When Romani first entered England they claimed to be Egyptian Christians
on a religious pilgrimage. By the English those Romani were first called
Egyptians, then Gyptians, later Gypsies, and occasionally Gyps (the
singular of which Webster defines simply as a "cheat).
As many law enforcement personnel have long known and other people are
increasingly discovering, there is a substantial segment of the Romani
composed of cheats, a predatory, mostly itinerant segment practicing a
criminal life-style with a number of shared attributes. Typically it is
this marauding proportion of the larger Romani population which is meant
when the uncapitalized term "gypsy" is used. So employed, the term
"gypsy" is also applied to non-Romani. To those tasked with apprehending
and prosecuting them, the English, Scottish, and Irish travelers as well
as others are gypsies in this later sense, i.e., they share the criminal
life-style of their namesakes.
Gypsies are not the only ethnic population to have had their name
extended, broadened and decapitalized to reflect a more general
life-style, process, or condition. Thus if one is referring to a
particular region of western Czechoslovakia, the proper term is Bohemia
and the people anywhere who exhibit a carefree, devil-take-the-hindmost
approach to life, the appropriate term is (uncapitalized) bohemians.
Similarly, we might say of an unfortunate sailor: "He was shanghaied in
Shanghai." Historically, not all Assassins were assassins and one did
not have to be a Slav in order to be a slave, although the Muslim sect
and the Slavs provided the ethnic origins of those terms.
In 1987 FBI agent James Osterrieder held a news conference in which he
spoke to reporters about a band of Polish Gypsies which had been
perpetrating ruse entry burglaries in Maine, burglaries in which more
than $1 million in cash and property had been taken.
"Obviously," Osterrieder stated, "there are many Polish Gypsies in the
country who are good citizens. They will be the first people to tell you
that the criminal side of their community are not Gypsies--they call
them something else." It won't work. The term "Gypsy" has for a long
time had an unsavory connotation with the general public, a connotation
summarized in the song title "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves" and tersely
codified in the dictionary definition of gyp. It is a connotation that
can only grow more unsavory as modern means of communication and data
retrieval result in an increase in the arrest, prosecution, conviction,
and incarceration of criminal Gypsies and their clones. Honest,
law-abiding members of the Romani community should refer to themselves
by that ancient name which they brought out of India with them (and
which they prefer today) and stop trying to sanitize the more recent
"Gypsy."
I suspect that social forces now at work will one day result in gypsy
becoming to Romani what mafia is to Sicilians, a term denoting an
organized criminal element in their society. Both "gypsy" and "mafia"
have been increasingly applied to criminals and other ethnic origins and
both deserve the opprobrium they garnered.
Those
who openly support and defend the "gypsy lifestyle" frequently insist
on publicly chastising, threatening, and harassing all who dare use
the term gypsy in anything less than a complimentary fashion. Why they
do this is a topic to be covered in future pages, but for now please
consider what a tenured cultural anthropologist from Marquette
University had to say on this very topic. Dr. Dowling's article
addressed the ramblings of a Texas University professor (Ian Hancock)
who has a record for rewriting history to suit his own agenda, and for
doing so in less than an honest fashion. Please be assured that it is
not rumor or speculation that I base this seemingly harsh assessment
about Professor Hancock's integrity, but on firsthand knowledge and
experience. ---D. Marlock
