Stuff You Should Know - How Gypsies Work

Episode Date: May 6, 2014

Gypsies were called that because they were long ago mistaken as Egyptians. Even their more appropriate name, Roma, is a misnomer since they're not from Romania. Find out about the mysterious history of this nomadic and genuinely misunderstood ethnic group. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. On the podcast, Hey Dude the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude,

bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry Rowland. Just a couple of nomads on the road. Yeah, with our trinkets and our recording. You know, Gypsy's Tramps and Thieves. You like my share? Yeah. I learned it from Jack from

Will and Grace. Oh yeah, was that his share? Well, there was this one really classic scene where he meets Cher in a restaurant, but he thinks it's like a Cher drag queen impersonator. Oh, right. So he calls her like Mr. Sister and like starts giving her pointers on how to do a good share. Yeah, he always does the hair flip. I love that show. It holds up. It's in reruns now. Oh yeah. It's just as good. Yeah. But yeah, I had this horrible share song in my head like while I was studying and it just wouldn't go away. So I listened to it and now I'm like, no, it just got worse. Is there a modern PC version that's Roma, Tramps and Thieves? No, but in my head, you can also say Gypsy's Franks and Beans and it's like kind of neutral.

It's better than Tramps and Thieves. Yeah, good point. But the term Gypsy is... Wait, is that a good point? It's a terrible point. Okay. Don't patronize me. Gypsy's though the word itself. We're going to try not to use because it's a pejorative term. It is. At the very least, it's now considered an ethnic slur. Yeah. And it's in part because it's associated with the concept of being gypped. Like if somebody doesn't give you a fair deal or something like that or rips you off or something like that, you've been gypped. It's short for Gypsy'd. You've dealt with somebody who's a Gypsy. That came from Gypsy. Right. Not the other way around. Right. Because we believe it came from Egypt. Right. It was a misapplication. Yeah. Misunderstanding in the

Greek Isles. By Josh Clark. A romance novel. All right. So let's get into this. We're not going to say Gypsy's like you said. Actually, that's not entirely true. We're probably going to forget once in a while because we're both raised on Shel Silverstein. Yeah. Do you remember? Yeah. You reminded me of this one. The Gypsies are coming. Yeah. Which is it's very difficult to find the original version of the Gypsies are coming, which is a poem with Shel Silverstein's in Where the Sidewalk Ends. Because before his death, and I believe that sometime in the 90s or early 2000s, it was that long ago. But yeah, I remember he changed it from the Gypsies are coming to the Googies or the Googies. Oh, that's nice. Because he felt that it was mean toward

Gypsies and it kind of is because it's about child stealing Gypsies, which is a rumor. Yeah. That's been attached to Gypsies forever. Yeah. They steal children and use them as props in making and pickpocket schemes. Yeah. There are a lot of I guess rumors about the culture and a lot of them are founded. A lot of them are unfounded. Yeah. None of it's just like black and white one way or the other. The Gypsies aren't just some completely kicked around, put upon ethnic group. And at the same time, they're not just a bunch of like thieving, violent playing marauders. Right. You know? Yeah. So anyway, to get to the point, we'll say Roma as much as we can. Yeah. Roma or Romani. And we'll even explain why we call them Roma shortly. Sounds good. Well, we just missed

International Roma Day was on April 8th. Man. And that's been around since 1990. And John Kerry, Secretary of State Kerry came out and had some nice words to say about, you know, celebrating the rich Romani culture and give them a break. Yeah, sort of, you know. But I didn't know there was an International Roma Day. So I don't know if it's sticking in like the mass public. Well, you know, it takes a little time to gain traction. It's been a while. It has been since the 70s. The 70s were like a big era of ethnic and minority group, like saying, Hey, we're here. And like, we're standing up for our rights and you can't kick us around anymore. Right. You know, good for them. We're, we're owning our identity. Yeah.

