dedicated history buffs who were excited for the movie, and I watched their excitement grow with a detached sort of unease. I think this sense of unease is probably very common - it is the unease that the marginalized feel when romanticized versions of history become popular. Les Miserables takes place in France, in 1815, at a turning point in French history. It is written by Victor Hugo, whose portrayals of Rromani people in Europe and specifically in France were problematic to say the very least.

The cast of the blockbuster Les Miserables movie is quite, well, white. I don’t know the whole ethnic backgrounds of every actor, but I don’t know if it really matters - what escalated my vague sense of unease about the musicals newfound popularity was the casting of the character of Javert, and specifically, the dialogue around it in fan circles.

Take a look at this. A fan expresses the (frankly racist) opinion that a Black actor should not have been cast as the character of Javert. Others point out, correctly, that people of colour existed in Europe in the 1800’s and that the practice of “colourblind casting” (horrible term, good casting practice) has been ultimately beneficial in bringing new, thoughtful, skilled and dynamic artistic takes on old characters.

Then… the subject of whether or not Javert is a “gypsy” comes up.

For the record, the fluent French speakers I have spoken to seem to agree that the idea that Javert is Rromani is incorrect and based on a flawed translation. Javert comes from a “bohemian” family, presumably petty criminals; as an adult, he has grown to hate criminals and political dissidents alike. In the first English translation, “bohemian” was translated to “gypsy”, and Javert was referred to as hating criminality because he hated his own “nomadic race”. It’s a trope that I find particularly troubling; the “gypsy” who is villainous because they hate themselves for being a “gypsy” - that for translators, a hatred of criminality would be read as a hatred of his own race is especially offensive, the implication being that criminality is inherent in his race (“gypsy”), and his conflict with criminals stems from a conflict with himself and his natural inclination to turn towards a life of crime.

But this interpretation of Javert is one that many fans have latched on to. They call it “headcanon” or “fanon” - an interpretation that they hold to be as true as canon, but mostly a matter of personal preference. “Javert is a gypsy!” It goes unremarked-on that this interpretation is rooted in an understanding of Javert that implies some very unpleasant things about what it means to be Rromani. It also goes unremarked-on that it is far less common - in fact, I’ve seen approximately zero cases of this, and I’ve spent the last few days looking into it - for peoples’ “fanon” interpretations of any of the more clear-cut protagonists to be Rromani. Nobody says that Marius or Cosette, the romantic leads, might be part Rromani; nobody suggests that the revolutionary furor of one of the characters leading the June Rebellion might be due to a desire to see some improvement in the lives of their oppressed community.

I am troubled by this because it’s one of those things that well-meaning gadje often fall into - thinking that by championing the idea of Javert-as-Rromani they are championing the representation of us in fiction, when in fact all they are championing is a gadje’s (racist) idea of who we are and what defines us as a people. Meanwhile, in order to be viewed with any kind of true complexity, any dimension beyond the most simplistic (“he hates revolutionaries because he’s a self-hating gypsy”), a character must be read as white. Characters who are not read as such are denied a full understanding of their humanity, their motivations boiled down to an outsider’s impression of their race.

It is good to push for more historically accurate representations of Europe - representations that include Rromani, Sinte, Romanichal, Pavee, and Traveller peoples! But it is also necessary to challenge our understandings of why these representations have been lacking, and where existing representations are coming from. If they do not come from us, who do they benefit? What purpose do they serve?

Please just don’t do this.

We are compared to animals enough. We are dehumanized enough. It is enough.

Your dogs and cats are adorable, and I have nothing against them. They have no say in what you name them. 

I sometimes want to plead with you to refrain from this out of courtesy to your pets. “They’re so innocent! Don’t burden them with a name like that just because you’re ignorant about what it means!”

But then I get angry, because the fact that that is the argument my mind falls to indicates that, on a very real level, I expect you to have more sympathy for your pets than you do for other human beings.

So please, just don’t call  your pets “gypsy”. Not because it would be unfair to your pet, but because it is unfair to many, many people, who have faced intense persecution because we are “gypsies”. Actual, born, human Gypsies.

Do not name your pets “gypsy”.

Thank you.

youngwildandpri asked: Have you seen the travesty known as "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding"

I have deliberately avoided seeing it. I have, however, read a lot about it - I track the “gypsy” tag here on tumblr, which is probably not the best thing I could do for my own peace of mind - and it seems incredibly racist.

There are many, many people who have soundly critiqued the show, and done a better job than I could do of this. I think the fact that it has had multiple seasons and some degree of commercial success is what disturbs me the most about it - I expect the show’s content to be racist, upsetting, potentially even violent, and just generally horrible, but the fact that it has found an audience of people who revel in these racist stereotypes is deeply upsetting.

sparkleyparty asked: Just curious here, but, Rroma and Rromani are the correct spelling of the words, right? I've seen it spelled as 'Roma' and 'Romani' before, and I was just wondering if it was differences in languages (like american english and uk english, for instance) or if Roma is just incorrect.

It depends! Often it is regional and based on dialect. I use Rroma as an alternative to typing out the specific accent used by my fathers’ family. 

Many Rroma communities have different dialects and refer to themselves in different ways. “Rroma” is also a very general term; some groups prefer to be called “Rromani”, some prefer to be called by more specific names, etc.

