FWIW, I totally agree with Yigido, and dont think he should feel like he has to apologise at all. It's not "liberal" stance, its not a "bleeding heart" stance, it DECENT HUMAN BEING stance. You dont write off an entire race for the criminality of a part.

Ive read this thread a bunch of times, and every time I start typing a reply then think "You know what? I dont want to get involved." But this is too much.

Ive spent time in Southern Spain and read up on a lot of things, but its always a "friend of a friend" story. Ive listened to old Italian guys rail at the "bloody gypsies", full of a million dastardly stories, but when you press them for stuff thats actually happened to them, they basically all (well the two old Southern Italian gentleman in question)admit that actually, besides one time they gave some gypsy a few lira, they'd actually had nothing to do with at all with Gypsies in general, besides knowing a couple of boys from a Gypsy family that YES actually lived in a house and YES actually had a dad who worked for a living and YES they had a crush on their hot, older gypsy sister.

Basically, they admitted that they'd pretty much just inherited their prejudices. From parents that inherited theirs against a people that "did things different". Its bullshit.

Im definitely not saying there's not a high prevelance of crime. Hell, in Andalucia I bought my drugs of an old Gypsy woman who had her extended family about her pretty much 24/7. A pretty Gypsy girl once smiled and gave me a beautiful rose in Seville. I smiled graciously and thanked her in my broken Spanish as she smiled back. As I started walking on, a heavy hand fell on my shoulder and I turned to be facing a large, hairy guy who angrily demanding something or other (I gathered that much) Luckily my Spanish grandfather was on scene to flip the guy a $2 coin (well, euro coin) and tell him to bugger off and stop trying to scam his yokel tourist grandson with his sexy daughter. On the beach at Cadiz, a Gypsy looking guy had a bunch on stuff on a beach towel for sale. I bought a shitty pair of headphones off him for three euro. They lasted 2 days.

Whoa. These guys are frickin criminal masterminds.