RD can practice his free speech (though I'm not a huge fan of that), but why should he get shelter for making racist comments? Would you defend him for making the same comments on Jews? African-Americans? Might you have shown more outrage if this attack had taken place on whites in South Africa? One wonders.
Oh, shove it! The statement was no more racist than pointing out the Hell's Angels are bad news. I don't give a rat's ass what their ethnicity is, they're notorious throughout Europe such that anyone I've ever met that set foot on the continent that encountered them never had a good word to say about it. As someone who came from Europe, you must know that as well as anyone else. I can only believe you're being disingenuous, especially when you singled out my statement as being "racist" when it was one of the milder ones in the thread regarding their behavior. Even the article that started this thread pointed out they were involved in criminal behavior.
Why I even bother dignifying such an ass with a response, I'm sure I don't know....
Two things:
1. Roma are not Travelers.
2. Your comment is again racist.
Not all Roma are thieves. That is a myth and blatant bigotry. The Roma have a storied history of music, art, and literature. What is really interesting is that the Italians of all people are throwing tantrums about them. The Roma population in Italy is very small and nothing compared to France, Germany, and especially Eastern European nations like Hungary. There are a lot of myths surrounding the Roma people and one of them concerns the kidnapping of white children (usually they then grow up to be Gypsies - of course it had more punch in medieval times when tracking caravans was far more difficult and people believed in "Gypsy magic").
There are Roma politicians, poets, authors, musicians, professors, filmmakers, and Olympians. What I find surprising is that people who claim to support "freedom" loathe a group of people who live by their own rules, customs, and traditions. That is really why European societies have always hated the Roma...they refuse to integrate. Hitler simply rounded them up and murdered them in the Holocaust. Stalin forced them into cities and into factories to work, and when they didn't he killed them (yet most of them still survived and lived a transient lifestyle).
People hate them because they don't buy a house and have 1.2 children and work from 9-5 every weekday. Most interesting.
Back to the point:
Here's Livia Jaroka. She's an EU MP from Hungary as well as a Roma. To my knowledge she's never been convicted of theft.
Here's a story from her website that pertains to this discussion as well.
This is a good read for all of you:
The Pariah Syndrome. The author is Ian Hancock, or more precisely - Dr. Hancock a professor at the University of Texas and also a Roma.
That guy there is Čedomir Jovanović. He was the Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia at one point and is now a Governor as well as a party founder. He was instrumental in turning Milosovic over to the west. Moreover, he helped set up the human rights tribunals and was the only major Serbian politician to officially recognize Kosovo as an independent state. Oh yeah - he's a Roma too.
This beautiful lady right here is Viktoria Mohcsi, an EU MP from Hungary and oh yes, a Roma as well.
This little lady here is a famous (in Europe) Polish pop singer and also a Roma.
Now, if you dealt with these folks, and this is a small sampling, then I'm supposed to believe that they will nick my wallet? Bullshit.
As I said, racism. Or bigotry if you prefer a different term.
