#opre romani

[lilitunoirrr]

So since it's Romani history month, I want to share a poem by Henry Lawson. A man that was/is huge in Australian literacy history but never noted for his Romani heritage despite writing about it. Here's one of my favourite poems of his:

[cyberr-v0id]

The reason why I don’t watch or read the hunchback of notre dame is because it perpetrates the (obviously awful and incredibly harmful) stereotype that Romani people steal children and raise them as their own

[hungee-boy]

not that i want a bunch of zionists using roma as a means to further oppress palestinians and neighboring arab countries but at the same its like

how can you be "truly informed" about nazism and the holocaust and just keep ignoring porajmos. josef mengele experimented on and murdered romani children. eva justin learned our language so she could gain romani trust and infiltrate our communities to measure our faces and shit for eugenics. we were in auschwitz. the romani middle class in germany was wiped out because those families were documented and it made for easier extermination. we were one of the two ethnic groups specifically targeted for complete extermination right alongside jewish people...

so. bi-gesko gadje stop 1) outright ignoring the oppression of the romani diaspora and 2) just leaving porajmos as a footnote when you talk about the holocaust

[dreaming-in-sunlight]

I finished it ❤️

[haveyouheardthisfolksong]

Note: This song has been adopted as the Romani national anthem. It is set to a traditional melody, hence why it appears in this poll. In addition to the Romani culture tag, I also gave it the Serbian culture tag because the lyricist, Žarko Jovanović, was Serbian Romani. However, Romani people in multiple countries have adopted this song.

[redisrobinhearts]

The dick one is straight up racist/antiroma

There is no such thing as romani features nor do Roma have to be “brown skinned because of colourism”

Making the statement that all Roma have to/ should be brown in itself is colourism it actively erases the hundreds of years of slavery and ethnic cleansing that caused a large chunk of Romani people to be pale/white passing or better known to Romani people as “light skinned Roma”

Romani people are extremely diverse with different subgroups all around the world so no there is no “Romani features” there are Roma who look completely white and Roma who look black (more than just Afro-roma)

Im not saying you HAVE to draw nightwing like anything im saying to not spread ignorant and harmful misinformation because being Romani has nothing to do with how you look - an actual Romani person

I’m reblogging it with this because op limited replies which I’m assuming is because of this exact reason

How to best design the Batkids

Dick:Romani features(including significantly brown skin!!Very important because of colorism!!!),wolfcut and dress transgender(in which direction is irrelevant,Dick Grayson is like Link)

Jason:Afrolatino punk dilf who's visibly autistic(if he can't pass for Percy Jackson you're doing it wrong)

Tim:Biracial swag,ska punk and nonthreatning goofy friend vibes

Cass:Chinese features,butch as fuck and big naturals but from estrogen instead of dudebro shit

Stephanie:Darkskin jamaican-korean,pastel punk and fat flat queen because us small tiddied femmes deserve rep

Duke:Faggy ass black punk dude with dreads(He's literally og Hobie Brown)

Damian:Arab-chinese slay,shortie and undoubtable gender fuckery

[scarlet--wiccan]

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody! I wrote a short retrospective about the history of Romani representation in Marvel comics to commemorate the release of Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver, which is on sale today, 2/14. I do want to remind everyone that the BDS movement has called for a cultural boycott of Disney and Marvel products, as both entities are financially and politically complicit in the genocide of Palestine. Spend your money smartly and ethically, and get involved in local actions . Vive Palestine, et Opre Roma!

🖤🤍💚❤️

This article was written as supplement to my interview on the lastest episode of Romanistan! It's out now on Spotify or Apple, and you can support Romanistan on Ko-Fi or Patreon.

[lilitunoirrr]

🙌🏽💯

[cyberr-v0id]

Sometimes I think that maybe the reason that my mother never raised me and my brother as part of our culture is so that she could save us the pain and harassment and racism that she went through.

Cause yeah, we both have lighter skin than her from our dad, but my little brother still has those Roma eyes and if his hair were darker, and the fact that his skin is only a few shades lighter than hers in the summer, if we did interact with our family, if we did openly show the world who we are, then yeah, those assholes would be racist to him

And I am so fucking privileged to have golden skin and blue eyes and golden hair that hasn’t done what it’s been threatening since I was seven and turned brown, and that let’s me pass through crowds unnoticed, but I would my culture, would my people recognise me for who I am? Would I be accepted?

