The good news is that we have a wonderful new barrier-smashing president.
The bad news is that, despite our nation’s incandescently pride-inducing step forward it appears that one can still find dank little pockets of discrimination where and when one least expects it.
(And this time I’m talking about something other than the very disheartening Proposition 8.)
To wit: Saturday night, as I was finally taking a quiet night off, I happened to check in with our local So Cal news wire, The City News Service.
In addition to the latest news about the Prop. 8 demonstrations (Go 10,000 LA protesters!), I saw a story with this headline:
GYPSY CRIMES.
Geeze, I thought. That sounds sort of prejudicial.
Now please understand, CNS is an extremely respectable organization. . So, assuming I was mistaken about the tilt of the headline, I read rest of the story.
Unfortunately, things did not get better. It opened like this:
Police in West Covina suspect Gypsies may be behind a recent rash of burglaries in the area, using tactics authorities say have been used in the San Gabriel Valley since 1965, it was reported today.
Police allege that Eric Bimbo, 20 and Amy Adams, 20, took at least $20,000 worth of property from five West Covina homes within the past two weeks, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported.
“The way they do what they do follows the same (way) Gypsies have always done it,” West Covina police Sgt. Rudy Lopez told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.
[SNIP]
Gypsy tactics, police said, include lottery scams, insurance frauds, psychic reading and burglary rings. These techniques are a part of a nationwide and even worldwide culture that the gypsies have used to take advantage of non-gypsies, said Jon Grow, executive director of the National Association of Bunco investigators.
Grow said Gypsies often [are found] taking 20 times more than the average burglar.
I see. So “Gypsies” are not only thieves. They’re Super Thieves.
The article also goes on to tell us that, “….Gypsy children typically do not go to school, get married at a young age and their life is one that involves continually taking advantage of others.”
How nice.
Now imagine if you will, the word “Gypsy” replaced with, say…., African American or Hispanic or Jewish, Irish , or…fill in the blank.
Then imagine the lawsuits.
But I guess with Gypsies it’s okay to make gross and defaming generalizations.
Wondering what in the world the City News Service was thinking, I called them and got their on duty editor, a very nice person named Harold, who after reading the story, agreed it was “Neanderthal.” It was not written on his watch, he said.
Harold also explained that it was not CNS’s story, that they picked it up from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, and so I might want to call those guys instead.
I said I would do exactly that. Before I rang off. I suggested, as nicely as I could that, in the meantime, CNS might want to take the scurrilous story down from their own website.
Harold said he would check into it.
(NOTE: CNS requires a subscription so I cannot link to their site for you.)
Over at the San Gabriel paper, I indeed found the original story, which was written by a staff writer named Jennifer McLain, and included some additional fun quotes like:
It’s a subculture of people, and of course you can’t say all Gypsies are bad,” said Jon Grow….
Big of you Mr. Grow.
Two years ago, the LA Times Hector Becerra wrote an interesting article about the profiling of Gypsies among certain elements in law enforcement. Becerra’s story included the following observations:
”If it were Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Chinese-Americans, there would be immediate backlash at all levels,” said Ian Hancock, a University of Texas linguistics professor and ethnic Roma. ”There’s nothing about crimes committed by Romani-Americans that make them different from crimes committed by anybody else.”
Hancock and others said the officers’ attitudes are especially egregious because of the long history of persecution of Gypsies, a highly insular people who migrated from India and eventually became the largest minority in Europe. An estimated half-million of them were killed during the Holocaust.
I had just those thoughts in mind when I called the SGV Trib, and got Night Editor, Kate Kealey.
“I had nothing to do with the editorial decision on this story,” said a tired sounding Ms. Kealey in response to my questions. “You’ll need to call our metro editor, Frank Girardot, on Monday.”
Yep. That’s what I intend to do.
I believe my USC and UCI journalism students would know better than to write this stuff. So why don’t the pros know?
More on Monday.
So “Gypsies†are not only thieves.
That’s right. Don’t forget “Carnies.”
Everything this CNS story quotes people from civilians to law enforcement officials saying about gypsies has been said and is the case all over Europe, from Eastern Europe to Italy — even India, although they’re originally a tribe of Indian “untouchables” with a talent for music who migrated around the world. This is especially ironic in India since they were initially driven from the country by both the prejudice against this lowest caste, and their (perhaps subsequently related) turning to a life of crime while doubling as brilliant minstrels and musicians. That’s a combo which persists in rural Eastern Europe to this day: no special occasion is complete without gypsy musicians who ARE a part of the national soul and fiber, at the same time that their culture is also a vexing problem. In Spain, this fusion created flamenco — but there are also still the same negative consequences that accrue from their migratory, “unconventional” culture.