The Roma did it too. But yeah, it's been a little while. These days, there are around 12 million Roma. And when we say scattered, they are scattered. And that's what they're known for is not dropping down permanent routes and moving along. And one reason is because they've often been forced through the centuries to move along until today. Yeah, there's a, there's a basically the Roma sociologist, the authority on Romani culture. Yeah, people Dr. Romani, Dr. Finesca, Isabella Finesca. She basically points out like, tell me another group that just willfully picks up stakes and leaves all the time, because they just feel like it at at their whim. She's like, that doesn't exist. They move largely mostly because they've been forced

to time and time again. Yeah, I think humans desire to root down that sort of what we've based our success on is people. Yes, is staying one place and fortifying and, you know, sedentaryness. I don't know about sedentary, but like getting couch locked. Yeah, exactly. That's your new favorite term. Yeah. So yeah, they are kind of spread all over the EU. They're scattered to the wind and they do move quite frequently. But it's like you said, it's not necessarily because they're nomadic. They are nomadic people, but not necessarily because they want to be. But the problem is, is wherever they go, virtually everywhere they go in the European Union, they are kind of forced out eventually at some point. Yeah, I sent you the article today and it is literally in today's

news how Paris, there was a leaked note from chief of police in Paris that said on the orders of his superiors, police are to day and night locate Roma families living in the street and systematically evict them. Yeah, even though that is supposedly illegal in France. And it is, it's a chic area of Paris and they don't want people in poverty and a lot of the Romani people are still living in poverty. Pretty much all of them are. And that makes it right. All of the Romani, except for the gypsy kings, the band are living in poverty pretty much. The gypsy kings? They are actual gypsies. Are they really? Yes. I thought they were from Mexico. No, I thought so too, man. They're from Andalusia, Spain. Wow. And their parents were all Romani

that were basically kicked out of Spain by Franco. Huh. And so they're like legitimate Roma people, the band. Isn't that cool? And the only ones with any money? Right, pretty much. And I'm like, wonder what they do? Like, are they still, do they still have that Roma thing to them? Or are they just like, see you guys later? No, I think we're rich. I think from what I've read, the Roma people are, you know, embrace their heritage. Yeah. Yeah. But it seems like it, I mean, to almost to a detrimental degree. Well, last September, Manuel Valls, the interior minister at the time in France declared that Roma gypsies were incompatible with the French way of life and should return home. Yeah, Europe's really going crazy lately. Like the Dutch are forcing all

of their immigrants to learn Dutch or get out, basically. Did they realize how hard Dutch is? Maybe that's the point, you know. Okay. Yeah. And apparently there was like a huge push in the Sun newspaper in Britain to get rid of gypsy beggars from the street. And yeah, the Roma in particular have kind of been the butt of all this stuff. It's not just France. I saw an article where in Rome, two Roma camps in Rome were raided. All of the people were dragged out, taken to the airport, put on a plane to Bosnia. Wow. And a couple of them were underage kids, whose parents weren't in the group at the time. So imagine if you come home from a day of trading cars and your kid is in Bosnia because the cops just rounded them up because they didn't want

you to live on the street there any longer. Trading cars. Yeah, that's what they're into big time. They still trade horses too. Yeah, but they also trade cars too. They'll go to like Germany and buy a car for cheap and then take it to Romania and sell it for a little bit of premium and they make some money that way. That's called Craigslist, buddy. Kind of. Romani Craigslist. Good for them. So the point is wherever they go in the EU, they end up getting the bombs rushed basically. Yeah, I mean, it's called, they call it the gypsy problem still to this day in the European Union. The one place that they can kind of call home is Romania. Yeah, and I think Transylvania too has a pretty robust, fairly settled population. You want to understand? I'm sure they do. They

were led there actually by a purchase by a guy named Vlad Dracul in the 15th century. I think I've heard of that guy. Yeah. So let's talk about how the Roma ended up in their adopted homeland of Romania, where they come from originally, because apparently even they aren't certain. Well, no, that's the one thing they're certain about apparently is where they come from. But that's about it because they, there's a high illiteracy rate, so there's not a lot of record keeping, not a lot of genealogy throughout the years. So a lot of, a lot of it's just kind of lost to history. But I think they did settle on the fact that they came from India, Josh. Okay. Which you knew. Right. You're being coy. That is true. And it took a very long time.

