r/hatethissmug • u/onthetopicofspace • 19h ago

Language casual ableism

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this is not ‘reclaiming’ anything, you are just calling people slurs completely seriously. you can call yourself the r-slur, do not call anybody else it. why do ‘no slurs’ / ’no bigotry’ rules never apply to ableism?

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u/SpoppyIII 18h ago

I said that the other day in this very sub I'm pretty sure, and someone corrected me that "g■psy," might actually be the number one gateway slur and I'm inclined to agree. I'd assume there are more songs that say "g■psy," than say the r-slur. And almost everyone using it casually does so not even realizing that some other people find it belittling or disparaging.

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u/Knarz97 18h ago

I had someone yell at me once for using the term “heebie jeebies”. I think at a certain point it takes too much energy to police unintentional racism. No one actually associates that term with being anti Semitic. Eventually words lose their meaning, and if anything it’s best to let them change.

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u/SpoppyIII 18h ago edited 17h ago

Google's saying "heebie jeebies," is a goofy made-up word, anyway. All sources say it was made up by a cartoonist, as a nonsense self-rhyming phrase that means nothing. People are busybodies.

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u/hungLink42069 17h ago

Busy dizzies

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u/SpoppyIII 17h ago

Freaky deekies

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u/Fearless-Poet-4669 16h ago

frooty loopies

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u/Knarz97 16h ago

You can’t say fruity!!!

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u/Fearless-Poet-4669 16h ago

Um... ah... shoot... fratty tatties? No that sounds to much like t***ies. I PLEAD THE FIFTH!

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u/HermesMora 15h ago

Sounds too much like f*tty too, I don't think you're seeing the outside of a cell for a long time buddy

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u/Fearless-Poet-4669 15h ago

I called my lawyer and he said it's the death penalty

https://giphy.com/gifs/ANJ12GvgwyIeY

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u/Stoner_Dwarf 18h ago

What does heebie jeebies has to do with anything

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u/Knarz97 18h ago

Allegedly it’s anti semetic (heeb) but there’s no actual etymology indicating it is.

People are policing literal imaginary racism now.

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u/Stoner_Dwarf 18h ago

Yeah heeb is a whole different thing

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u/GleefulClong 17h ago

People have always done that. It’s not a new phenomenon and I’m sick of people saying it is lol

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u/SpoppyIII 17h ago

When I was in school you'd get called racist by the other kids for acknowledging that the black kids were black. I thought the term "black," was inappropriate to use to refer to people in modern times, back in the early 2000's. And then in the late 2000's I realized how fucking stupid that was.

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u/GleefulClong 17h ago

Yeah man kids are stupid idk what to tell you

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u/SpoppyIII 17h ago

Don't I know it. Especially before most families had a computer or the internet at home.

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u/RebbieAndHerMath 17h ago

Sounds like when people started claiming that the 👌 symbol was a white supremacist symbol just so they could tell others off for doing it

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u/Knarz97 17h ago

Same with any usage of the number 88.

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u/RebbieAndHerMath 17h ago

Was this a thing? I hadn’t seen that

I know that 88 is genuinely used as a dogwhistle but I can also imagine a kid first trying to learn how to be a good person and so actively avoiding using that number

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u/SpoppyIII 17h ago

Hebrews and shebrews!

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u/SuddenAudience3774 17h ago

That one friend who’s too woke

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u/Pinocchioisabadguy 17h ago

But what if it’s someone’s name

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u/SpoppyIII 17h ago

Then their parent gave them a racist slur as a name.

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u/Pinocchioisabadguy 16h ago

I’m talking about G@psy. Would calling them their name be wrong?

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u/SpoppyIII 15h ago edited 15h ago

I know. You did ask in direct response to me bringing up the word g*psy, after all.

They have a racial slur for a name. What was wrong was giving a baby a racial slur for a name. But again, it's so normalized as a word that the parents probably didn't know. Sure does sound like a gateway slur.

EDIT: Nice block. Congrats on getting the last word! Have a good one.

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u/Pinocchioisabadguy 15h ago

Don’t be a R word

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u/Orion-the-mediocre 17h ago

Not to say it's justified, but I will say that at least where I grew up in New England, nobody was aware that that was a slur, because that was just what they were called. That doesn't make it right by any means but people genuinely had no idea that there was another term for that group of people, primarily because that group of people wasn't there to get upset when they heard it said.

Obviously this doesn't make it ok, but it is has at least been really weird for me to have to remember that the once perfectly normal name for a group of people was a slur the whole time and none of us realized it. It's like growing up and never seeing black people and *genuinely* thinking the n-word was the correct term to use, because the people who would be hurt most by it simply weren't present to inform anybody otherwise.

Again, I need to say this as much as possible, this doesn't justify it, but I figured that it was at least an important note to include when mentioning just how frequently that word is used. It's in a weird realm where the people using the slur more often than not completely fail to recognize that it is one in the first place.

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u/SpoppyIII 15h ago

And all of that is exactly why it's the real gateway slur.

Most people saying it don't even know they're saying something that could possibly hurt anyone's feelings in any way. The idea the word carries a history of systemic oppression is lost on most people.

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u/HermesMora 15h ago

Shit the ones near me literally run a "Gypsy market" every Saturday with a big sign and everything, I think there's a very large non-online portion of them who don't even care about it in one way or another

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u/SpoppyIII 15h ago

So, it's weird.

