Thank you for articulating these thought so clearly. I wonder if Tony Barrand might have some idea about the origins from the Morris and longsword perspective.
Patricia Sent from my iPhone > On Oct 24, 2015, at 5:05 PM, Alan Winston via Callers > <[email protected]> wrote: > > I think apologizing for unintentionally offending is good but I don't think > you have to take on all of what your correspondent is offended over. > > Your correspondent made up the idea that it's so named because of the idea > that Romani women are oversexualized. > > Here's my take on this: > > - the use of the term "Gypsy" is inherently offensive to some of the people > to whom it refers in just the way the use of the term "Indian" is inherently > offensive to some Native Americans. It's a name they don't accept (a) > because it incorrectly ascribes an incorrect geographical origin to them > (Egyptian for Gypsies, India (well, East Indies) for Indians) and (b) was > assigned to them by outsiders and became the terms used for them by people > who wanted to move them along / kill them. (Although the term the Nazis > used, Zigeuner, derives from a Greek root meaning "untouchable" rather than > "Egyptian", according to the US Holocaust Museum website.) > > - The term "Indian File" for walking in a line, one after another, doesn't > suggest anything particularly derogatory about Native Americans; I think it's > an observation or speculation that the way East Coast (forest-dwelling) > indigenous people walked through forests on minimal trails was in single > file. We can point out that white society thinks there are many admirable > things about native peoples - the whole "Indian Guides" thing shows that - > and that the use of the world "Indian" in that isn't intended to be > offensive, etc, etc, and yet the obviously right thing to do was to start > saying "single file" instead, because the benefits of not pointlessly > offending people vastly outweighed the benefits of continuing to use a > non-descriptive term. It's virtually never effective and rarely kind to tell > people they shouldn't be offended. > > - By me, the same logic suggests that we should stop calling the figure > gypsy. We can go at length into why it's not named after Gypsies, why > "Gypsy" is a superset name that includes Rom and other traveling people, some > of whom don't mind it, the use of gypsy to mean "traveler" (from which dance > gypsy, Gypsy moth, etc, derive), the admiring use of gypsy to mean free > spirit ("gypsy in my soul"), etc, but none of that actually matters in this > context. What actual benefit do we derive from calling it "gypsy", other > than the sunk cost of having a community of people who know it by that name? > It's not descriptive. (It is evocative and we have a bunch of dances with > "gypsy" in the name; not sure what to do about those.) > > (I had been thinking that it would be very difficult to get a universal > change of name for the figure in the absence of a Callerlab for Contra, but > Yoyo's post (where he says he'll just drop the name and prompt by which > shoulder you go around) opened my eyes to the possibility of effective > individual action by callers; you don't need universal agreement on a new > name. That does open the door to a dancer on the floor saying "you mean > gypsy?" but I guess you can say "that name is offensive to some people".) > I'm going to have to think more about this for my own practice as an English > and a contra caller. > > - I'm personally interested in the history of things and how they got their > names, and I'm convinced that gypsy in contra was picked up from gypsy in > English which was picked up from "whole-gyp" and "half-gyp" in Morris and > that there's not necessarily any relationship of the name to any group of > people in origin, and I do not believe that in naming the figure anybody was > saying anything about the stereotypical characteristics of any people. I > really, with all the intellectual honesty I have available, don't believe > that. (And I've heard different stereotypical characteristics assumed to be > the origin - sexuality, untrustworthiness, tendency to do non-touching > dances, so I think these are all just-so stories, ex post facto > rationalizations.) I don't think this blameless origin is a reason to keep > the name, and I know it's absolutely ineffective to point out the blameless > origin to somebody who's offended. > > That's the end of my argument, but I have more thoughts. > > - This is different from people who are offended by callers who sexualize the > figure, which they could do whatever it's called. I don't mind gypsy > meltdowns, but I find "until you just can't stand it anymore" kinda tedious; > let's just walk around each other maintaining a comfortable level of eye > contact until the music tells us to swing, how about that?) (And I think > sexualizing things and telling dancers how they're supposed to feel, > especially if it's sexual, is just getting more and more passe as different > people of different (and no) sexual orientation are dancing on different > sides of the set. We're all people, we're all dancing together, that's > enough.) > > - I *like* the figure, and I really like the dance providing a safe space to > look at somebody else's face and look them in the eye without it necessarily > signaling anything. In the general world meeting people's eyes can carry a > lot of unintended freight; I think it's great to have a place where you can > just do it as part of the dance. Ideally a connection is established, but > there are all kinds of connections and they're not necessarily sexual. > (Which is not to say that I haven't gotten stirred up, even in meltdown-free, > far-apart English dance gypsies, but that's way different from the caller > telling everybody they're supposed to.) > > -- Alan > > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net