So the Roma say, we're from India. Yes. They know that now. No one knew whether that was correct or not. They were called Gypsies because people thought they were from Egypt. They were in Romania, but they crossed the Balkans. It was really just very confusing. They were just basically this nomadic group of dark-skinned people who spoke their own language and didn't practice the prevailing religions. So everybody just hated them. Well, finally, in the 18th century, a Hungarian scholar, a theologian, I believe, decided he wanted to kind of dig into Romani language and figure out what the deal was with it. And he found quite surprisingly that a lot of it contained Sanskrit. Yeah. So that is going to put you in Northern India. And then they did some

genetic testing to kind of get that stuff confirmed and basically came up with the fact that they migrated out of India about 700 AD, but the dates get a little hazy for sure. Well, some people think that it's 700 AD. This is far back as I think anyone's willing to go. But then I think a lot of historians agree that they're actually descended from a specific group who were ejected from Northern India because of raids from Persia around 1,000 to 1,027 AD. Now, was that with the spread of Islam? Yeah, Mohammed of Ghazni. Yeah, he wanted to spread Islam around. And so he brought in, well, the Hindus organized a group of people to fight that, obviously, to fight the Muslims. And they had an army called the

Rajputs. I think that's as good as any. Or is the J silent, R-A-J-P-U-T? No, no, it's like Maharaja Rajputs, maybe. Yeah, that sounds better. Yeah. And they defeated the army. I'm sorry, they were defeated and then taken captive. And then another group from Persia came along, the Seljuks, and they conquered them and then took the Rajputs out of Northern India and into what is now Turkey. That was the diaspora started then, supposedly. Yeah, that was where they think the Romani originally came from. They were displaced Indians fighting to protect their homeland. And they basically, when they were ejected from Northern India by Mohammed of Ghazni and his people, they became slaves. And then when Mohammed of Ghazni was defeated by the Seljuks,

they became slaves for the Seljuks in Turkey. It's pretty much put upon from the get-go. Right. So they were slaves, servant class, laborers for many centuries. And they finally made it out, I guess, once the Ottomans defeated, no, once the Christians, I guess, went in during the Crusades and defeated the Turks. And Istanbul was converted from Constantinople. The Rajputs, who were by now the Roma, were moved from Turkey across the Balkans into present-day Transylvania, Wallachia, and a large number of them were purchased by Vlad Rikul, also known as Vlad Tepesh or Vlad the Impaler, or Count Dracula. He owned some of the first Romani people to move across, I think like 500 or 5,000, something like that. Holy cow. Yeah. And they suffered

tremendously. Anyone who worked for Vlad suffered tremendously. We'll have to do an episode on him. He hated dust on the shelves. He did. He didn't fly into a rage. It's interesting, though, to see the religion these days, the Roma, like it's kind of all over the map. There are some Christians. Yeah. There are some Muslims, right? And some Hindu? I don't know. Yeah. I think there's not like a single religion for an ethnic group. Well, I guess it's not the weirdest thing. Well, no, but I mean, I think what happened was there was a group of them and then the group became further and further fragmented. Yeah. And so you can take all of the language and the religious beliefs and all of this stuff that is Romani culture and you're probably going to find

some similar elements that you can all trace back to about 1400 AD when they crossed over into the Balkans. Yeah. And then started to spread from there. Yeah. But I think that makes a lot of sense, though, because apparently even the tribes today speak different versions of the same language. So it's right. They don't have like a codified language, even though they're pushing for that. Right. They are. I think that might help. Yeah. So they're in Romania, right? What's now present day Romania? Yeah. And for the next 400 years, they are slaves in Romania until Romania abolishes slavery. Yeah. And even now, that's still that basically their home base. And Romania is like, okay, we'll take care of you guys. Sorry about the last four centuries. Right. And no one else in

the EU will, but Romania does provide for their Romani population more than any other country there. But they were subjugated there, too, weren't they? Or at least discriminated against? Yeah. They were slaves for 400 years. Well, I mean, after that, though, weren't they like, they had a hard time. They weren't served in stores and oh, yes, it still goes on today in Romania. Okay. I thought they were a little like more accepting. No, I think that's like kind of the the I think that's the that doesn't mean that Romania is just like Roma loving, right? They're just they treat them slightly less badly than the rest of your slight Roma tolerant, right? Okay, let's settle on that. But because of the fact that they weren't allowed service in stores,

and maybe they had low literacy and they couldn't get jobs, no one wants to hire them. It was sort of the cyclical thing where they had to resort to thievery and deception. And it's just how do you get build yourself up as a people when you can't work? You still need to eat. So how do you eat? You may be steal something. And so it's just sort of the constant cycle that to this day, they haven't been able to break out of. No, you know, yeah, it is kind of a self perpetuating thing. Like they have a bad reputation in part because they do behave badly. And they behave badly in part because they have a bad reputation. So they can't get a leg up like thousands of years. It's it's unbelievable. Yeah. And there's I think one of the probably the hallmarks of

