{"id":7548,"date":"2018-04-19T19:28:28","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T03:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=7548"},"modified":"2018-04-27T20:01:33","modified_gmt":"2018-04-28T04:01:33","slug":"miles-to-go-before-we-sleep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/miles-to-go-before-we-sleep\/","title":{"rendered":"Here is what’s in a name"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephanie Blair | Copy Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

Every year on Yom HaShoah, these disturbing little flags are planted around campus to educate passersby about the effects of the Holocaust and \u2014 debatably \u2014 honor those whose lives were lost in concentration camps. There are different colors for different groups, and a key so you can read which groups are represented by what.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is this sign that I take issue with. Having attended Western for four Shoahs now, I am disappointed to say that Western\u2019s signage still uses an ethnic slur to refer to an affected group: the Roma and Sinti tribes. The word I\u2019m referring to, which I\u2019ll write just once in it\u2019s full form for clarity, is gypsy.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that may not seem like something upsetting to you. It\u2019s a word that, as Americans, we were raised to associate simply with the idea of being a free spirited nomad. We heard it in a Fleetwood Mac song, we know the Broadway musical \u2014 even recently, Netflix has released a show under that name, Lady Gaga released a song with that title in 2013 and \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d used the word freely in two skits in the last two weeks. This is a present issue even today \u2014 even on our campus, so let’s take a quick history lesson.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEuropeans imposed the word \u201cg—y\u201d on Romani when they came to Europe, believing that we originated from Egypt because of our dark features,\u201d the National Organization for Women explained in a blog post. \u201cRomani have a history of persecution in Europe; it is estimated by Roma historians that over 70 to 80 percent of the Romani population was murdered in the Holocaust, a fact that is little known or recognized. Even lesser known, Romani experienced chattel slavery in Romania for over 500 years ending in 1860.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A name given to a racial group by white Europeans who were then oppressed by said white Europeans and whose culture is now used as a cheap costume for Halloween and \u201cfestival\u201d season. It feels so familiar…<\/span><\/p>\n

Not to mention that Roma women, stereotyped as sexually loose and untamable, were forcibly sterilized in Europe as recently as the 1990s. So, there\u2019s that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Which brings me back to this sign. If this had happened once and then been corrected, this piece wouldn\u2019t be published. But the organizers of this event have been approached before, yet no change has come.<\/span><\/p>\n

So now, in a free publication, I\u2019d like to make a public call: change the damn signs. I\u2019m in my last term of my senior year and I have 600 print credits \u2014 I\u2019ll reprint them for you. I really don\u2019t mind. I think it\u2019s a negligible cost to respect the dead, as well as the living.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contact the author at sblair13@wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n

Photo by:\u00a0Share.america.gov<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephanie Blair | Copy Editor Every year on Yom HaShoah, these disturbing little flags are planted around campus to educate passersby about the effects of the Holocaust and \u2014 debatably \u2014 honor those whose lives were lost in concentration camps. There are different colors for different groups, and a key so you can read which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1030,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}