My mother, my brave and strong mother, when she was growing up was endlessly called slurs, many of which I am lucky enough to not know, and told that her ‘skin was dirty’ just because it was brown (and let me tell ya, it’s not brown from her German-Italian father, it’s brown from generations of Roma), and even now I sometimes notice things. People not always recognising me as her daughter, save from our eye shapes and my nose. The boys in the line at the theme park last year, harmlessly asking my mum how long she had lived in England for (she didn’t kind them asking btw), because they had mistaken her brown skin as meaning she was from somewhere else, India perhaps. The local people in Greece when she went there before I was born, going up to her and asking her questions in Greek, because they assumed her one of them.

I can understand why she did it

And after she went through all of that, after she kept us away and spoke little of what she went through, I’ve still had to deal with teenage boys being Neo-Nazi shits, and girls defending their right to say that their friends outfit was ‘giving g*psy’ (a. Culture appropriation, B. a slur) while they use white sources as ‘proof’, and strangers on the internet, who don’t know me and hadn’t even seen my face, saying that I am not Roma, they can use that word because it makes us ‘feel magic and special’ and general infantilisation, only to delete the messages a few minutes after I’ve blocked them, so I can’t send out a beware on this ‘inclusive, anti-racist lgbtq meme account’ because that was what the account was.

And I can’t tell my mum any of this. It would upset her too much

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Γεια Θείτσα!! Ευχαριστώ για blog σου! It’s kind of sad but many of my older family members are very disrespectful toward Roma people. Like they constantly throw around slurs (I understand now that G***s’y is a slur for aroma people) with the intention of insulting someone, and when we visit family in Greece, they constantly tell me to watch out for them because “they steal things.”I’m sorry if this is an uncomfortable topic or if there’s unrest/controversy around anti-Roma sentiment in Greece. I’m very out of the loop on Greek politics, so feel free to not answer this if you don’t want to. Anyways, my question is: how prevalent would you say, from your experience, is anti-Roma sentiment in Greece? Also, sorry if you’ve already answered this question, feel free to refer me to a tag or another post if that’s the case!

Hello! This is controversial for Tumblr (not for Greek residents, they know what's up) but if we stopped talking about every controversial issue then we wouldn't improve shit, would we?

I want to be 100% realistic here, so I will explain stuff as directly as possible. I'd like you to understand the reason behind the bigotry, and I want you to understand the situation beyond "oooo g*ies steaal". You can't argue for a situation you don't know and the other side (your older relatives) will dismiss your arguments because they will know you don't know.

Naturally, I will mention some negative things some Roma do. It might be convenient for us to remain cuddled and ignore reality while living a more privileged life but this actually won't push us or anyone else to resolve these social issues. Besides, all the things I will mention are things that many Roma speak about, too, because they are aware that what other Roma do affects their own future as well.

Also this is about Roma in Greece and the specific situation in Greece. I ask for people from other countries to not make assumptions on this post about the country if they cannot back them up with experience or local knowledge.

When one speaks about issues in the Roma community it's important how and why they do it. If they do it to insinuate that all Roma people are bad and that they steal, then yes it's an issue. There's also the informative approach, which I will take. I have lived next to and near Roma families, as have some of my friends, and on the street, I had various interactions with them. I have seen firsthand the positive stuff and the issues, and almost everything I will mention here is what I've seen with my own eyes.

To be clear, this blog supports the Roma struggle and the Roma Uprising as the call of "Opre Roma!" describes it. The Roma (or Tsiganoi, as they most often call themselves in Greece) should have the right to education and social acceptance without needing to leave their culture behind. I have the tags #Roma and #Romani if you want to take a look at related posts.

By the way, "Tsiganos/-a" (Τσιγγάνος / -να) is also acceptable for the Roma in 2024 from this year's articles I've read and the Roma videos I've watched. Roma from other countries don't like this word too much, and I get why (it is because the Roma come from the "Untouchable" Caste of North India which is a history of bigotry in itself, and Tsiganos comes from the Greek for "Untouchable"). But each country and Roma community is different. It's not a slur afaik. But if you meet one, it is best to ask them what they'd like to be called because the landscape can shift.

To get the negative stuff out of the way, and then there will be good stuff.