Romani culture is it's it just won't assimilate. Yeah, like they just don't assimilate into whatever culture there and their their visitors, their guests, yeah, their or parasites or leeches depending on, you know, where you live and how you feel about them. But they are not interested in becoming part of your culture where you live. Yeah, they seem pretty private and like only concerned about their tribe. Right. And the thing is the problem with that is that tends to make the majority of a culture very nervous. Yeah. Yeah. Well, why aren't you like eating our Liberty cabbage and freedom fries? Like what's your problem? You know, I'll bet they love cabbage. Well, like why? Why don't you want to like work nine to five? Yeah, you know, that kind of stuff.

So when when any group won't assimilate and exist on the fringes seemingly, you know, by their own accord, that's that definitely raises a lot of suspicion in the majority culture. Yeah, unless you live in Montana. Yeah, it's true. So maybe they play well there. They play right in. I have friends in Montana. They know I'm kidding. Okay. So right after this message break, we're going to talk about some of the atrocities they suffered during World War Two. Yeah. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're

going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the I Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Attention Bachelor Nation. He's back. The man who hosted some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with a brand new Tell All podcast. The most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. But I promise you this, we have a lot to talk about. For two decades, Chris Harrison saw it all. And now he's sharing the things he can't unsee. I'm looking forward to getting this off my shoulders and repairing this, moving forward, and letting everybody hear from me. What does Chris Harrison have to say now? You're going to want to find out. I have not spoken publicly for two years about this,

and I have a lot of thoughts. I think about this every day. Truly, every day of my life, I think about this and what I want to say. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. It's World War Two. The Nazis are doing their thing. They are not just persecuting Jewish people. They are persecuting anyone that is a minority that they don't agree with in the Roma were some of the first ones that they targeted. And by, what's the word, by percentage of their total population, maybe even suffered more than the Jewish people. As far as like half of the Roma people or something were executed.

I think it was half of a million were in Germany or in the lands that Germany conquered. There's the documentary apparently out, and I read an article on it, but they didn't even give the name of it. But it's these filmmakers in Toronto, Jewish filmmakers made a documentary about the Romani Holocaust because it's just not a story you ever hear. But the filmmakers, Tom Rasky and Lynn Bender, like I said, were Jewish Holocaust survivors, children of Holocaust survivors, and the director and Roma musician actually helped make it. So they are still the musical people, not just the Gypsy Kings. And we don't know the name of the documentary. I couldn't find it. It's a terrible article. It was terrible. So yeah, during World War II,

the Roma and the Jews were the only two ethnic groups that were targeted because of their ethnicity by the Nazis. And yeah, they suffered tremendously and they have a word for it. It means the great devouring. It's a poremos. Poremos. Yeah. It means the great devouring. Yeah, it can also mean rape apparently, which kind of puts a button on that experience. Right. And I did a little more reading about it too. Apparently they really annoyed the SS as well because they would not go quietly. Like they would say they would have them dig their own graves, stand naked in front of them, just so they could chew them and push them in. And he said that they wouldn't just stand there and like take their death gracefully. They would yell and scream and run around and try and dodge

bullets. And I guess it was pretty sensible. Well, yeah, exactly. But I guess that's part of the, you know, the survivor in them because they've been booted all around. You know, they got to do what they can. Right. So like this guy's pointing a gun at me. I'm going to try and get out of here. Right. Even if I'm naked. Yeah. Sad. And the rest of the majority culture was like, no, you just stand still. Right. What's wrong with you? Unbelievable. So one of the more shameful, but also telling things about the Roma Holocaust was the way it was treated afterward. It was basically unmentioned at the Nuremberg trials. Yeah. Which, you know, were to address the Holocaust as a whole, you know, and just kind of ignored like this one whole thing because

