And some of you were worried about the new LONDON mayor...

[snoopy369]

[q="Spiffor"]Both groups have actually experienced the same catastrophe. It took the Shoah for antisemitism to finally become politically incorrect in Europe (or more accurately, most of it), thanks to an intense and coordinated effort done by the remaining Jews. Gypsies kept their trauma much more to themselves, and thus haven't reverted their image when the European public opinion and elites felt most guilty.[/q]

I think a lot of it is also that Jews, as a group, are much better off financially than the Gypsies (and have been at least since WWII; I'm not sure pre-WWII if that was the case, and it's certainly not impossible that the Holocaust actually caused this [the richer Jews were more able to escape].) They thus have more power to affect their image, and fewer criminal elements (it is trivial to show that economic success correlates inversely with (petty) criminality). The Gypsies are, either due to their culture or due to external factors, poorer; in a lot of ways they are in a similar position to the Native Americans over here, except that they don't own casinos and there's not the "We stole your land so we feel sorry for you" element (as far as I know). Therefore they are going to have a larger criminal element, and are less able to fight the stereotypes. (Native Americans have a bad image in this sense as well, although as they are largely still on reservations, the stereotype focuses on drunkenness and/or laziness. However, in the areas where they are located (such as southern NM, where I grew up), there is a presumption of higher criminality among their youth, although not to the extent of the Gypsies.)

[Ben Kenobi]

All else being equal, I would presume a nomadic lifestyle would be less likely to favour wealth acquisition.

[Traianvs]

Alemanno, his name says it all really: a barbarian simpleton

[Theben]

Originally posted by C0ckney

you have admitted that you have little to no personal experience of gypsies, and yet you call me a bigot when i describe my own experiences with the same. just to be clear, these things happened in real life.

Well I've had bad experiences with blacks... and hispanics, and whites for that matter. But I'm not ready to condemn "95%" of the lot b/c of my experiences.

I failed to mention that I have also personally met descendants of gypsies here in the US, and they were as normal as any other middle class group (aside from knowing how to pick pockets).

[Wezil]

How do you list that skill on a resume?

[Theben]

"Have personally handled several clients' accounts to financial success".

[Dinner]

Il Giornale warns Romanian minister that Italy is no longer "promised land" for Romanian immigrants

Italian media on Tuesday debated extensively the future set of laws prepared by authorities in Rome to deal with immigrants and public safety in the country, with a focus on Romanian immigrants and warnings to authorities in Bucharest about what is next to come. La Republicca, Corriere della Sera and Il Giornale are among the newspapers that dealt with the set of laws and the reaction of the Romanian government yesterday on their front pages today, HotNews.ro correspondent Miruna Cajvaneanu reports.

La Repubblica quoted on its Tuesday front page Interior minister Roberto Maroni who proposed the use of troops to defend public safety. It also recalls the position of Romania whose authorities warned against the appearance of xenophobic acts in Italy. Romanian Ambassador to Italy Razvan Rusu is also quoted as saying that Italians should make a clear distinction between honest Romanian people who have integrated with the Italian society well and those involved in criminal acts who should be punished as deserved.

The same warning against acts of xenophobia that the Romanian government issued on Monday is quoted by Il Messaggero as well.

For its part, Corriere della Sera describes the position of the Romanian government extensively as wll as that of Italian minister Franco Frattini who said Italy would not want to harm relations with Romania, but while honest Romanians would be welcomed in Italy, criminal immigrants from Romania should be caught and sent back to their home country - no mass expulsion involved.

Il Giornale deals with the issue of Romanian criminals in Italy as well with a harsh column on its front page that says Romania should take its criminals back. The paper blames the presence of many Romanian criminals in Italy on the policies of the Prodi government who it says opened the door to Romanians and Bulgarians to Italy.

http://english.hotnews.ro/stiri-regional_europe-3003123-giornale-warns-romanian-minister-that-italy-no-longer-promised-land-for-romanian-immigrants.htm

It's currently being discussed a suspension of the Schengen treaty, since the situation got worse after Romania joined the European Union, in January 2007. However, anti-immigration measures are being opposed by the EU.



Meanwhile, violence spreads in Italy.

In Novara, "roma" gypsies were saved by rain, as some molotov bombs thrown at their camp were uneffective.

http://www.prealpina.it/web/dettaglio.do?idPubblicazione=1535990&pagina=1&idArticolo=1536399&tipoNavigazione=testuale

In Naples instead, after a gypsy tried to kidnap a child, a huge crowd gathered at the camp and put it to fire. Romas were protected and escorted out by police

http://corrieredelmezzogiorno.corriere.it/campania/cronache/articoli/2008/05_Maggio/14/rom_fuga.shtml

[Dinner]

Picture of burned gypsie camp.

[Dinner]

Italy's latest move was to require all Roma, and only ethnic Roma, to have their finger prints taken by police.

Italy rebuke on Roma fingerprints

Italy's fingerprinting of members of the country's Roma community is a direct act of racial discrimination, the European Parliament has said.

In a resolution adopted by 336 votes to 220, MEPs called on Italy to bring the practice to an immediate halt.

Italy's foreign minister said the move was "politically motivated and based on prejudices" against the country.

The government says it has begun fingerprinting as part of a broader crackdown against crime.

The resolution called on Italy "to refrain from collecting the fingerprints from Roma, including minors, as this would clearly constitute an act of discrimination based on race and ethnic origin".

Strong message

It also "condemned utterly and without equivocation all forms of racism and discrimination faced by the Roma and those seen as 'gypsies'".

Italy's right-wing government introduced the fingerprinting measure saying it would cut crime, avoid children being used for begging and help identify illegal immigrants for expulsion.

An estimated 150,000 Roma live in Italy, mainly in squalid conditions in one of an estimated 700 encampments on the outskirts of major cities such as Rome, Milan and Naples.

Italian newspapers have published pictures of officials taking fingerprints from gypsies living in and around the southern city of Naples and filing the prints according to religion, ethnicity and level of education.

The European resolution, while non-binding, does send out a strong political message.

The lawmakers urged the European Commission to see if the Italian measures - which have also been criticised by UN children's agency Unicef - were violating European law.

But former EU Justice Commissioner and current Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini defended the measure which he said "does not target ethnic groups and is not inspired by racism but by the elementary need to identify anyone who does not have a valid document".

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7500605.stm

[Straybow]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Well, we don't have gypsies in the US, but from what almost everyone on here is saying, the vast, vast, vast majority of gypsies are basically thieves. That doesn't mean the police should arrest and deport EVERYONE, but it does mean that a crackdown on the entire group so that they can sort out the criminals (majority) from the innocent (vast minority) is in order.

If they are wrong, fine. I'm just going by what people who have experience with gypsies are saying.

No, we do have gypsies in the USA. The largest group came by way of Ireland and adopted Irish surnames (Murphy being most common). Up until the last few decades they lived in "traveler camps" (stereotypical wagons originally; trailer homes and campers in the second half of the 20th cen) and were often called "Irish travelers."

The men typically go by family group to other states for weeks at a time to live and work, returning home only briefly except in winter.

They typically appear in a community, go door to door offering handyman services, roofing, paving, etc. They'll do a couple jobs fairly well for initial good references, get more jobs and do shoddy work or even skip out with deposits.

[Julian Delphiki]

Gypsies that work? Now i've heard everything.

[Kontiki]

Aren't people who live in trailers and can't hold down meaningful jobs in the US called Southerners?