džulory ladžala

…. tak to jsem já.

waywardmarbles:

moonandthewitch:

ganekhali:

Can ya’ll say the same about yours?

I don’t need to “trace” my shit back to distant relatives my familija is brown as hell. Also, I have my familija names and I was actually raised in Romani culture, speaking Romani chib, with brown people surrounding me.  If that’s the only way you can constitute being “not white” then i’m laughing my ass off. 

To the original poster: What have you done to give your descendents something to brag about? What kind of person are you, and are you carrying on the legacies of your ancestors? Because my ancestors were conquerors and enslavers, but I’m not going to hold them up as the be-all of my existence because the shit they did was bad. Do I think it’s historically interesting that I had an ancestor come over with William the Conqueror? Yes. Do I think it’s anything remotely relevant to my life? No. Because it’s not.

Do something good with YOUR LIFE. Stop shaming people who don’t have the same legacy you do, because it shows you have nothing else to talk about except what some long-dead fuckers did hundreds of years ago.

And given the many atrocities committed to wipe entire peoples off the planet, it’s an epically asshole move. I’m sure your ancestors and mine would approve.

Gadže hine nakulturno. Jon kamen amaro šukares kultura. Mek jepašestar jepaš Romani hine nakutlurno. Jon hine hibaj gadže. 

(Source: herbalialavandula)

lifes-a-bitch-yep:

SO, i was hoping you could all help me out.
Could you please give me your opinion on ‘Romani Gypsies’ and ‘Irish Travellers’.
it would really help if you give me your opinion on their way of life, what they do, how they act your experiences of them, and so on.

please post it in my messages, anon or not. you can also say as to whether you want it posted or not.

also please please please reblog this so it can be noticed!
THANK YOU! 

Why?

As a Romani (not a Romani Gypsy, since that’s kind of like saying a Black N***r, you just wouldn’t…. ) I find this post a bit… offensive.

Are you compiling a list of how much people hate us based on stereotypes? Because all you have to do is read the news or the Gypsy tag. Seriously.

There is little information on Latvian Romani.

We’re called “Lotvi” by a lot of people (though really, it’s Lotfitka/o)

The Nazis annihilated almost all of the Latvian Roma… there’s a famous story about the mayor of Sabile refusing to sign the papers to let the Nazis shoot the Roma there - so there’s a place in the forest where the grave was dug for them, and they were stood in front of it, but they never killed any of them. The mayor saved over 200 Romani that day and he is considered a great Baro Rom and his grandson is still considered that today. Sabile still is the “Romani town”.

There isn’t much on the history of the Romani in Latvia before the War. Some say we’re Carpathian, some say we’re Ruska or such. Our language is similar to many other populations (including Slovak, Polish, and Russian Romani).

My Papo’s familija had already left when WWI came. It’s likely they fled the start of the Great Northern War in the late 1600s making their way to the UK. Pradada (great-grandparents) became Mucenieks (a Latvian word meaning “barrel-maker), which became the British “Cooper” and settled in the South, around New Forest and married with those families. I’m not sure how all that part happened since none of my family could write. It’s likely they took on a name that accurately described the Rom’s trade. They all mended or made wooden barrels for storage of liquor or food. The women, coming from a country where they spent summers at the coasts were all fishing tackle and net menders. Even my own grandmother mended fishing nets as a way of making income.

Latvian Roma also have populations with lighter features. For example:

Dzintars Čiča, a Romani boy who became famous for singing in the Junior Euro Song Contest (a song he wrote himself, “Tu esi vasarā” (You are Summer)), is kind of typical of my Latvian family’s colour. My own son has pretty much this IDENTICAL colouring.

Of course, if I was a good Romni I’d maintain my father’s side of the family. I’d want to be a Žeželj or Kalniņš… and not a Zavackova. But, I want to be them all to be honest.

My family are from a string of lighter people. I was bound to happen at some point in time. I was bound to come about through a combination of genes. It was just a matter of time.

Really, I should say I am Qristina Žeželje Kalniņa Zavackova, and I am Romani.

chydesirae:

My grandmother was a German gypsy.
All tassels and hoops; dark features and fair skin,
The fifth of seven daughters who’d
batter their eyelashes as they robbed you blind.
She said the real sin lay in her victims,
who’s stares lingered too long at the slit in their skirts.
She traveled Europe in a circus caravan
From she my genes have learnt deceit,
and my bones have grown restless as my feet.

omg.

is it like “Super Racist Saturday” or something?

… she wasn’t proud.

She refused to speak her own language.

She cut her hair. She cut my hair.

She wore pants. She didn’t want me hanging around my super Romani family.