that was the Roma apparently. And then one SS officer in history was ever persecuted or prosecuted for crimes against Roma. Just one during World War II. Just one person, even though half a million Roma died. So why, my friend, we, I don't think we posed the question. And why did they think they came from Egypt to begin with? Oh, yeah. Well, apparently it was just a complete accident. Oh, yeah. Well, they came from Northern India originally and a lot of Roma have a dirt complexion and look the part maybe a little to to an untrained eye. Sure. Sure. And they ended up settling in the Greek Isles for a little bit or some at some point, some Roma did. And around there, the place where they settled or the place where they came from

along the Adriatic had been known as Little Egypt. So the people in Peloponnesia thought, oh, well, they're Egyptians. So they started calling them Gypsies. Clearly, because they live in Little Egypt. And they have dark complexions. It's interesting. So what about these days? It's interesting history. But these days, they still, like we said, have a lot of more still musicians. A lot of them still pick up camp and move. Some of them still trade horses. They're known for being metal workers. And well, a lot of them have trades that were learned as slaves in Romania that have been passed down and are still practiced today. So like, for example, some group that was that were copper workers as slaves in Romania, their ancestors

were. Yeah, the groups today do scrap metal. That's what they deal with. So they know what they're doing with with metal like they're a lot of the trades that a Roma clan does for a living. Yeah, is passed down from their days as slaves in Romania. Yeah. And the fact that they're still musicians today is definitely one of those because they found they could make a few bucks by even appearing, trying to appear more exotic and do performances and look at us where the weird exotic Roma people are the Gypsies. Look at how colorful our clothes are. Exactly. And I'm playing my finger tambourine while you're getting your pocket picked perhaps out. No, that's that's something that happened. So was it because apparently the media is totally cool with just

perpetuating lies and untruths about the Roma and is not to be trusted any more than they purport the Roma should shouldn't be. What do you mean? The media the media reports like I read that in that article I read in The Guardian by Dr. Finesca, the Roma authority, right? She points out that I want some British paper said that a Roma woman who they named like by name named her son Lucifer, which is apparently wholly untrue. But this was in like the 90s that that papers were printing this. So apparently the Roma have always been this group that you can kick around and everybody's cool with basically right with you kicking them around. So media reports of the stuff that they do are should be taken with a grain of salt. Yeah, I think so because they're

very often conflated. Yeah, but the point this article makes this is by Kristen Conger of Stuff Mom Never Told You. She does make the point that a lot of it is reputation, but a lot of it is earned reputation, right? Because again, they were kind of forced from town to town and they were poverty stricken. And so they may have had to pick some pockets here and there to put food in the mouths. I hear you, you know, I'm just saying don't read don't believe everything you read in the papers. Yeah. Sociologically speaking, the Roma constitute what's called a middleman minority. Yeah, which is a group that refuses to assimilate. And but still it is discriminated against but still maintains enough communication or contact with the larger culture that they can benefit

economically from that. Like they can still sell you a car. Gotcha. I'll trade you a car. Sure. They're paternalistic, so it's super old school. Like the women are expected to stay home and work the house and the men may or may not work at all. Young girls, they still have arranged marriages even to this day. Getting their daughters matched up with another another person of the Romani cultures is important to them. Apparently teenagers as well. Yeah, like as young as 12. Little weird. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. And they because of the literacy rate, I think it's especially hard on young women. They don't care very much about educating them. Right. And then employment is just kind of a side thing you do when you need money, right? For the most part.

Part of that is that's just kind of part of Romani culture. But it asks the question, you know, do they is that part of Romani culture because they haven't been able to get a job? Do they just not work? And that's part of Romani culture, right? You know, which which side of the coin has actually created this this situation. Yeah. But they apparently were given jobs under communism in Eastern Europe and went to work in factories and things like that. Yeah, for a little while. But then after communism disintegrated, the Roma were fired first, apparently. They were the first ones out the door. Yeah, they're like the bosses. No longer the boss, you're fired. I'm firing you. Yeah. And then of course, from that rose more complaints of stealing and thievery and a lot of

