Madonna And Ethan Hawke Fight To End Gypsy Discrimination

Support The Latest Celebrity Cause: Save The Gypsies

Posted by: Ami Angelowicz Filed in: celebs
12:20PM, Monday November 2nd 2009

Causes like rebuilding New Orleans, protesting animal cruelty with PETA, and helping poor children are totally played out. No, today’s press-seeking celebrity will have to come up with something more exotic. How about saving the Gypsies?! In Eastern Europe, especially in Romania where their population is close to half a million (that’s a lot of caravans!), Gypsies are facing major discrimination in housing, health care and education due to their nomadic ways. Who better to help them get the equal rights they deserve than the former material girl, Madonna. Always on the cutting edge, she spoke out about Gypsy discrimination at a recent concert in Bucharest to the dismay of many of her non-Gypsy fans, who booed her offstage. But Madge does not stand alone in the fight. Another celeb is applauding Madonna’s Gypsy support. Ethan Hawke and his mom Leslie, who has been running a charity organization to support the Gypsies since 2000, think Madonna is a gem for raising awareness about the problem. She even donated a pair of autographed Christian Dior shoes to be auctioned off at a recent Gypsy charity ball. Next stop for Madge … Gypsy baby adoption? [PopEater]

comments

Rosita
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 12:38 pm: [report]

I know that this might sound picky and uptight, but “gypsy” is actually considered a derogatory term for the Roma people, which is who you’re talking about. And discrimination against Roma is a very real problem, not just some celebrity trend—the Roma were among the victims of the Holocaust. Also, the comment about caravans is a little out of line as it plays to the Hollywood-crafted romantic ideal of nomadic gypsy life.
Just wanted to throw that out there.

fireflyeyes
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 12:47 pm: [report]

If we’re going to talk about Gypsy discrimination, perhaps we should call them Romani or Roma, instead. Gypsy is an English word for that ethnic group and although not always offensive, is inexact.

pinkjellyfish
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 02:07 pm: [report]

Here is a great article about a professor of mine who teaches classes on the Romani culture at UT:

http://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2003/romani.html

He addresses a lot of the misconceptions people have, it’s a great read!

bumbler
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 02:14 pm: [report]

Yeah I have to agree with the other comments. It’s not common knowledge but using “gypsy” in this article is like having an article on the civil rights movement titled “Equality for Darkies” or the women’s liberation movement as “Freedom for Broads.” Does not quite work.

brandyalexander
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 02:16 pm: [report]

Really.

powplz
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 02:23 pm: [report]

Sweet, glad I’m not the only person cringing at the use of gypsy over Roma.

@bumbler - lol, great analogy!

lea322
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 02:33 pm: [report]

Where do you think the term “gyped” comes from? It means that you were shorted, because a Gypsy would try to screw you over. Gypsy is not a nice word. I think the reason people in America don’t necessarily realize that is that the Roma are not an ethnic group we typically come across here. If we were in China and heard people talking about “negros” or some other derogatory term for a group of people, we would probably cringe a little.

It’s not Ami’s fault for not knowing about the offensiveness of the term or of the stereotypes associated with them that we take for granted, but now that it’s out there for people to see, I hope everyone learns from it.

jnirenb
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 03:02 pm: [report]

Ami, who I assume is a child, should learn to read for a few minutes before presuming to be an expert and writing any sort of article.

She writes that people are” facing major discrimination in housing, health care and education due to their nomadic ways”. But less than one percent of Roma in Romania are nomadic. The racism isn’t based on something Roma do; it’s based bigotry, on ideas in the ill-informed minds of people like Ami.

Lea thinks Ami’s not at fault for writing articles on topics she knows nothing about. In fact, nobody but Ami carries responsibility for her prejudiced silliness.

lea322
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 04:42 pm: [report]

@jnirenb: I meant that it’s not Ami’s fault that she didn’t know about the situation, just as it’s not someone’s fault if they don’t know anything about apartheid if they’ve never heard of it. Now that several people have pointed out to her the inaccuracies of her article, she can educate herself if she chooses.

powplz
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 04:50 pm: [report]

@lea322 - there’s a difference between simple ignorance (one simply not knowing something) and someone writing an article who doesn’t take even 10-15 minutes to do a little research on whatever they’re writing about, which is unfortunatley quite common for The Frisky.

lea322
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 04:59 pm: [report]

@joyy: I agree. I guess I just didn’t think name calling and being rude about it was the appropriate response. The posts previous to jrirenb’s seemed to get the point across without being mean-spirited.