She preferred I stay with her parents who were largely silent - in that they didn’t speak at all in any language.

Their brown skin is a give away now. Their silence taught me to fear what I was.

Murri daj tried to hide me from my self.

Yet, as hard as she tried, my maami tried even harder to educate me about being a Romni. I love her for it and fucking miss her SO MUCH.

I thought for the longest time that my dil’i mother was not even Romani. I thought I was half-white. It explained my light skin. I think she’d be happy if I kept believing that - but our family records point in all the wrong directions.

As do our brown skin, marime traditions, and accents.

I used to hate her. Sometimes I think I still do… but I don’t know what they went through. I don’t know why they were silent. I don’t know what hardships they faced; what fear; what pain.

I just remember the tears in my baba’s eyes when I showed up with long skirt, long hair in braids, diklo, singing a Romani song…

it was as if I had betrayed her.

I used to apologize for being Romani. I’d begin with “I’m sorry, but I’m Romani” whenever anyone asked.

I’d say I didn’t know where my mother’s family were from - which in a way is true. They never outright told me… but my grandmother’s tales of working in servitude for a white family (she put it like that) along with an Indian woman told a different story. The gift I was given of two wooden deer (eza) when I was born from said Indian woman….

Jaj, sometimes I feel so sad. My family did not lead a luxurious life. We were not spared hatred and racism. My grandfather worked down a mine all his life and died of black lung. My grandmother scrubbed floors.

On my fathers side, my grandfather learned to drive buses and my grandmother mended fishing nets.

They were such strong and beautiful despite their silences, despite their words, despite everything.

Sometimes I feel like I should never have walked away.

Sometimes…

I feel like I really did betray them.

ačhel čučo

helila:

Well, here we go again.
This post is going to be very… hmm… outrageous. If you are my follower and want to keep believing that I am a kind, calm person who never ever gets angry and have thoughts about killing people, scroll away. If you see racism everywhere, scroll away really fast.
And now, see how did a pleasant day with my mother turned into shit.

Read More

I am sorry that happened and I you have every right to be angry if they’re talking to your mother that way.

However, when you say things like:

“Let me explain. Gypsies get free homes and support becuase usually they have like 5-10 children. These kids are born from girls that start giving birth at 14.

Why don’t they stay at school? Becuase they don’t want to. They could go to university for almost free, but only 1% does.
My mother is the teacher of these kids. They don’t want to learn. They bully others and if they get a scolding or bad grade the parents come in and flip the table on the teacher. Yes, this is exactly what happened to my mom’s collegaue.

So, after they drop out they start a life of thievery and maffia business. Nobody stops them. If you call the police and say, that your house is being robbed by gypsies they wont come. If they do, it will be after the gypsies took away everything and had beaten you to death.
An old woman’s body was found with her legs cut off.
Please answer me, why the fuck would anyone do that. WHY. Why would you want to steal the pension of a grandma when you live in a fucking mansion and give her such a violent death.
You don’t know? Guess what, I don’t know either. What a fucking surprise!

Villages are getting abandoned because gypsies are scaring the people away. The old people, that don’t want to leave (because obvisously, after you worked in your whole life for that small house you want to live there) get killed, or kill themselves.

The point is: They don’t want to live in peace with us. They hate us.
Nobody knows why.
All these fucking politicians, human rights defenders and even that shitty Anonymus says that they are unprivileged and poor and discriminated and shame on us.
Yes, those poor souls have to drive away in a Mercedes after picking up the support money. Aww. How sad.”

A lot of it is based on racial prejudice and fear… as well as exaggeration in the media and by other people.

I know many Romani from Hungary—some of my family still live there—and they do NOT get free homes (many live in ghettos and slums, and even then still have to pay rent for the house they have with bugs and mold on the walls, leaky windows and falling in ceilings). It is not that they don’t want to go to school, they do. But, there are different considerations that no one bothers about when taking account of Romani kids. They often only speak Romanes at home or sometimes Hungarian and Romanes, but the languages are usually not written ones, so when they come to school they are already behind. No one takes the time to ask about cultural differences and often Romani kids are segregated into “special education” classes, even though they are as bright as other kids.

They are called trouble makers and bullied by students and often teachers—because they can’t always afford new clothes or school books. 

The idea that Romani people are all rich and drive Mercedes is not the truth. Sure, I bet some are and do… but it is not the majority population in Hungary, that’s for certain.

You say that a grandmother had her legs cut off by gypsies…? Really? I read and watch Hungarian news reports and didn’t hear about this case (I’ve heard about a lot of the troubles in the Czech Republic where Romani are blamed for crimes and then it turns out to be non-Romani people committing them)… was a Romani person tried and convicted of that crime? Where are the reports?