it too isn't just illegal activities, but a lot of begging and panhandling and stuff that apparently in chic districts in Paris is unsightly. So it sounds like from this description that Romani women are, they do almost all of the work, especially around the household. Yeah, they do. And the men may or may not even have jobs. Right. Yeah. But they do exist in clans, and these clans do have tribunals to handle disputes. Sure. And the men kind of run all that stuff like the government of the of the villager group. Yeah. Whereas the women are like running the household stuff. But the men are apparently totally clearly 100% dominant. Yeah. I think that's true. Unless it's just something we read that's not because I read one of the filmmakers

for that documentary said, you know, we're told that they aren't even that nomadic anymore. I'm like, but that flies in the face of everything I've read. So well, it's in this article as well. It says like a lot of them want to settle down and are trying to make trying to establish roots in places. Yeah. They get kicked out eventually. I think they fared pretty well here in the states. Apparently so. I don't know about like, I'm not saying they're they're rising to CEO positions or anything, but I think they haven't been like kicked around like they have been in the EU. Yeah, at least. Well, America loves its traveling romanticized thing, you know, yeah, the open road. Yeah. Oh, yeah, sure. That kind of thing. So anybody who's on the open road is,

you know, romanticized a little bit more here, I think, than in Europe. I think you're right. Um, this, this takes a toll, though, all the, all the poverty and the moving around and the lack of education is going to take a toll on, on any ethnicity. And it's definitely happening with the Romani because they apparently compared to similar populations in Slovakia, Ireland, Czech Republic and Bulgaria die about six to 10 years earlier. And infant mortality rates are double and triple of those in surrounding ethnic groups, which is disturbing. Right. Which you can say, oh, that's right. Well, they're poverty stricken. Sure. They don't eat the most nutritious meals around because they're poverty stricken. Yeah. They don't have easy access to

healthcare. On the other side of the coin, apparently, they also typically shun local medicine. Yeah. In favor of their own medicine, which is often homeopathic, apparently. Right. And so, for example, tuberculosis is just like a, it's like a fatal disease. Even though if you step outside of camp into town, it's not right. You just go to that hospital right there. Yeah. It's not. Yeah. Here's the illiteracy rate is 75% of Romani girls can't read. Yeah. And apparently most Romani kids of either gender don't complete high school. So all of this, the fact that they are poverty stricken, that they have lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality rates, lower education, higher illiteracy rates. Yeah. It's tough to get a leg up. Yeah. Especially

when the entire world basically looks at you like you are never to be trusted. Yeah. So what do you do? I will tell you what you do after this outbreak. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet

and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Attention Bachelor Nation. He's back. The man who hosted some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with a brand new Tell All podcast. The most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. But I promise you this, we have a lot to talk about. For two decades, Chris Harrison saw it all. And now he's sharing the things he can't unsee.

I'm looking forward to getting this off my shoulders and repairing this, moving forward, and letting everybody hear from me. What does Chris Harrison have to say now? You're going to want to find out. I have not spoken publicly for two years about this, and I have a lot of thoughts. I think about this every day. Truly, every day of my life, I think about this and what I want to say. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm dying to know. Do you have the solution? Yeah. Well, it's a long run. We already talked about the solution, but you organize. You get together and you say, hey, we are this group of

people. We have a history. We have a past. Because Dr. Finesca, Isabella Finesca, points out quite rightly, I think the easiest way to dehumanize people is to strip them of any context, any history. Yeah. And that means that the Roma are ripe for exploitation when it comes to that, dehumanization, because they really don't have a history. Historians think maybe that they came out of Northern India a thousand years ago. Yeah. They probably did, but it's not entirely confirmed, right? Can I read this quote by her? Yeah. It's like the saddest thing I've ever read, and this is by Finesca. The Roma have no heroes, no myths of origin, of a great liberation, of the founding of a nation, of a promised land. And that's like pretty much puts the