Their huge rate of unemployment by choice in favor of teaching young kids the “thieving profession” at an early age instead of going to school, migratory ways in caravans, crime exploding exponentially wherever they settle, are verified complaints all over the world. Numerous books, documentaries and first-hand accounts by gypsies themselves confirm all this. However, their representatives are good at turning their case into a “prejudice” issue at the EU against countries which try to take action against them — knowing that people like you always blindly retort that it’s a prejudicial singling out of any one group. As you do here.
It is not like substituting random ethnic groups like “Jews” and your making that analogy is offensive. However, you could substitute “illegal alien gang members” for some of these accusations and come up with a valid analogy, when it comes to criminal activity for example, maybe even the tendency to initiate kids in gangs vs. urging and modeling success in school and honest work. (Though arguably, the Latino work and family ethic makes these gangmembers exceptions to their culture, not typical manifestations of it.)
Dealing with crime and juvenile delinquency/ school truancy in a realistic way requires realistic assessment of situations, and your bleeding-heart yelps of “prejudice!” are the kinds of things that have prevented much-needed interventions when it comes to the kids caught in this culture, as well as communities who have to pay for all the consequences. Your attacking those who simply state the facts as a necessary precursor to dealing with the problem is typical of the PC types that have been manipulated in Europe as well to stymie efforts to deal with the problem. It’s this same attitude which has allowed illegal gangs like MS13 and Florencia to mushroom into the extremely violent manifestations they are today, becoming exponentially more so in just the last 5 years.
To soften this criticism, I’ll add the following proviso: there are indeed cases where justified criticism based on facts (over centuries and across countries and continents) DO cross into nasty, blatant prejudice. Like when “the gypsy” is blamed for anything that goes wrong, especially in peasant village where all “outsiders” are suspect.
I’ll grant you that this article should have had more nuance, so that it can’t just be seized upon by those with a proclivity toward random prejudice as “proof.” It would have been nice to see profiles of gypsies who have bucked this stereotype, are trying to make a positive change among youth, etc. It’s always best to offer “hopeful change” and to offer readers an option to just circling their wagons.
In many countries the Serbs, Croats, Slavonians and Slovenians, Bulgarians and Turks and Romanians and Russians and so on, are quick to blame another ethnic group even unjustly, and Gypsies become the “worse,” commonly derided ethnic group, in that sense like Jews used to be, and we know they were rounded up into concentration camps along with gays.
There is definitely a reason for making them a special “protected group” at the EU and elsewhere, based on European and world history. BUT denouncing those who are trying to realistically deal with crime and their failure to socialize/ educate their kids oftentimes, only perpetuates this cycle. Just because there does exist genuine, nasty prejudice based on broad ethnic distrust, does not mean that we must ignore very real situations.
WBC, although it may not be entirely clear, my criticism was aimed less at law enforcement (although those quotes were off the wall), than it was of the journalism involved here, which was completely irresponsible.
One can point to the crime and the probable perpetrators, without tarring and feathering an entire ethnic group.
We would say Italian mafia or Mexican mafia. Or African American gangs. We wouldn’t say Italian crime. Mexican crime or black crime. (At least I hope to God not, in this day and age.)
There’s no excuse for the tenor of this reporting.
Except that “gypsy” is not a national ethnic group per se like Italian, Mexican, or one that encompasses a continent (African-American, Latino) nor a religious group like Jews: the word “gypsy” itself connotes a lifestyle. Roma people are not all gypsies — to call all Romas gypsies would be more the analogy you’re looking for here. (This all does get very murky.)
As myth, legend and reality blend into the fabric of our urban society, I am more convinced now that Gypsies, are behind our city being overrun with Vampires, Werewolves and petty crime.
That’s pretty over the top Pokey. Although it isnt necessarily a well known fact that Gypsies do steal babies on a rather large scale.