…. 

I know it’s difficult to live in a country with such divided populations. Not all Romani live up to these stereotypes, though just as with every population some do. My problem with posts like these is that these wild accusations really affect us. They hurt us. And they’re based on untruths. I even Googled the events that you mentioned and could find no reports of them.

The media in Hungary is baised against Romani; the government (the Jobbik party) is anti-Semitic and antiziganist and feeds propaganda against Jews and Roma to the news outlets and to schools. The school system is also biased against Romani children - excluding them or treating them like pariahs. 

Like I said, I am sorry that your mother experienced that - and I am sorry that you hate all of my people…

I also know that you won’t believe a word I say, feeling you are right in your hatred of us. 

But reports such as this one (from the Guardian UK) tell a different story about how the Roma live and how they are treated in your country…

So, who is right?

I’ve heard this so many times lately.

“But, I look Rroma because I’m almost full-blood”

or

“You don’t look Rroma, you must be less than 1/4 right?”

or

“You’re not Rroma… maybe Romanichal or Traveller or something”…

Except I am Rromani. Full-blooded (I count Dom as Roma too) and raised in the tradition. I am tired of being discounted because I don’t look Rroma. Some people say I have the face shape, or the body type or whatever…

but most just look at the colour of my skin and compare me to all those they know who did not grow up in the tradition. They are shocked when I know details about our history and languages, or when I know the news and locations of our people. They are shocked when I keep marime traditions and others.

As though some how something leaked and I wasn’t supposed to know.

I know friends, of less blood and no tradition, who are accepted fully by traditional (and full) Rroma.

It’s… hard to watch and to see. If I said I was 1/4, not raised in the tradition, and just learning I’d be accepted much more easily than trying to explain my stupid light skin.

I am Rromani. and I know I am Rromani.

But, I am tired of trying to convince damn American Rromanichal of it every.single.day.

I am tired of having to explain my family all the time (at least Vadim seemed to understand — when I mentioned my grandfather is of Latvian Rroma, he nodded and stated that there are many such Lotfitka in the UK)…

I’m just… tired right now… tired of being treated like shit from all sides because I lack pigmentation in my skin and eyes. As if somehow, I’ve betrayed my people and was born of the moon and not the sun.

This wasn’t my fault—but I pay for it every day~

me sem phadji~

joshuacat:

So I’ve been on a quest today. After my auntie Elaine added me on facebook to find all of my dads family on facebook.

Essentially. I knew more about my mothers side (the Rroma side, the harder side to track down) than anything else. My dad rarely speaks about his family, he abandoned them for america, and he doesnt talk to them anymore, but I want to know them.

For so long, Ive been alone in the U.S. with a mom and dad who are separated. Its just me and them and they dont talk. I want to know who I am and where my family is from. I want to know where my cousins, aunties, uncles, everything, I want to know where they live.

I am a child of two worlds, displaced, misplaced and replaced. Roots grown in eastern countries with arms stretched out to western worlds. Fingertips that grind into mountainsides and vault themselves across american spires. I want to stretch out my arms and point to my veins like roadmaps and say “My blood comes from here.”

I am not an american. I am not a citizen here. I do not belong here. My father has 2 brothers and 4 sisters, all of whom Ive barely met in my life. I’ve met Michael, my uncle, because he stayed here with us. But Chris, Elaine, Jade, All my family from England, I still dont know.

I know my mothers side. I know Speedy and Anne, the Rroma grandparents. I know them well. I know their 3 daughters. Debbie, Kathryn, and Maryanne, and I know their children, Stephen, Leah, and Hope.

But I dont know my fathers side. I want to know them too. I want to know where I came from. I want to know where he spent his life, where his childhood was. I dont want just stories and images, I want to know the people, my family, my home. The place I should have grown up in if not for traveling with my mothers family until she decided to move to america.

I want to be less of a mystery to myself, and understand a family that Ive never known.

I want to know, because I know. I am not american. I do not belong here.

I want

This made me cry.

I understand this more than you probably realize. I am not American either, but am assumed to be so and feel as though my whole life is looking backwards and explaining why I am not.

I don’t know anyone on my Scottish Traveller side. My grandma had some sisters and brothers I think. One who married well and lived in Surrey, I think his name was William. A sister, Ina, who lived in a small village and still worked mending fishnets.

My grandfather? I don’t know. Olive and sweet-scented skin; Hands cracked from working in the yard…

a veteran of two world wars (born during one; fought during the second)… 

I don’t know who his family was. I just know that they are from Domari roots, the Scottish Traveller clans from Edinburgh, supposedly brought over from the Middle East.

But, I don’t know.