Happy New Year, folks!

As I was born in the godless USSR, Christmas was never much of a thing for me -- all the Russian kids got their presents at New Year, which was (and still is) *the party of the year* pretty much. Everyone in Russia is off a week before and a week after, celebrating & having fun. Now, I've only lived in Russia until I turned 8 or so, but the Communist Festive Spirit is forever with me.

So, happy New Year, everyone (yes, even you, Jon'C, you annoying *******). Let 2014 be the year of personal success, the year of expending energies on THINGS THAT MATTER in order to make a difference, and be all around jolly and awesome.

Every day I walk on the street and see a bum, a gypsy, or someone else in a much worse situation than I am I think of two things:

1) How bloody lucky I am to have an okay-paying job (whatever my feelings towards it) where I can make my own schedule and work from home like I'm on the bloody Jedi Council if I wish to, a place to live, two wonderful kids (regardless of the fact that I'm probably the most terrible father I know IRL), friends who I know would help me if the **** really hits the fan, my parents (even though my dad's in India and my mom's in Russia and I'm in Hungary, I'm incredibly lucky for both of them to be alive and well), my sexy good looks (yah right, but I'm healthy, not disabled in any way, and my life is not a constant struggle like it is for some less fortunate than I), the fact that today's payday, and the fact that I know a man who promised to see another man about a horse today ... and if he keeps his promise, everything's going to be even more awesome than it already is.

2) ... the second thing I think about is that I can lose everything I have at any given moment.

So value what you have and do your best to help those less fortunate! HAPPY 2014! Be healthy, stay awesome, and rock the **** on!

Happy new year to everyone!

For me, 2013 was extremely eventful and pleasant. I managed to attain all of my goals for the year: Finished my modding endeavour to great applause, finally beat through ME1 and ME2 and paid off my debts while still retaining financial stability. Hence, for 2014 I decided to set no goals. Hoo-haw!

And as a special note, today's the 10th anniversary of the original TODOA (4th of the final release). More on that here.

It is a good sentiment, although...



Pls don't

happy new yizzle

for shizzle

Important things that matter like dragging your pathetic grudge into every thread.

Someone ban this loser, already.

And not one banking executive was shot down in the streets.

Better luck next year.

I'm sure he didn't mean it that way. It's a cultural difference thing, I think. There are places where simply being a gypsy does put you in a considerably worse position than if you weren't one. In my country, it's much harder for them to land a job, and all sorts of negative stereotypes abound. Allegations of discrimination are typically disregarded, because it's thought of as common sense to be wary of (Finnish) gypsies due to their perceived fraudulence and dishonesty as a group. At least living here, I'd rather be anything but a gypsy.

In some countries they have it even far worse than they do here, though. I suspect Hungary, where Koobie lives, is one of them.

my new years resolution is to gain weight and start smoking

I feel this is an acceptable resolution based on degree of difficulty alone.

'headsplodes

Ah yes ... 2014 resolution here we go; not much effort required on my part, though, haah.

***

Re: gypsies, yes, what Kroko said.
(thx Kroko)

***

(headcontinuestosplode)

Koobie, when it comes to your life, "not much effort required" goes without saying.

You two are hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFFgbc5Vcbw

Yeah it's kinda unclear, but "gypsy" is also an ethnic slur so it doesn't come off very well

Hmmm I never considered Gypsy an ethnic slur, live and learn.

Not all words mean the same thing in different places. "Coloured" is not a slur in South Africa for example.

Gypsies/travellers get treated pretty badly in the UK but the term gypsy is used as a catch-all to refer to Romani (whom we don't have in very big numbers), Irish traveller and New Age traveller communities. It's a legal term here also, for example the requirements for local councils to set aside land for "traveller and gypsy" encampment. There are plenty of nasty words for travellers and the word gypsy does get corrupted for use as a slur but its use on its own doesn't necessarily equate to one. It's also worth pointing out that many travellers refer to themselves as gypsies. The Traveller Times for example has the sub-line "The only magazine for Gypsies and Travellers".

