The resilient and highly civilizing Gypsy in me!
By Stanley Collymore
You’re by far much more than simply cleverly outstanding
Nicole Barr, as unquestionably you’re perceptibly as well
a vibrant an undoubtedly a confirmed intellectual star;
for academically-wise and in every other feasible
respect that one can realistically recognize,
accept and additionally as well futuristically proudly
contemplate, your innate qualities conjoined with
your erudite nature and conspicuously cerebrally
mature disposition discernibly demonstrate not
only your amazing scholarly capabilities but
also the maliciously untold and unheralded
ones, both individually and collectively, of your people
that notwithstanding them is nevertheless either resentfully
ignored, dismissively vilified or else contemptuously
denigrated, and that the grudging highlighting of
your truly outstanding, intellectual acumen
placing you, and most ironically so, as
one of the “Travelling People†atop
the steeple not just of your Romani
Gypsy Nation but all humanity,
will henceforth most surely
and justifiably frustrate, negate and hopefully
as well permanently eradicate the negative
connotations contemptibly levelled at
you and your people. Meanwhile,
my sincerest congratulations to
you for what at 12 years old
you’ve most wonderfully
and quite remarkably
in every possible
way visibly
done!
© Stanley V. Collymore
5 August 2015.
Author’s Remarks:
Gypsy or Romani people are Europe’s oldest deep-rooted and longstanding resident population that migrated to the European continent initially from the Indian Sub-continent several millennia years ago. Mistakenly referred to by the very much later and markedly increasingly numerical numbers of settlers of white Caucasian stock as Gypsies, because it was ignorantly perceived by these white newcomers that those whom they found in Europe and had preceded them there had originally come from Egypt hence the expression universally applied to them of Gypsy, and that over successive generations has persistently been employed as a racist and vilifying term of abuse by these Johnny-and-Jane-come-lateleys against these original, and by any realistic definition of the word authentic inhabitants of Europe; the Gypsies or Romani people have also over the centuries systematic and barbarically been subjected to, and still are quite unwarrantedly treated in this most despicable manner in 2015, to the worst kinds of gratuitous prejudices, abuses and blatant criminal injustices suffered by any people on Earth other than arguably Blacks.
For just one example of this Gypsies were savagely rounded up, transported to and instantaneously exterminated in their millions in multiple death and concentration camps across Europe at the time of Europe’s holocaust and the Nazis and fascists control of the European continent but unlike some highly favoured and noticeably graspingly greedy enfant terrible who’ve made the most monetarily and still carry on doing so from Europe’s compensation payouts while paradoxically and in typical Stockholm Syndrome infested style are now carrying out their own dementedly inflicted holocaust against the Palestinian people, the Gypsies in manifestly marked contrast and to this very day have not received a single Euro for the immense tribulations which they themselves have similarly suffered, or are they in the prevailing climate of intolerance and racist attitudes prevalent across Europe ever likely to do so.
Therefore, as a Black person and whose own ancestors were savagely subjected for centuries to the barbarities of the Transatlantic and Caribbean Slave Trade, it’s with great humility but also with enormous pride that I greatly and most sincerely congratulate Nicole Barr on her fantastic success, commend her on it, and genuinely extend my very best wishes currently and also for the future to her and her people. And in full Barbadian solidarity say: “Much respect to you young lady!â€