I have used “Walking People” and “REAL Travellers” and “Rroma/Rromani”, etc, as terms, but also tried to specify more specific groups as well. For gadje, if you are referring to or talking to a specific person, group, or community, I HIGHLY recommend respectfully asking what that person/community refers to be called! “Rroma” is a very general term and may not always be appropriate.

Thank you for your question!

-STFU Gadje

It took me weeks to write my most recent post.

I find myself wishing people would ask me things. I would love if you used this tumblr feature! To ask me things specifically about being mixed race/Gypsy/Rroma, to talk to me if you are Rroma/Romani/a REAL Traveller of any kind and have an issue with anything I have said, if you are gadje and have a question you want to pose to me and-slash-or my readers…

I would appreciate if you would send those things to me! I will try to respond in a timely and respectful manner. Thank you!

-STFU Gadje

P.S. I don’t always get e-mail notifications - looking in my tumblr inbox I realize many of you have contacted me already! I am sorry for the delay in getting back to you, my friends - so, so sorry. I will be posting answers and answering privately over the next week or so.

Love, STFU Gadje.

Gadje, I want us to talk.

Read More

I’m hesitant to say that I am back from hiatus.

I want to talk about why I felt it necessary to have a hiatus - the emotional toll of writing about cultural appropriation, racism, and anti-ziganism, even for a short time, from my own perspective which I am still negotiating… the overwhelming nature of the emotions such writing stirs in me… the pride and shame and fear I have about my heritage and the pressure of “living up to” standards set by gadje and the impotent frustration of knowing that most of the gadje who read this blog will never understand.

And we Rroma, we (real) Travellers, we Irish and Scottish Travellers and Pavee and Romanichal and Sinti and Manouche and Spanish Rroma and Russian Rroma and on and on, sometimes I despair that we will ever even understand each other. But that is something for US to negotiate amongst OURSELVES, and when I read back through my old writings I am sometimes angry with myself for opening up about these negotiations as much as I have for gadje to read.

Shortly after I stopped updating this blog, another blog started, created by more Walking People, dedicated to “calling out” racist gadje - Look At This Fucking Gadje. They wrote with humor and strength and I admired the things they wrote. But eventually I saw that they were struggling with many of the same things that caused me to break from this blog myself - the sense that in revealing so much of ourselves to gadje, I was giving them an “out” of some kind. Empathize with the angry Gypsy, share her outrage, and you are not like all those OTHER gadje! The more non-Walking People read my blog, the more readership it gained, the less comfortable I became writing it.

I have much internalized fear of gadje. I have much internalized fear of talking about my life, my heritage, anything to do with my family. I was taught from the moment I was born to never trust outsiders. I kept this blog anonymous for a reason. I have even tried to an extent to somewhat disguise my writing style, even though my “web presence” outside of this blog is nil. 

I was in a bar with some friends a few weeks ago and one of them started talking about Look At This Fucking Gadje, and before I knew it, I’d told him that I had a blog of my own, STFU Gadje. His reaction was to be thrilled and start peppering me with questions. Am I 100% Romani, or am I mixed? What parts of Europe are my family from? Have I ever experienced discrimination for being Rroma? Would I mind telling him about my culture?

I really like this friend and his questions were well-meaning - he genuinely was curious, “I love learning about cultures other than my own!” he said, he was trying to be respectful, he was so enthusiastic and eager to learn, but it made me so uncomfortable. I am not an expert on my own culture, and that brings me a lot of shame. I know only my family, our stories and traditions. I am not an ambassador of the Rroma people. The number of people I have told of my ethnicity, outside of my own family, are in the single digits.

So do I even have the right to write this blog?

What good has it done? When I started writing I got so many messages from other Walking People, more Walking People than I ever knew existed on tumblr, and that made me happy, it made me feel like I was helping people, like I was providing catharsis of a sort. But then I started getting questions from non-Rroma and as much as I appreciated them - appreciated the willingness of some gadje to reach out and educate themselves - it spiked my anxiety levels to an unhealthy degree. What if I left something out of my response? What if I erased a group of other Walking People? What if I was a bad source of information?

One of my secret hopes when I started writing this, one that I did not state, was that writing it would help me overcome some of my own fear and shame about being Rroma. Has it done that? I do not know. Sometimes when I write things for this blog, my hands shake. Is it harder to stop or keep going? I have no idea.

I do not know what the future of this blog will be. I am still thinking, still struggling, much as I do with my own life in general. It is an ongoing project. There are so many factors to consider: how gadje relate to this blog and how I feel about that, my own fears and anxieties, my light-skinned privilege, my nationality as a north american Rroma whose family are European Rroma, how I deal with the inevitable hate that comes my way from daring to speak up. My love for my people and my sadness and isolation from them.

The one thing I can promise you is that this is not the end of STFU, Gadje. I want to keep writing. But I need to think about how I do that.

I thank you for bearing with me - specifically I thank my Rromani, Pavee, Sinti, Irish and Scottish Traveller, etc, etc, cousins. Your support and readership has meant the world to me and your input has enriched me in ways I cannot even put into words.

Much love.

Until (hopefully not too much) later,

STFU, Gadje!