Actually, it's interesting -- in Hungarian, "gypsy" is an ethnic slur due to the national prejudice towards gypsies (see Kroko's post). In Russia, it's not ... gypsies were traditionally considered entertainers, horse masters, musicians, and nomadic people with a love for freedom ... they usually wore (and still wear) bright clothes, etc., and were / are treated with a degree of respect (not trust perhaps, but respect). But then again, it's a whole different culture (Russia & Hungary), obviously.

EDIT: read Recusant's post, so yeah, agreed the cononnations of certain words mean different things in different cultures / places.

c**** i seems i cant write proper english (or possibly in any other language) today sry

f

I don't know that I would look to South Africa for leadership on racial issues.


It's not just Hungarian national prejudice, though, it's deeply ingrained throughout Europe, Russia included. Compare applying "it's okay, people have a degree of respect for them, even if they aren't trusted" to any other ethnic group and see how fast that kind of apologia stops sounding appropriate, haha

To me the term "racist" means hating somebody because of their race. At the same time, I do not think that all races are the same, and you'd be foolish to think that we are. Every single individual is different, failing to realize that is a problem yes, but statistically, people from similar cultures or ethnic backgrounds do share similar traits. It's not even just a culture thing, some differences are purely biological (ie., my understanding is that black people on average have bigger cocks -- does thinking that make me racist?)

You don't know what you're talking about. By the same token, I wouldn't look to America for leadership on racial issues either. See? I can just put down everything you said by sticking my fingers in my ears too.

The coloured people of South Africa are a different ethnic group. They're mixed race going back a long way and many of them have Afrikaans as their first language. They self identify as coloured, particularly the Cape Coloured group from the south west. They don't fit easily into any traditional "black African" category and were treated differently under apartheid (which has only added to the differences between the groups both then and now).

Racism is all about context, any doofus can see that. American English and the American racial context doesn't own all race relations in all countries. Terms change from one place to the next. If some group choose to use a name (and not in an ironic manner or as a way of reclaiming an insult) then I'll happily use it too in that space and time.

"How to Win Internet Debates for Dummies"

Chapter 1. Call your opponent a racist.

The etymology of "gypsy" can be traced back to a Middle English diminutive for "egyptian". They were regarded as such an unpeople, even during their initial migration from India, that nobody cared where they came from other than being brown and talking funny. It's a pretty strong symbol for how they have been treated by other Europeans for the past thousand years, and the fact that it's become a catch-all for any migratory person or undesirable ethnicity is probably the darkest part about the whole thing.

"n***** isn't a racist word, that's just what they're called here. how dare you call me racist for saying it."

Funny story: recently the Canadian government has been deporting Romani refugees, in support of neo-nazis like Ezra Levant who feel that Canada isn't a "trash can" and therefore shouldn't suffer Romani to live here.

How can the Romani be refugees when they come from good, clean, leftist European socialist entitlement states?? After all, they're treated about as well as our natives, and the Harper Canada treats the natives as well as they deserve, so the Romani have no right to complain.

Heil Harper.

P.S.: Since I generally avoid reading things Koobie has written (much like his novel's target audience, lol) I missed this on first pass, but... um...

Yeah, actually it does make you racist, since the myth itself is a racist stereotype developed from the idea that black men were bestial profligate rapists, and reinforced in the public consensus through sideshows and the sideshow-like caricatures in pornography today (which have in fact resorted to use of hydraulic prostheses for many years now, just in order to meet their customers' ****ed up, anatomically impossible expectations).

If you want to avoid being racist in the future you should probably base your understanding of racial phylogenetics on the literature. By which I mean the scientific literature, not the fetishistic screed typed out by your dumpface cohort.

I don't think being ignorant about the myth automatically makes him racist.

.

Cool story, bro.

