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.
No one is saying it is not right to be tolerant and of course it is not fair to brand an entire people as criminal do to the behavior of a few but the fact is the vast majority of Gypsies in Italy are criminals and raised to be criminals. This is a fact. Find me a stat that shows otherwise and I will view it with an open mind and to brand us as racist for speaking out against this type of behavior was wrong and Yidigo saw this and was decent enough to apologize. Aside from a murderer, rapist or child abuser a racist is about the lowest form of life and most people would be offended to be called that. I have nothing against romanians but I do have a problem with Romanian Gypsies assaulting my relatives, forcing them to relocate from a house they lived in for 2 decades and people being afraid to speak out about it for fear of being branded as a racist or bigot. Mabey the 2 old Italians you talked to were exaggerating but I talk to Italian of all ages every day and everyone one will tell you they have been scammed or assaulted more than once by this criminal group. I would be happy to add you as a friend on facebook or skype and link you with Italian who deal with this problem every day so you could be enlightened beyond the opinions of the 2 older gentlemen you spoke with.
You said yourself it is not fair to paint everyone with the same brush based on the actions or opinions of a few but is not that exactly what you are doing by grouping all Italians together because of the opinions of the 2 elderly guys who spoke with? Is my sister lying and embellishing when she tells me that she has to take a different route to work every day because she is afraid of getting swarmed and mugged again when walking through the park? Did it really just happen to a friend of a friend of hers because that was the case with the 2 old guys you spoke with?
In all honesty up until a year or so ago, I did not know that Gypsies were from Romania. I had no idea where they were from and still had the same opinions as I do now and would have the same opinion regardless of if they were from Africa, Canada, Asia, Australia or all of the above.