First of all, some context. Traditionally Roma in Greece were involved in various trades but they always lived in their own community in the outskirts of some Greek villages. Of course, people of the same nationality, like the Greeks and the Slavs and the Hebrews and the Turks, usually lived in their own sub-area of a village. But the Roma were a bit more isolated.

The history of isolation goes centuries back because there was a constant self-sustained loop of the Roma being very Roma community-oriented and the outside world seeing them as foreigners. However, in older times, the Roma earned a living by doing all types of hard work more or less in sync with other nationalities and also collecting scrap. The bigotry was there but - at least from what I read - not in an intense way. It was more like "This is a Greek, this is an Albanian".

Unfortunately, in the modern age, most types of jobs they did became obsolete and poverty hit their communities. The old ostracization made it very difficult for them to sustain an income in the new era. In cases of such great poverty, it was sometimes considered acceptable to take from balamoi/gadje/"white people", precisely because of this imbalance of resources and the inherent cruelty of the balamoi towards them. (I mean, who wouldn't do anything to feed their own children?) Some of those attitudes have stuck until our days. Acquiring resources is very important for numerous Roma nowadays and sometimes these resources are not always taken legally.

So, yes, there are Roma in Greece who steal things. Yes, there are Roma parents use their babies and kids on the street to earn money (the babies are used for pity points while the mothers beg, the kids usually beg for money. (Once my aunt saw a baby that didn't look... alive on a Roma woman's bosom). This shows the desperate measures some Roma will resort to acquiring resources (sometimes it's not about survival, just acquisition) but it's also very systematic and it's considered like an "occupation" that brings resources.

Yes, there are a few Roma settlements like ghettos where the police are afraid to go, and there are drug networks and gangs. Yes, a friend had his bicycle stolen by Roma and he saw Roma frequently take the flowers he left on his uncle's grave. Yes, in Athens and Thessaloniki there are Roma markets with goods of... unspecified origin that I have strolled by. These goods were sold all together, and a stand could have album photos of non-Roma families, one pair of wedding crowns (stefana), and other unrelated objects found inside a house and unfortunately, they didn't look like they were taken from the trash. But since people throw all sorts of things away one could speculate that a good amount of those items were just taken off the trash - I, at least, hope so.

I cannot speak to how many Roma are involved in questionable acts but it is a noticeable amount that exists close to them. I suppose it was worse in the old times, or at least the prejudice against Roma was more intense back then and that's why your family believes that it's better to guard yourself in case you meet a Roma on the streets of Greece who wants to sell you something. But I have the sense they do it out of the "stranger danger" mindset (because Roma communities are separated from the rest) and because they learned to hate this group of people with a dangerous intensity.

All people are innocent until proven otherwise and I know for sure that your family cannot prove this unfair generalization about all Roma. They cannot even prove it for the Roma who approach them on the street. Many Roma in Greece "don't look" Roma (aka they don't dress like, or don't braid their hair the Roma way, similar to the traditional NW Indian ways). So Greeks don't "clock" them, and that's why they cannot claim they have a good idea of Roma demographics.

Besides, the biggest Thieves of this country are our politicians, our mafia bosses, our powerful businessmen. They steal millions each year and most of them are Greek. If I started counting the times Greeks have stolen stuff (big and small) we would be here for the next 100 years.

There are various programs for helping Roma families by the Greek state and some private organizations but I feel like the anti-Romani sentiment in Greece is still strong. As you can imagine, the negative sightings a Greek resident can have from Roma on the street can cause many prejudices to build. But of course, there are always two sides.

An ostracised community has various problems and these problems make the others ostracise them even more. Many Roma have found themselves in this unfortunate situation. Greeks rarely give Roma chances so they can improve their social and financial standing. Not to mention, due to all that exterior distrust, some Roma communities remain in their shell and can get defensive toward outsiders - because nobody else will defend them. But this defending behaviour can go out of hand and hurt other citizens (with bullets) who start to see the Roma community even less favourably.

But as I said this super defensive behaviour and pack mentality exists because the state - and the police - won't protect the Roma. Instead, many times they enact extreme violence against them, and then some Roma groups answer with more criminal behaviour. Today it's a chicken and egg situation in terms of who dislikes who, although it is clear that the persecuted side is the Roma people.