I'm from rural Kentucky & even I've been shocked by the nonchalant attitude of many Parisians towards the mistreatment of the Romani people here in France. The subject often comes up with family & friends & the utter ignorance regarding the history & current reality of these people is astonishing. Despite having a "socialist" president, there truly is a right-wing movement here that appears to be resonating with a lot of ignorant racists & the level of hypocrisy that arises through conversation with them wreaks like the Tea Party in the states. The situation, in many ways, is much like the anti-Mexican sentiment that we have in the U.S., including the limited human rights, eligible jobs & deportations. I don't hear the word "gypsy" here much--they usually just say "Roma" when they're expressing their disgust--I think that they think that it makes them sound less racist.

If there really are no acceptable uses for the word gypsy, then maybe one of the 'PC Police' running this place should add it to censored list.

I don't have a dog in whatever fight is going on, but I think you'd do well to expand your understanding the term "racist" then.

I've said it many times: There are certain brands of racism that are commonplace in much of Western Europe and that would at least surprise, if not shock, most Americans. When I lived in Denmark I didn't hear much about the Romani people; I did hear an awful lot about Middle Eastern immigrants, and much of what I heard would have been met with a stunned silence even in my staunchly conservative Texas community.

I don't understand why people use the etymology of a word to argue whether it is offensive now. You might as well say that "n*****" isn't racist because it wasn't several hundred year ago.

The historical context has a lot of importance for those on the receiving end of the oppression. I don't get why you're saying that ****** wasn't racist several hundred years ago... it was always racist, it was simply socially accepted.

Yeah, I mean, wow.

I wouldn't suggest that people deserve to be cautioned about every word with a racist history. I doubt there are too many philistines who would be alarmed at our casual racism, or sophists who might correct our diction, or plebians who might revolt against us. But we aren't talking about dead people; we're talking about the Romani, an extant group who experience prejudice and persecution today. Phrases like "getting gypped" aren't offensive in the United States, for example, but holy moly racism if you look into what the phrase actually means. If a detour into history is enough to get someone to shut their (accidentally?) racist trap, it's worth it.

How many people are even aware that the Nazis tried to exterminate the Romani, too? The Jews got a country. All the Romani got was another 75 years of persecution (and counting).

That's such a wonderful setup for a joke that I'd feel too guilty about making in this thread, given the context.

I'm not trying to be obstinate, I grew up in an area said to have the largest number of Romany gypsies in the UK (it used to be a major fruit and hop farming area needing a lot of seasonal labour). After mechanisation of the farms, many of them settled down in permanent housing and there are still large active camp sites. So these aren't people who only exist as some exotic minority to me. Many of them call themselves gypsies and as I demonstrated earlier, even their own media and lobbying groups use the word. And if that isn't acceptable who is meant to be the arbiter of names for these people if not themselves?

Considering this is a group that historically generally didn't make any claims as to where they came from (we know their origins now thanks to genetics and modern linguistic theory), it's not surprising that Europeans thought a group of dark-skinned migrants came from north Africa (an area more familiar to them than distant India). So the claim that this name is descended from deliberate ignorance is a little difficult to follow.

There are plenty of slurs relating to gypsies and travellers and, yes, some of them are corruptions of the word gypsy. But it makes as much sense to claim the root word as racist as to claim "Pakistani" is racist because the first four letters get used as a racist slur. Maybe it's different in America and Canada, I don't know anything about the various traveller communities or attitudes towards them there.

And I'm not trying to downplay the racism that gypsies and travellers in my own country experience. The attitudes towards them that I was brought up with were not nice at all and it's very widespread; just how bad and widespread was aired on national news during the Dale Farm debacle a couple of years ago. They get treated as a criminal liability, no one wants them living near them and people get angry about their insularity and factors to do with their lifestyle that people believe are unfair or criminal - poor school attendance, building without planning permission on green belt land, not paying taxes etc. This is all out of a spiral of mistrust, marginalisation and maltreatment both by the population at large and by the legal system (all the planning permission stuff that most riles up Daily Mail-reading, middle-Englander types is a direct result of removing the legal requirement for councils to provide sufficient sites for travellers to stop and stay).

Okay I knew I shouldn't have checked this thread again

Also a surprise that PedHead/Sarn/whoever hasn't popped up yet.

No one likes a tease.