Jerry on top. Right. So, since pretty much every other culture on the planet does have that, it makes them appear shiftless, aimless, lazy. Yeah. Like so lazy, they don't even care about their own culture. So how can anybody else care about their culture? Well, finally, some Roma got together in the 70s and said, we're going to start being Romani activists. Like we're misunderstood. And I think from this interaction inside and out and the separation between us and the rest of the world, this misunderstanding is creating some self-fulfilling prophecies, so perpetuating myths. And they got together and said, okay, we come from Northern India, India, we want you to sponsor like a Congress. And they did. And they did in 1971. Yeah,

it was very awesome. The first world Romani Congress. And there were Romani from 14 different countries, and they picked out a flag and an anthem, which sounds so weird that you would have to do that in the 70s. I'll bet it's exuberant. I'm sure it was. No, the anthem. Oh, you think? I'll bet the Gypsy Kings can play it really well. It probably sounds like Beirut, you know, that band. He sounds like Gypsy-ish. Yeah. A Romani-ish. Yeah. So it was, you know, it was a big unifying moment and a rare unifying moment for the people in 1971. And because they had the sponsorship of India, though, the UN had to, I say had to, maybe they really wanted to, officially recognize them as an ethnic group in 1978. So that was a victory seven years later.

Yeah. Wouldn't you say? Sure. Well, what's sad, though, is it's, I guess, one of the more prevalent proposals for getting Romani like a leg up is for them to assimilate culturally. Apparently, nothing's ever really going to change until they are willing to assimilate culturally. And that's kind of like the crux of the matter. The problem is, is if you start to assimilate, you lose your culture. Yeah, which is happening somewhat, you know, they're already having a hard time holding on to their dialect because of its fractured nature with the different tribes. But like you said, assimilation, it's a bit of a sad thing, you know, let go of your own past that's already checkered. So I don't know. Would that mean the end of the Romani?

Well, I mean, you can also make the case that, you know, the Chinese have been middlemen minority, Jewish people have been middlemen minority in different places. Yeah. Any group that comes to a new place and settles and then just kind of maintains its ethnic identity for a while is a middlemen minority. Yeah. And you can look around and say, well, you know, Chinese have assimilated into the U.S. pretty fully. Yeah. But you still understand there's such a thing as, you know, Chinese ethnic and cultural identity. Yeah, they're still a Chinatown in most major cities. Right. So I don't know. Maybe they'll be like Romani town in San Francisco a hundred years from now and San Francisco. The president will be Romani. Yeah. You know,

you never know. Who knows? But it won't happen. Apparently, I guess that's the better. That's the deal that's on the table. Yeah, we'll take care of you, but you have to stop being outside fringe drawing weirdos. Well, and until they're like this whole Paris deal, the reason why they're shuffling them out of this one district is because they were shuffled out of another district. That's yeah. And it happens on a macro scale as well. Yeah. Like not just within the city, but within Europe as a whole. Well, and one of the, I can't remember the lady's name, but one of the French bureaucrats said, we just need to get them back to where they came from. No. Back to Romania. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's like, really? He just said that. Yeah. It's 2014,

you know. Yeah. Well, plus also, it shows a little bit of historic literacy. Yeah. But do you want to talk about other terms for them, depending on where they are? Yeah, sure. So in the UK, they call them travelers. What else? In Rome and Spain, they're called Gitanos. So the gypsy gypsy kings are technically Gitanos. Okay. Let's see. In Germany and Italy, they call them Sinto. I can't believe I thought the gypsy kings were from Mexico. That's pretty ignorant. No, no. I think most people thought that who aren't like in the world music, you know, but have heard of the gypsy kings or whatever. You know, it's, they see, they play huge guitars. Okay. Thank you. You know, I'm with you on that one.

I just didn't want to be the white guy. It's like, they're Mexican, right? I don't think it's like that. Okay. So that's the gypsy kings. You got anything else on gypsies on Roma? Man, I'm sorry. I know, but the title of the article is how gypsies work. And I think it'll attract listeners because people, I don't think a lot of people understand what the heck it is. I didn't. What? Roma? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it makes you think like, well, they're from Rome. Yeah. No. Romania. No. I wonder if that means that Romania is from Rome. This is one of the more confusing episodes we've done. As it turns out, if you want to learn more about the Roma or Romani, don't type those words. Type gypsy into the search bar

at house2works.com and it will bring up this article. And I said search bars means it's time for listener mail. This is a question posed to us from Josh Roberts of Washington, D.C. Hey guys, I'm a big fan. I found the podcast last year and downloaded a few episodes, but it caught my interest and ended up going back to the beginning and I've listened to every episode on iTunes. Josh, I don't know if you know this, but we have a lot more episodes than that, my friend. Yeah, I know that. Are you talking to Josh? Josh Roberts. Josh Clark. Yeah. We have a whole page now with all of our episodes on our website at stuffyshow.com. Yeah. ITunes features the most recent 301 episodes. Yeah. And we have like 630 something episodes. Yeah. So he may know