One recent example of anti-Roma sentiment is when a 16-year-old Roma stole a car and the police thought it good to shoot him in the head - which killed him. Is a bullet to the head - murder - a proper "punishment" for a teen stealing a car?? And, of course, the policemen were punished very lightly for killing a person, a teen! Roma lives are not seen as important as the rest by the Greek society, the media, the police. But Roma lives are often the most vulnerable on the streets.

I focused on the negative stuff so far to explain the situation but I don't want to end this post without positive examples for a people who have struggled so much.

Roma people work very hard and they will do their very best with the hand they've been dealt in life. They do difficult and low-paying jobs which often have the most risk. They are the powerhouse behind festivals and folk entertainment (e.g. panygyria). They will work the fields and they will gather (and at times sell) crops. If they are not particularly skilled in a trade, they will do simpler things like selling balloons and flowers on the street or offering fortune-telling services.

I admire the zeal with which many Roma want to improve their situation. The struggles might hit them hard but they never give up. Contrary to the gloomy image presented before, many Roma live in peaceful and happy settlements, they have a decent fortune and big houses where they host dancing parties and enjoy family moments with their kids. Their festivities are grand and their music - which often has lyrics that reflect their generational struggles - is sent from the heavens. (Greeks love it and they have incorporated musical elements of it in their own folk music)

Their language is ancient with great significance and very interesting variations even within the Greek borders. Apart from being resilient, they can also be very open, sharing their customs and language online for all to learn - from TikTok to the stage of the Stavros Niarhos foundation. They are very aware of the biases against them and as always they face difficulties with their head high and a healthy dose of humor. A Roma man joked the other day on TikTok "Why does a Tsiganos cry when they watch the Titanic? Because he sees all this metal wasted!" (Many Roma gather and sell scrap metal for a living)

Okay, I think that's it!

I am sorry but I don't want to shy away from the crimes and the difficulties like the Americans who only know how to say "Greece has an anti-Romani sentiment problem", as if the issue can be resolved with good wishes and stardust and doesn't have a complex past and present - which they don't care to learn. They only know how to parrot stuff from textbooks and they couldn't start a normal conversation with a Roma in a million years.

Oh, and if I see ONE disingenuous fuck say stuff like "You say that some Roma steal so you enhance the anti-Roma sentiments" I'm gonna block this shit. Congrats, you earned your White Knight online badge of the day but the problem still exists and ofc you are not going to do anything about it. Greek Roma themselves try to tackle thievery and begging practices (which is the reason why many Roma kids don't attend school) and corruption and abuse within their own communities but I am expected to conceal this when online, and pretend that all is rainbows and roses?

[hungee-boy]

with it being national rromani day tomorrow im extending my best wishes to fellow didicoy and rroma that were raised by gadje/in gadje society

its heartbreaking to hear that we probably wont be accepted by other rroma, despite the fact that we didnt choose to be taken from our culture or for our family to bury our blood out of fear

but were here still and were part of the 10 million and everyday we continue to live on, our rroma ancestors are honored and proud of us

opre rroma, including didicoy

[dreaming-in-sunlight]

A piece i never finished (i kinda want to when im not busy) but i wanted to share anyway

Its a piece dedicated to roma and our beauty and depicts the red chakra thats found on our flag (the flag without the chakra yet is seen in the piece and our full flag is below)

[rromaleo]

Kushti Devvas! This shall be my well loved blog dedicated to my culture. Because fuck everyone who says I can’t or says I shouldn’t be proud or should hide who my people are.

Opre Romani!

[616wandanat]

𝐄𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 .

stay educated ,   rroma edition :   opre roma carrd ,   various rroma instagrams ,   romani educational doc .

blogs that talk about rromani wanda :   @scarlet--wiccan​ ,   @scarletwitching​ .

romani wanda posts :   @bikenesmith​ talking about wandavision & whitewashing + racism ,   @scarlet--wiccan​ talking about rromani wanda & her history of being rroma ,   @wyndex​ talking about the wanda’s new video game appearance ,   @wyndex​ giving proof that elizabeth olsen is racist .

stay educated ,   jewish edition :   jewish multiracial network ,   my jewish learning .

blogs that speak about judaism :   @writingwithcolor​ .

jewish resource posts :     @scrumpster​ with an assortment of jewish resources ,   @tzipporahssong​ with where to start researching .