Badger Badger

I received this just now. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

In Romany culture, bagders are unclean and loathsome creatures, similar to the Jewish and muslim cultures concerning pigs( Which are also unclean beasts amongst us) To publicly declare on your website that a Gipsy was reared by bagders is deeply offensive.
Now I have no problem with your picture there, or of your attacks on me, you can attack me all you like, but racism is another matter and I humbly ask you to remove the racist comments of Gipsies being reared by badgers, it is obvious to me and other members of my community that have viewed the said picture that you are seeking to "Promote racial hatred" a serious criminal offense, so kindly Joe please remove reference to badgers, perhaps you did not know this aspect of my culture, but you do now, so from now on you have no excuse....................Mara

Do we have any Romany experts in the house? I can find no mention of this on Wikipedia, nor the other sites I have looked at just now.

Although, the photoshopped image she is talking about made no mention of the person being a Romany. And no link between Romanies and Badgers was never implied or inferred. No badgers were harmed during the making of this image.


I have drafted a response. But unfortunately Mara has blocked me (gasp). But I know she reads my blog so I will post it here. Maybe someone can send it to her on my behalf..

Hello Mara

Lovely to hear from you. I have missed out little chats. I did write a
response to Rob, but he blocked me. It's a shame really. Personally I think he
was going on a little too much about me calling him TS. I think he denies it a
little too much. If you see him, do have a word, I think he's a little repressed
and maybe needs to explore his feminine side a little more.

Anyway, thank you for the email. I must admit I was a little shocked by
what you said. I did spend some time looking on a few Romany websites and found
no mention of a Badger Taboo, as it were. But then Wikipedia isn't foolproof.
Perhaps you should go there and offer your assistance in updating the Wikipedia
entries for both Badgers and Romanies. I am sure they would be more than happy
to make the neccessary corrections.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badger

Isn't the internet great? That we can all learn together.

Going back to my recent montage. I don't quite think you have read it
carefully. You see if you did you would notice that there is no mention of
Romany or Gypsy or any of those terms. From the name MacLeod you can infer that
the person in the image may be Scottish, but then Christopher Lambert was in
fact Belgian if I remember correctly.

I don't think the Scottish, or for that matter the Belgians, have
actually got anything against Badgers. So in that respect I believe I am safe
from any badger-inspired culls.

So you see, I can't actually remove the comment about gypsies being
reared by badgers, since I have made no claim of any gypsy being involved in the
image. That was a leap of supposition on your part. I can assure you that the
image is entirely kosher.

Best wishes

Jo(e)

Edit: I have been blocked from most of the other profiles.. but not GirlJayla. So I have sent it to her with a polite note to pass it on to Mara.