Not sure about other places, but in much of Europe they have a bad reputation. Worse than the reputation of Muslim immigrants, or African immigrants, or any other group, really. I remember once having a co-worker who was a gypsy…
Gypsy, as in Roma from Romania. He was proud to show me the blonde German girl he was dating at the time, something he saw as “a great victory”.
And then he said something I always remembered. “Her mother thinks I’m Turkish… she was a little apprehensive at first but when she assumed I was Turkish, I never corrected her.”
“Why?” I wanted to know.
“Because it’s better to be a Turk than a gypsy in this world,” he said, “when you’re from the Middle East or near there the worst thing you could be is a religious fanatic or a pimp. All you have to do is show yourself as trustworthy and not particularly religious and you’re good to go…”
“And if you’re a gypsy?”
“When you’re a gypsy they assume you’re an inborn criminal. I kind of get it. My brother is in jail. My father in Romania was a thief. I have cousins who are making money in illegal ways. And I didn’t want to, so I went to Western Europe. To be free from that life.”
That’s why gypsies have a bad reputation, I suppose. In fact in 2010 a French minister even suggesting deporting them due to their high crime rates.[1] It’s unfair to generalize, and the gypsy dude I knew was a good guy, but even he acknowledge there are a lot of criminal elements even in his own background, which is why he ran away from it.
Footnotes
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