that, but maybe not. Go back and listen to the old ones. They're pretty funny. There's some good ones in there. Yeah. Not the real old ones, but you know, after maybe 50, they really started to get good. I stopped talking so fast and like it's just a total jackass. And we left the cave that we recorded in. Yeah. The can. Okay. So he's writing because he has an important question to ask. Imagine that time travel is real and you can go to any time, place in all of history and you could bring one thing with you. My question is where would you go and what would you bring? I've been asking people this question since I was 16. Now I'm 42 years old and I've had many interesting and some disturbing answers. About 25% are money making ploys like the old Back to the

Future, bringing the sports almanac. Many people talk about going back to Mozart or Beethoven's time to bring and bringing a recording device. And then of course, other notable answers include shooting Hitler, stopping the murder of JFK or MLK. My favorite answer is going back to the late 1400s with a battleship and making sure the Europeans never reached the Americas. Yeah. So we have to answer this now. My question to Josh Roberts is, is this something that are you going to go come back to present day time? Because, you know, what good would it go do to go record Beethoven if you're stuck there or the recording of Beethoven? Oh, yeah, there's a caveat. So if you can come back to present day time, I've thought about this. I haven't had the

benefit of thinking. Just keep thinking. I think I might go back to the time of Jesus in biblical times, because I've well documented my constant struggle with my religious upbringing over the years. Yeah, you're going to go to the source and be like, I'm going to go to the source and I'm taking a video camera with unlimited amounts of, you know, recording space. Okay. Let's say. So an SD card. Yeah, a bunch of them. Okay. And I can bring this back. And I think it would, I think it would delight everyone. I think Christians would be delighted because you could have real footage of Sherman on the Mount in these. I think delighted might be understating the reaction you would get. They would be over the moon about having original recordings of Jesus doing his thing. I would

think so. And I think it would also be helpful to just sort of sort out what the deal was and say, you know what, are these stories allegory? Are they, did they really happen? And am I going to go back and see people walking on the water and come back and say, hey, you know what? It's all absolutely true, everyone. I think it would be like the greatest discovery in religion has had such an impact on world history. So that's my boom. That's what I'm doing. That's a good one. Thanks. Let's see. I should have sent this to you ahead of time. Yeah. I feel bad for I feel bad for springing it on you. Well, I'll just give a cursory one. I would, I would go to, I would go to probably some place that's kind of an exotic locale now, but like 60 years ago,

when it was super exotic. So I would say, you know what, I would go to like Polynesia or Cuba in 1920. Okay. And I realized they were nowhere near the same thing. Okay. But I would go to, I would go to Cuba in 1920. And the thing I would take would be Yumi. Interesting. So you just go for a vacation. Basically, a forever vacation. Yeah. All right. See, I would recommend you go back even further to Cuba before there was anyone there with like a big gun and then you own Cuba. I don't want to own Cuba. And like, I like the local flavor. You know what I mean? Like, I like the local flavor that's like not been, there's not like an old Navy anywhere near this local flavor. It's like totally local

flavor, but they also have, you know, mojitos already. Okay. So you would go get away from the things of man back in the day with your wife, where they have alcohol served. Yes. That's a great answer. Thanks. I love it. It was off the cuff. I can just picture you and Yumi kicking it in 1920 in Cuba. Cuba. Yeah. I'd wear one of those shirts. I'd be one of those guys who wear Cuban shirts. Yeah. What are those called? The Cuban shirts. No, there's another name. I can't remember. I'm sure it's like the cruise wear. Right. Yeah. But with two pockets and the yeah, unnecessary seams and stuff. There's a name somewhere. John Honchman and Jesse Thorn are going. It's blah, blah, blah. We can't hear you. I know. All right. Well, that was it for Romani.

If you want to hang out with me and Chuck outside of this podcast, you can. You can find us on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook. You can just look up stuff you should know, S-Y-S-K, Josh and Chuck on your favorite web browser and bring up all that stuff. You can send us an email to stuffpodcasteddiscovery.com and hang out with us on our website, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Chris saw it all and now he's telling all. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.