#but the social justice movement has failed my people and the romani people and all i was trying to do was point that out

[djuvlipen]

I don’t want to make excuses, but for me at least, I never learned about Roma people, culture, and oppression. I’m from the western US. In school, we learned about the oppression of Jewish people, of black people, of Asian people, of Latino people, of MENA people, but I wasn’t even taught of the EXISTENCE of the Roma (I do not fully understand when to use Roma vs Romani, apologies). I think all kids were exposed to the idea of the traveler stereotype and the word g*psy but nobody I knew had any idea it was actually tied to an ethnic group or culture. The first time I even saw the word Romani and found out g*psy was a slur was on tumblr when I was in high school and I was EXTREMELY confused about how there could be systemic oppression and discrimination against an ethnic group I’d never even heard of outside of stereotypical depictions. The education system in the US absolutely fails the Romani. I wish I’d been taught more and would love good resources that aren’t posts on tumblr to read more about the history, culture, and oppression of the Romani.

Yes, I've heard that a lot re: US school system and Roma.

As for resources, I've indicated some books in my pinned posts but I'm gonna put them on this post too:

General

Aaron Yeger, A People Uncounted (2011) (that's a documentary)

Slavery

Ian Hancock, The Pariah Syndrom (x)

Robert Dawson, Times Gone: Gypsies and Travellers: Aspects of Romani history

Genocide

Anton Weiss-Wendt, The Nazi Genocide of the Roma: Reassessment and Commemoration

Ian Hancock, Responses to the Porrajmos (The Romani Holocaust) (x)

Angéla Kóczé, Anna Lujza Szász (eds.), Roma Resistance During the Holocaust and in its Aftermath (x)

Ian Hancock, O Porrajmos: the Romani Holocaust (x)

Ian Hancock, Porrajmos: The Romani and the Holocaust (x)

You can also check out this 150 page long bibliography: The Genocide and Persecution of Roma and Sinti. Bibliography and Historiographical Review (x)

Romani women, misogyny and racism

Intersections of Gender, Ethnicity, and Class: History and Future of the Romani Women’s Movement, by Jelena Jovanović, Angéla Kóczé, and Lídia Balogh (x)

Gender, Ethnicity and Class: Romani Women's Political Activism and Social Struggles, Angéla Kóczé (x)

Lessons from Roma Feminism in Europe: Digital Storytelling Projects with Roma Women Activists from Romania, Spain and Sweden, Jasmine Ljungberg (x)

Romani women’s identities real and imagined: Media discourse analysis of “I’m a European Roma Woman” campaign, Jelena Jovanović (x)

Džuvljarke: Roma Lesbian Existence, Vera Kurtić (x)

Re-envisioning Social Justice from the Ground Up: Including the Experiences of Romani Women, Alexandra Oprea (x)

UNICEF reports on Romani women and children's human rights

There are also two big news outlets:

That's for the history and oppression. As for the culture, you won't find much valuable stuff as everything that has to do with Romani culture is usually written from a biased point of view, or it's incomplete, or it's very academic.

[evilwickedme]

In your post about punching Nazis, would it be okay to comment that it’s important to do that for black people and talk about racism as well since black people are in just as much danger from Nazis or would that be derailing? I figured I’d ask first before doing it because while it’s important to remember that black people are also one of the main targets for Nazis and that that seems to get ignored a lot in posts about who needs to be protected from Nazis, I want to stay in my lane.

The answer is yes, that would absolutely be derailment, for two reasons.

One, it is absolutely not true that anti-Nazism has skipped black people. There was just now an anti-Nazi rally in DC where they focused on black people more than they did Jews, and had black speakers, etc, etc. If anything, the posts I see on tumblr will usually mention every minority but Jews and Roma; so black people, and lgbtqa+, and all other people of color, but not Jews or Roma. Literally dozens of posts with thousands of notes each, just completely skipping the people who lost the most during the Holocaust.

Two, the entire point of the post is that nobody talks about antisemitism or antiromanyism. Anti-black racism has an entire movement behind it (#blacklivesmatter). Not a day goes by I don’t see a post on tumblr that mentions racism, slavery, etc; my queue is full of them. Before I ever started posting about antisemitism, I was posting about anti-black racism.

It’s not that Nazis don’t target black people; it’s that nobody’s defending Jewish people (or Roma, but I’m probably not doing a good job of that, not being Romani myself). It’s that when a neo-Nazi targeted a Jewish gay kid, nobody talked about the fact that he was Jewish (except Jews). It’s that nobody (except Jews) talked at all about the very visibly Jewish guy that got stabbed in NYC. It’s that when Charlottesville happened, people weren’t talking about the fact that they were chanting JEWS WILL NOT REPLACE US (except Jews). It’s that antisemitism is one of the main forms of bigotry in the world right now, and it’s on the rise, and nobody’s talking about it.  Every time a goy posts about antisemitism, I celebrate, because that’s a noteworthy event, and it happens about once in a blue moon. I post articles and statistics and proof and I get nada; when my posts do blow up, every other reblog is somebody doubting my easily googleable words, or twisting them so they mean something else, or the fucking Christmas discourse.

It’s not that anti-Nazism has skipped black people. It’s that social justice has skipped Jewish and Romani people.

So, yes. You would be derailing.