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!

helloimlulu:

So, today I opened my YouTube and noticed I had new comments. They were from one person and said: 

“Cigan, Ciganka, Cigos, Gypsy. Whatever you call yourself your people and your culture is filth. There is NOTHING to be proud of in your bullshit blood. Go back to pakistan where you orginate from and take your tribe with you, noone in Europe wants you, and noone in Europe likes you!”

“We do not care if you are half, or can pass as European (white). You are tainted and forever deserve to rot with the rest of them. Europe doesnt want you, North America doesnt want you. Noone wants you.”

This was so hard for me to read, but I want gadje to read it and understand. This is what you gadje are contributing to when you dress up like a “gypsy” for halloween. This is what you reinforce with your ignorance. How are you, in your cluelessness, any different from this person? At least they are open and honest in their hatred.

(Source: lulushka)

Hello, my followers!

As I’ve said before, I’m fairly busy at the moment. I started this blog when I had some free time, and for the next couple of weeks or so it’s looking like I don’t have so much free time as when I started.

I will be saving things as drafts and putting them in my queue for publication until I can dedicate a bit more time to writing more comprehensive posts, as I have in the past.

Much love to all of you, especially my Rroma, Pavee, etc followers!

-STFU Gadje

golden-zephyr:

So, I sat through the NBC Law and Order: SVU episode that I wrote about yesterday. There are immediately some very large problems, but they’re the same problems that most shows exhibit when trying to portray Rroma people.

The title itself “Lost Traveler” isn’t too problematic, but from that moment on, stereotypes abound.

The mother is a fortune teller who has a crystal ball on the dining room table.

One of the police officers says things like “we know you’re thieves” and “you’re not even gonna lie to us?” without any challenge from the other detectives or characters.

The Rom Baro (not as I read in the review, Rom Bro!) is a mean hard ass mafia-style mansion-living white guy. 

The Rroma pay tithes to him for “protection” and if they don’t, they’re punished.

The jerk detective says (towards the end) “next time someone tells you how these people are, believe them”.

Perhaps these seem small transgressions to you? I don’t really know. Perhaps you think I’m over-reacting, after all it was the white girls who killed the gypsy boy. That’s something that happens in real life all the time.

I do commend NBC for attempting to show the realities of the discrimination Rroma face—but I’m not sure they did a great job showing the truth of the situation without resorting to stereotypes (such as a fortune-telling mother, or ‘Rom-Baro’ who is mafia-esque). 

I don’t claim to know American Rom culture—but these people were supposedly “Hungarian Rroma”. I am, at least in part, Hungarian Rroma. I have never heard the term “Rom Baro” and wikipedia has four lines to say on the matter, all sourced from rather dubious places. 

Growing up we had a Baro or a Baro Rom (big man). To call him  a Rom Baro would be a “man big”, which just seems wrong. Of course, I can’t say for certain—maybe there’s a reason for it, but I’ve never heard it before until this show. Even Ronald Lee’s dictionary of Kalderas (American) - English does not list a Rom Baro (instead lists either Baro alone (ie: Toma si o Baro ando Chikago - Tom is the honcho in Chicago), or Baro Shato (big shot, super honcho). But, these semantics aren’t really the issue I have with these types of show.

Even when they attempt to do us a “favour” by attempting to portray our culture in a good light, it’s riddled with stereotypes and discrimination.

The fact that the Rroma were called thieves, liars, and beggars without any kind of recourse. When they went to the bike shop and told the guy “we KNOW it’s stolen” why? because he’s a ‘gypsy’.

When they went to the woods and the ‘gypsy’ camp was there with rather pathetic and ineffectual people draped over various… seats (? I guess) … with stereotypical accordion music playing (that did not sound Rroma to me). 

I also disliked the idea of ‘Italian Mafia’ style Brooklyn Rroma. The Rom-Baro requiring tithes in order to provide protection. His large mansion filled with non-Rroma things. His mafia-esque voice and intonation. His lack of Romani language in dealing with his own people—who allegedly could speak Rroma. He never once used a word. How hard would it be for the actor to learn a phrase such as “daštilas pe ka vou te phenel xoxajmata”? (maybe he was telling lies)…

It just seems as though the researchers for the show failed to do any proper research—instead relying on the wikipedia version of Rroma life, peppered with stereotypical nuances and statements.

[I tried to send a letter to NBC—strangely enough I get a server error. REALLY? COINCIDENCE? Bah!]

I remember years ago, watching an episode of the TV show House that featured a Rroma boy whose family purposefully obscured relevant medical information, etc, because they were “gypsies” who didn’t trust an outsider doctor. I remember being so confused - I was a teenager, and pretty impressionable, and on the one hand ANY representation of other Rroma people was something of a revelation for me, but on the other hand, it was… just really, really badly researched and offensive. (I have a love/hate relationship with the character Esmerelda for similar reasons.)

I’ve noticed a few people reading/reblogging/etc my posts here because they’re interested in writing about Rroma people and characters in their own fiction (?) works… and I have nothing against gadje who want to write about Rroma people, but I urge them to read this, and really put thought and compassion and effort into their understandings and writings on Rroma and other Walking People. We don’t need another Esmerelda, we don’t need portrayals like the ones on House and SVU. Why not learn about and support the creative efforts of real Rroma and other Walking People who are artists, musicians, and writers? There are so many of us out here, speaking our own truths about our lives and communities and cultures and histories! There’s really no excuse for relying on ignorant stereotypes about us in writing.