“I suspect that social forces now at work will one day result in gypsy becoming to Romani what mafia is to Sicilians” Source: fraudtech.org
That is the single most stupid thing I have ever heard! At no time have Sicilians/Italians ever been commonly referred to, as MAFIANS! There is no MAFIAN food, no MAFIAN music, no MAFIAN ices, no trips to MAFIA, no leaning tower of MAFIA, and there is no MAFIA Nation. I have never heard of proud to be a MAFIAN or Kiss me, I’m MAFIAN!
What “Social Forces” that are underway? This must mean, the National Socialist Movement forces, like that’s gonna happen!
What new classification and labeling system? That kind of system, would violate Human and Civil Rights. The last person who tried, and catastrophically failed in doing that, was Adolf Hitler, when he classified the disenfranchised as “Asocials”.
A system that lumps, labels and classifies all people who fall into a degenerate or criminal category – is ridiculous! Law enforcement wants to re-classify all the homeless, welfare moms, dumb dorks, aberrant, indigent, color blind, mentally ill, Gypsies/gypsies, addicts, hookers, schemers, people who shop at midnight, petty criminals, shady ladies, people without a fixed address, silly folks, people with a fringe life style, and anyone else who, in their elitist opinion, are social outcasts, as Gypsies/gypsies!
Who is next? Anyone who lives in a mobile home, drives a dilapidated vehicle, or has more than one Tattoo?
Such dehumanizing pariah labeling will result in, genetic Roma, Sinti and Travellers being falsely accused, hunted, and prosecuted for crimes, they did not commit.
Police Science is highly detail oriented, as is the criminal justice system. What law enforcement is proposing, would be a legal and civil nightmare! Being a Gypsy/gypsy, is not admissible, as a show of guilt, in any court of law. Classifying, and labeling just anybody as a Gypsy/gypsy, regardless of genetics, will lead to mistaken identities, false prosecution and false imprisonment, of Roma, Sinti and Travellers.
Assigning the Gypsy/gypsy label to an aberrant or criminal life style, is as distasteful and vulgar as assigning obscene slur labels like Nword/nword or Wtrash/wthrash to a life style!
Moreover, within 60 years we will have millions of Gypsies/gypsies, who will then be falsely classified as Gypsy/gypsy, Roma, Sinti and Travellers, without being genetically related!
And in the end, it will be the genetic Roma, Sinti and Traveller Nations, that will ultimately suffer!
The Gypsy name has been affixed and stuck to the Roma, Sinti and Travellers, for over 800 years! As long as the Roma, Sinti and Traveller community is still commonly referred by Gyps/gypsy, pariah stereotyping and dehumanizing labeling will have a devastating effect!
Ridiculous! Who the hell died, and left news organizations and law enforcement agencies, with such a God complex, that they think they can classify, name and slap dehumanizing labels, on entire segments of our society, and nations of people?
This is exactly how Hitler turned Germany on the jews. An entire race of people “gypsies” are “criminals”. Everyone decent human being should be offended by this – I know I am!
This makes interesting reading. I’m a Gypsy. My mother was half French, and raised in a Caravan till she was 8, in England.
Europe isn’t a great place to be a Gypsy. “A Dirty Gypsy”.
Int he 60’s and 70’s in England, and most other European countries, Gypsy children were removed from their parents, unless they agreed to give up the life, and move into government housing.
You all read the news, now there’s the big right wing backlash in Italy, Gypsys being killed. Europe still has a dark heart.
The Gypsys don’t have a home state to flee to and find shelter.
No compensation for the Nazi atrocities.
It’s believed we were originally a warrior class who were sent west from India to try and hold back the early Muslims, and who just sorta kept going. Some Rom words that allude to strangers are identical to ‘prisoner of war’ in other Eastern languages.
My father was a prisoner of war in Germany, they couldn’t kill him, as he was a British POW, but he was treated worse than most, he very much looked like a Romany man.
It damaged him for the rest of his life.
We came to Australia, which has been kind to us.
I’m a fortune teller, which is no big deal here.
I’ve inherited the Romany outlook though, wariness of authority.
An underlying feeling that things can always get very bad indeed, if you don’t watch out. My siblings have all had very ‘straight, ordinary lives’, policemen etc.
I think the crime problem occurs in countries that criminalise the Gypsys. If you’re not allowed to park your vans, often find that you won’t be employed, can’t access fresh water for your children, are discriminated against by the police, then where else is there to go?
Thankyou for writing this, in other countries we tend not to see the kinder side of the American soul. Thankyou, Joseph