This 100% accurate. Even the most mild mannered and kind people turn into full fascists when talking about Romani people. If you do not live in Europe you can't realize how pervasive it is.

Worse you can say and do the most heinous shit to them and it will never be seen as racism. If something happens to them everyone just assumes they deserved it anyway because they must have done something for it. And when their communities try to push back a bit and revolt against what they are inflicted, the state uses all tools at its disposal to repress them. Just a few days ago on reddit there was a post about farmers spraying shit on their camp in a field and everyone was cheering. Of course no mention was made that they were not a threat to anyone and that municipalities do not build spots for them to stay with their mobile house even though they are required to build them by law.

When I was a kid, I was repeatedly told not to trust or approach them, that they would steal everything in sight and scam me, that "it is how they are".

Fortunately some Romani organizations in French speaking countries are slowly getting some time to speak mostly in the decolonial and anti-racist movements. They do a lot for their communities and also take time to do some conferences to educate us leftists on their struggle.

The Romani are the reason I don't trust Europeans. Even among Americans growing up as a Muslim, I've never seen the same vitriolic racial hatred as what I see thrown at the Romani. Even other Americans whom I know are more bigoted have winced at the level of undue malice these people receive when I show them the statements of Europeans.

It's the thing that leads me to have no hope for Europe unless it's forcibly restructured. Like, the reasons I've seen people give to justify their attitude towards "g*psies" is utterly baffling. It's like I'm hearing a Nazi race scientist spout the most inane bullshit imaginable, yet I've seen enough European forums that show no diversity of thought on this issue.

"But unlike black people in America, Romanis actually love doing crime!"

I've heard this unironically from Europeans.

I dated a Romanian woman who hated the Romani people, she said they made her ashamed to speak the same language. We didn't really work out in the end.

Another Romanian woman whom I met a few times, upon hearing this went "lol why were you together with a racist". Fair question, honestly. We didn't work out either, but for different reasons.

Europeans treat refugees and Romani the same way Americans treat immigrants and blacks. Truly, we learned from the worst.

Gypsies, tramps and thieves! I heard from the people of the towns, they'd call us gypsies, tramps and thieves, but every night all the men would come around and lay their money down...