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I am romani gypsy and these are my thoughts on the show

posted 8 years ago by blueyedragon019
11 replies | jump to latest

I am a Romani Kaldarash gypsy and I found this show very amusing, I just finished watching the finale and I can't wait to see what's next but, part of me didn't like how romani were portrayed as these villainous characters, who commit murder, rob people and treat outsiders like garbage.

The machawaya tribe are American gypsies and we look down on them, because we don't consider them real gypsies and they really do have the scamming people thing down to a science. We are not perfect either but we have morals. We respect outsiders "gadje" and we are very welcoming, if we are shown respect back.

My family are very religious and don't like messing around with spells or tarot cards because we believe That it isn't good. We are also very superstitious and some of us do have psychic abilities but mostly have to do with dreams. The whole "gypsy curse" thing is alive and well, Rom mostly curse eachother though lol. Alot of bad blood in the family and it ain't pretty. I've heard stories of what would happen and it is pretty creepy.

Kaldarash have dabbled in fortune telling. My grandma did that many years ago for money. People would come in the middle of the night, begging to be read. The story of the nail is known by all gypsies, where God gave us the right to steal. Some believe, some don't. We are a huge mystery even to ourselves. We know very little of where we came from, but for the most part, we don't believe we came from India, like many people think. Our roots are deeply Russian.

I think that for the most part, we are who we are because of the way we have been treated throughout history. We are the most persecuted race in Europe. Many people don't know that many gypsies had died in the holocaust, including many of my ancestors. There was also a massive slaughter in a Serbian village, where Romani Men, woman and children were beheaded and thrown in a river. I can just go on and on. We are still discriminated against til this day. The cycle of persecution does not end for us.

It would be nice for once if we were portrayed from our perspective, to show people that yeah we still exist and we're not all bad and there is a reason for why we are the way we are.

I'll be open to any questions

[–] swjunkie 8 years ago

Thanks for sharing! I wondered how accurate it was - I thought it might be a bit like how the Mafia is portrayed as "real" Italians by Hollywood.

[–] blueyedragon019 8 years ago

No problem. Hollywood loves to take things over the top to pull in audiences.

[–] whatever94401 8 years ago

What's wrong with coming from India?

[–] Netflixster 8 years ago

He/she never said there is anything wrong with coming from India, only that her people don't believe that is where they are from

[–] whatever94401 8 years ago

You can believe you're from Mars, but if it's not factually correct. DNA, gene mapping and mitochondrial Eve studies makes it pretty difficult to not know where your bloodline is from. If you don't want the truth, don't pony up the $99 for 23andme.
The next part about gypsies and the Indian diaspora, I can't say because it's not politically correct.

[–] SilverXeno 8 years ago

When I lived in Europe there was a lot of prejudice against Romani...mostly from the older generation telling the Americans to be careful. (My family was there with the military, an American community).

I only just started watching the show, but it looked pretty offensive from a cultural perspective.

[–] sensi-fr-103-701311 8 years ago

The problem with prejudices are when they are actually depicting a rather blatant truth: when Romani are nowadays known "in Europe" for being -voluntarily- uneducated social security recipients living at the expense of others while mostly stealing/pick-pocking/scamming/banditry/playing false disabled and using kids to professionally beg they -without in this particular case much generalities or any dishonest/bigoted depiction- could be considered no well-meaning individuals, and when a "community" seems to not be bothered with any of that, again it can't be honestly considered "well-meaning". Hence the still current "prejudices" and subsequent persecution/ostracism.

I am sure that if most of them would be productive elements of whatever society they live in (rather than living off) there wouldn't have been so many of these "prejudices" on their back.

This said i love Django Reinhardt.

(...) In the Czech Republic, 75% of Romani children are educated in schools for people with learning difficulties and 70% are unemployed, compared with a national rate of 9%. In Hungary, 44% of Romani children are in special schools, while 74% of men and 83% of women are unemployed. In Slovakia, Romani children are 28 times more likely to be sent to a special school than non-Romani, whilst Romani unemployment stands at 80%.

In some countries, dependence on social security systems is part of the problem. For some Romani families, it may be preferable to live on social security compared to low-paid jobs. That creates many new problems: anger against Romanies, conditions that produce crime, and extreme sensitivity to changes in social security. A good example of the latter is Slovakia, where reduction of social security (a family is paid allowance only for the first three children) led to civil disorder in several Romani villages. (...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_society_and_culture#Relations_with_other_people

[–] mythcalledlove 8 years ago

Just watched and it reminded me of these megachurchs and how they operate. Many treat the church leader as if he is GOD. Many have security teams that rival the President and many have private planes. Their are prophets that draw huge crowds. I have heard all the tales when I worked at a hospital a man who I was told was the leader sorry I know he has a title but this is how the story was told they said watch everything that they would steal everything I remember saying well the hospitals rob us blind it too charging for a box of tissues they call nasal clearing system #45 45 meaning how many tissues are in the box. It is true there were alot of them in my eyes it was just a really big family but we have seen the same thing it was not odd because it was a surgical cancer unit and it was normal to see large groups of family members. I was approached by a woman in a mall saying I had a curse and she could remove it she went thru the whole thing give 50 perform whatever to see who it is and then I had to pay for each curse she saw blah blah blah but I spooked her when I told her she gave me bad energy and she has guilt & death around her a darkness that blocked me from seeing any reason to believe she could help me then she said my eyes made her nervous (they are light gray). Anyway I enjoyed it I wished it would hv been more than one season. They could hv introduced a new family every season or something.

[–] timonsgirl 8 years ago

You can believe what you want but DNA doesn't lie. The Romani people did indeed originally come from India.

http://www.livescience.com/25294-origin-romani-people.html

[–] Carlie64 8 years ago

Were you forced to marry at 14? Nothing can ok that. Nothing. Sbdvifbyourvtupebof gypsy does that, you're just as bad as the other gypsy's. Appalling .

[–] keren-falkie 8 years ago

Cool post, thanks for sharing this! I know absolutely nothing about the Romani people, but this show has sucked me in and got me interested enough to do a little research online (of course, as we all know, Hollywood doesn't portray things accurately, it's all about the drama, but it made me wonder about things I hadn't thought of before). I didn't even know there were Romani really living in the US!
I am half Jewish, half Italian. Could not agree more about the comparison of the Romani Hollywood portrayal to that of the Italian Mafia. My father was from Czechoslovakia, a holocaust survivor who spent time as a young boy in a concentration camp. most of his family was murdered during that time. Whenever people talked about what the Nazis did to the Jews, he would also add that the gypsies were persecuted and killed just as much. I can't help but wonder what he saw and experienced in that regard.
I would love to see a show that is from the perspective of the Romani, great idea!!