Burned girl a symbol of Roma hate and hope

[sailor_moonbeam]

By Andrew Tkach, CNN

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Roma Natalka Kudrikova lost 80 percent of her skin in hate attack
• Czech neo-Nazis planned attack to coincide with 120th anniversary of Hitler's birth
• In eastern Europe some far-right parties with anti-Roma rhetoric are gaining support
• Czech Prime Minister who lost family to Nazis says people forgetting lessons

Comments

[paulnolan]

I'm fairly certain the words 'pikey', and maybe even chav, come from such sentiments. However, with both of those slurs (particularly chav), it's got a lot more to do with a class divide than anti-Roma bigotry.

Pikey's more related to Irish travellers, IIRC (and chav/charver has nothing to do with either, although the word comes from Romani)

[paulnolan]

It depends on who's the one calling a person a chav, in my experience. The word does get used by middle class types to denigrate anyone lower-class, but it really means the kind of nylon-clad, incoherent, violent little shitfucks who make up the majority of the population of my town.

[paulnolan]

Underclass representin'!

[notgarystu]

I've heard (and sometimes used, before I knew it was a slur and ceased) "gypped" being used in the US as well. I grew up in a family that uses it pretty widely. Granted, my family has UK roots, so.

[notgarystu]

I'm not entirely sure of exact regions, but we've got English and Scottish roots, and I know my dad spent a couple years in South Britain 40 or so years ago. It isn't a widely used word, from what I understand, but it was a bit of a staple in my house growing up.

[supercrook]

I've heard my dad use it plenty of times, but he stopped after being told what it meant.

[sailor_moonbeam]

i've heard it used in cartoons....

[eyetosky]

To be honest, from my experience growing up in the US, a lot of Americans use the word 'gypped' without having any idea where it comes from. A lot of times, I even see it spelled alternately as "Gipped" or "Jipped", even in professionally proofread media.

It's one of those words you hear growing up, but there's generally so little of a concept of what being Anti-Roma would mean that you're never really sat down and told Why It's Wrong like other offensive terms.

There could be some similarities between using that word and an atheist still using "Jesus Christ!" or "Dammit!" as a curse word. The origins of the word have evaporated for the most part, but for some reason it's just what you say in a situation.

[sailor_moonbeam]

i've met north americans that think the terms comes from "egypt" *shrugs*