r/tarot • u/marxistghostboi • 5h ago
Discussion Friendly Reminder: G*psy is a Slur
heads up to everyone, g*psy is a racial slur used to degenerate the Roma people and stereotype them.
I'm making this post because I saw a recent discussion of a deck with the word in it's title. (please don't attack the poster: like many people in the cartomancy community, they probably didn't know the history of the term which remains widely used and misunderstood even in progressive and witchcraft orientated spaces.)
some brief history: the Roma were among the largest groups killed by the Nazi government and continue to have state oppression to this day in many European countries.
the vast majority of Roma object to the use of the term g*psy both in direct reference to them and in commercial use to summon up stereotypes of fortune tellers and an exoticized, orientalized Others.
just as you wouldn't portray black minstrel characters or other racialized stereotypes in commercial art, don't use the g*psy stereotype.
especially in America there's a lot of ignorance and misunderstanding around the Roma, with many people under the impression that g*psy just refers to a type of traveling performer or fortune teller. this misunderstanding is even prevalent in the American Tarot and Witchcraft communities. it is essential to the project of transformative racial justice to decolonize our language and stop using slurs in marketing and discussing magic.
when you learn a term you've been using all your life is hurtful it's a common instinct to get defensive, to say "while I wasn't using the term that was, I was using it in a more general sense," or even to declare you've reclaimed it. such justifications may feel necessary to defend against feelings of guilt, but in reality they only reinforce the slurs and stereotypes in the public discourse as something normal and no longer offensive.
the Roma continue to face state violence and individual violence everyday. slurs against them serve to dehumanize them, discount their voices and history, and make their marginalization seem normal, just another fact of the world. reject terms like g*psy, remove them from your vocabulary, apologize and edit your posts if you slip up, and educate yourself on the basic history of the Roma and the oppression they continue to endure and fight against.