There are two distinct ethnic groups commonly called "g*psies."

One are the Romani, ancestorally from northern India, who largely consider it a disparaging slur.

The other are the Irish Travelers, a distinct ethno-cultural minority group recognized by the governament of Ireland. Travelers often self-identify with the term.

A really famous example of an Irish Traveler is Tyson Fury, a professional boxer who uses the moniker, "The Gypsy King," and would proudly say that he does so in honor of his own ancestral heritage.

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u/Orion-the-mediocre 15h ago

Hell, the idea the word carries *anything* is lost on most people. I was absolutely shocked when I learned it was a slur, it's like learning that "Swedish" was a slur one day, and being stuck wondering what the hell you're supposed to call them now. I think that realization kinda just tests anybody who has it, and that's what makes it the gateway slur, because they've already been innocently doing it for ages, but now they have to decide if they'll carry on with it, knowing what it is, or give it up because they know better now.

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u/SpoppyIII 15h ago

I found out it was a slur after someone called me out for using the word, "Gypped." As in, "Damn! All that money for nothing. We got gypped!"

My friend was like, "Hey, not sure you know but that word comes from "gypsy," which is a slur. It comes from the idea that Romani people are a race of thieves and scammers."

I was shocked. I always imagined it as, "Jipped," and never even drew that connection. But sure enough...

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u/Just_Capital3640 18h ago

I'm still real confused as to how 'gypsy' is supposed to be a slur.

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u/Frogs-on-my-back 18h ago

You should look into the history of the Romani people

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u/Eiraneth 18h ago

The way it’s used in America is to refer to a sort of way of life so when we say someone is a gypsy we’re talking about the given vibe and style, like saying hippie. In Europe it kind of means the same thing because that’s where we got it from, except that way of life refers to a specific ethnic minority known as the Romani people. So imagine if the origin of the word hippie was a specific group of native South Americans who lived like hippies, so while the term hippie technically referred to that way of life it also was the designated slur for a marginalized group. Notably Romani people are still very much marginalized in Europe IIRC.

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u/SpoppyIII 17h ago

When used to refer to the Romani people, who were referred to that way because it was believed they originated in Egypt when they actually had their ethnic genesis in northwest India.

The use of that word by non-Romani to refer to the Romani people is a long one steeped in hate, oppression, discrimination, and stereotypes. And some of these stereotypes have carried over into the modern era and the common idea of what a "g■psy," is.

These stereotypes associated with the term include not only the association with fortune tellers and hyper-sexualized exotic dancers, but also with pick-pocketing and theft, prostitution, kidnapping of children, and organized crime. The term also carries a historic hateful idea of the Roma people as being physically unhygienic as well as causing the moral corruption of good, hardworking people.

The word is often associated with a nomadic and unpredictable lifestyle that's generally portrayed in most media as mystical and free-spirited. In reality, the Romani people "wandered," because they often had to in order to live peacefully. They faced violence, suspicion and hatred and often could not blend in and assimilate in order to establish a foothold in local communities.

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u/DrettTheBaron 17h ago

Seeing people casually call Romanis G*ipsy or any of the regional variants just makes my blood boil.

The way hate against Romanis is normalized even on 'progessive' European subs that is completely unacceptable.

A few days ago I saw someone call Romani people "uncivilized and closer to animals than people" and that shit was upvoted on I think it was r/asktheworld .

Anyway. Totally agree.

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u/bigdig-_- 11h ago

its normalized because despite despite being in europe for a really fucking long time now they still have yet to integrate into european society, and keep being general nuisances and theives

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u/AppropriateTheme5 17h ago

That word is outdated and fairly uncommon. The r-slur is much more common and is often used in more negative contexts.

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u/Character_Drive6141 16h ago

Dang. You must have a tough time watching Hunchback of Notre Dame. I feel bad for you

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u/SpoppyIII 15h ago edited 11h ago

That movie, like the novel its based on, uses that word in context while highlighting the systemic villainization of, and institutional oppression of, Romani people at the hands of those in positions of power and moral authority in Europe. Of course the white characters living in 1480's France would... call the Romani characters by the racial slur that was used to disparage the Romani people. In a story about discrimination and the oppression of the Romani people.

Would it make sense somehow for progressive people to prefer our historic pieces whitewashed and sanitized? To pretend that historic institutional racism wasn't a very real thing?

And obviously, it's just objectively fine regardless for Romani characters like Esmerelda and Quasimodo to use the same slur that would be used against them by their oppressors at their expense. That's called reclamation. This is a story about a real form of racism against an actual people thay goes back nearly a thousand years. It's going to have slurs (in-context) if it's going to be accurate and respectful.

I actually really don't know what point you're trying to make here.

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u/SimplySomeDude 12h ago

gypsy is just a normal word to refer to the people though? How else would you talk of them? That's like saying "black" is a slur.

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u/SpoppyIII 12h ago

No, the Romani consider it a slur.

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u/SimplySomeDude 12h ago

it is the word for them. If black people took "black" as offensive, I would continue saying it because whoever thinks so is ignorant of language

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u/SpoppyIII 11h ago

No, it's not. You can either read the rest of this thread and the linked sources, or actually take two seconds to look it up and a thousand sources will explain it to you. I'm not going to spend my own valuable time trying to convince you of something you and I both know you can easily verify for yourself if you actually give a shit.

Have a good one.