Aside from the fact that I feel that "political correctness" has gotten out of
hand in society in general, I would like to point out that words change their
intentions over time as well as within different communities. While it may be
true that gypsy was originally meant as a derogatory term against a certain
group of people, in the contra community it is quite the opposite. Gypsy in
Contra actually has two meanings, the first is the dance move and in fact other
moves where you are facing another person (i.e. gypsy star, gypsy heys) and
there are dance gypsies who travel frequently to other dances outside their
home community. Neither one is at all derogatory. Gypsy moves are fun and
moSt people really like them. Dance gypsies are very proud of being one. In
no way whatsoever is the term meant to be derogatory in our community. There
are many examples of this in society, but I will just point out one .. troll.
Troll has an original meaning as a mean mythical creature, who, somewhere along
the lines became associated with living under a bridge. In today's society a
troll came to mean someone who reads computer forums, usually with malicious
intentions. But even that has shifted so people refer to trolling the Internet
as reading forums or posts without any intent to post at all. But you know what
troll means to me, as someone who grew up in Michigan? I lived in the southern
peninsula, or "under the bridge" - referring to the Mackinaw bridge). It is
not derogatory, it is funny. I don't think we need to change any term that
used to be derogatory, I would encourage people to recognize that in our
society, it has a different meaning, and a very positive one at that. Language
changes over ten and terms take on all new meanings. If I were to respond to
this woman, I would explain to her that while we recognize that gypsy was
originally a derogatory term, gypsies are highly regarded in our community and
explain why.
Janet
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone
In response to this person from your dance I would personally reply with
something like:
"I'm sorry that you were offended and take your input seriously. The "gypsy"
move in Contra dancing is shared from English Country Dance, and is a
standardized term in this context. As a result of your input I've raised this
issue with a group of dance leaders I participate in and there may be an
opportunity to rename this move over time. Thanks for coming to our dance and I
hope you'll join us again."
On Sat, Oct 24, 2015 at 3:12 AM, Amy Wimmer via Callers
<[email protected]> wrote:
In teaching it I wanted to convey that it is a flirty, eye contact sort of
move. This person was obviously offended. I am at a loss for how to respond,
except to apologize for offending.
