Everyone has the ability to choose for themselves. If gitanos steal for a living or spend their days busking in the street they CHOSE to do that. If their circumstances made it easier for them to make that choice that's just the unfairness of life...but it is still a choice. There's nothing wrong with putting together programs to help this group of people, but please avoid them in the street because this just feeds their current ambitions.

A working paper of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding Gypsies/Roma can be found here:

http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/2848af408d01ec0ac1256609004e770b/00db4010d4bf86a8c1256928002f5cf1?OpenDocument&Highlight=2,roma,rights

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) reviewed France and Spain during its sessions in the Spring of 2000. Here's what it found:

Regarding Spain, concerns were expressed by the Committee over the relatively small number of racial discrimination cases before national courts, despite the general increase in juvenile violence, including attacks on foreigners by extremist groups, neo-Nazis and gangs. Concerning employment, the Committee highlighted the prevailing discrimination against people of foreign origin, and recommended that the state ensure the rights to work, to equal opportunities of promotion and career development, to education and to housing for ethnic and national minorities. Concern was expressed about the position of the Roma minority, and reports of racist attitudes on the part of authorities. In a UN press release dated March 13, 2000, Yuri A. Rechetov, the Committee expert who served as country rapporteur to the report of Spain, said that “one could conclude from the report that the Roma population were not full-fledged Spanish citizens.” The press release further noted that some Roma individuals do not have identity documents similar to those of Spanish nationals. The Committee underlined the importance of the treatment of the Romani population in general and plans to hold a discussion about the socio-economic situation of the Romani populations in Europe and in the rest of the world during its August session. Other Committee members also commented on the situation of the Romani population in Spain. Some experts regretted “that members of the population were painted as individuals who did not want to work and to learn.”

In addition, the US Department of State's report on human rights in Spain can be found here (discussions of racism and xenophobia appear near the bottom, after the longer discussion of ETA. Women's rights are also addressed):

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/eur/8343.htm?docid=875

Taravb,
Those reports are very deceiving. If gypsies don't have identity cards is because they don't want to. You are responsible to go to the "comisaria" and get it done. I don't think anybody stopped them from getting one.

Do the people who write these reports live for a while in a neighborhood like Vallecas? (Madrid) Do they send their kids to schools where gypsi kids go? Do they have a first hand experience? I don't think so.

What else can we do for the gypsies so we won't be treated as racist? We are giving them apartments for free or very little money, we are paying their health insurance (although they don't pay taxes), they don't have to spend 100.000 pesetas in their driving licenses, they don't pay taxes, many of them drive good cars (no job and good car? where do they get the money?), most of them have expensive jewelery... I guess that is not enough...

You are mistaken - we are criticizing their society and lifestyle, not their race. History is unclear but apparently most sources attribute them to an origin on the subcontinent... anyone know more about this?

If someone was a gitano and lived normally in Europe, you wouldn't likely know they were one.

The "not wanting to learn" is more of "we do not participate in the 'outsiders' society, we have our own." Avoid them or you will be, as an outsider, ripped off, no matter how nice you are. To them you are one thing, profit, objectively.

Would it be fair for me to say, "If you just lived near those Black people in downtown (any big American city) like I do, you would know how horrible all African-Americans are...they steal cars and sell drugs and pimp their women"?

Or would it be fair to say the opposite..."Oh, yeah, my neighbor Johnnie is one of the 'good Blacks,' but the rest of them are criminals"?

Sure, everyone has good or bad experiences with "good" or "bad" members of a group. But no person can see an entire group with unprejudiced eyes.

I've been around Gypsies too. I walked the streets of Salamanca day in and day out in 1990, through the (former--it's now been "cleaned up") Barrio Gitano, and was terrified. There were needles everywhere, and scantily-dressed women in some of the doorways. I wouldn't go there at night, or alone. I have had Gypsy women try to hand off babies or sell me all sorts of things, and have seen people selling drugs in the corners of Plazas. I watched men shoot up heroin next to cathedrals. I've been asked for money more times than I can recall.

But I've also been to Gypsy bars, and passed by many a darker-skinned person on the streets of Spain without incident. I've listened to singers on the streets of Andalucian cities and not been robbed. I've walked through open-air markets in MANY cities in Spain and Portugal.

We don't notice the "non-incidents," the many, many, many times we pass a Gypsy safely, the salespeople who don't try to rip us off, the market stalls with people ACTUALLY SELLING fresh flowers.

I'm really not trying to change anyone's mind about this. Prejudice is a deeply-ingrained thing. We all have it, to a greater or lesser extent. But I truly, truly believe that to say that the only "reality" is that Gypsies are dangerous is unfair.

I'm not stupid...I won't walk in places that I feel or hear are not safe, and I won't approach strangers. I do believe that Gypsies probably commit more crimes than other Spaniards, and my instinct for safety will make me likely to avoid them (though this is embarrassing to say).

But I still stick by my earlier assertion that NOBODY would choose to live that life...nobody would choose to be ostracized, marginalized, and hated by the majority. Nobody would choose to let their children be uneducated or denied access to health care.

People in this country say that poor people "choose" to stay poor, through laziness, probably. They suggest that they would succeed if they just tried harder, worked to fit in, made an effort. But studies show that poverty doesn't work that way. Getting out of poverty requires support...child care, good health care, high-quality education, access to job training and opportunities, etc. I think the situation is the same for the Gypsies in Europe (and here).

And I also want to point out that I don't believe that every Gypsy (or every person, for that matter) is inherently good and nice and hardworking. Some people are not (from whatever combination of genes and environment has shaped them). Some will be criminals, or lazy, or unfriendly, or whatever. I don't excuse that behavior at all. I just think that wherever we can change the environment to make that outcome less likely, we as "civilized" society are obligated to do so. And sadly, in the case of so many groups, we don't meet that obligation.

I remember seeing a documentary on the regional channel here about a gitana that married a payo. She was almost completely rejected from her society and her family for doing that. Originally her mother had promised her to be married to her cousin.

I don´t think that gitanos can be compared to the situation with blacks in the US. In Spain there are decent levels of health care, decent public schools and cheap universities. Although the economic situation in Spain probably is worse for the gitanos, a tight labor market is the best thing to get rid of racism in the labor market.

One reproductive strategy is to make your offspring more well off. Another is to spread your resources thinner among more offspring. Both are valid strategies to get your genes spread around.

Many gitanos become educated and integrate into mainstream society, but those that live in their culture will likely be trapped by it. I sometimes think to compare them to american ´white trash´. Both are poorly educated, drop-outs, wedded very young, etc.

Roe, you're right that an alternative reproductive strategy, often used by people whose well-being is threatened, is to have more children and invest less heavily in each one, in hopes that at least one or two will "turn out all right." But that choice isn't used when resources are available and when, as you suggest, health care and other supports are in place. When conditions for the group improve, people opt for quality over quantity (very adaptive for organisms like us, with long gestational periods and dependence on breast milk).

Similarly, women left to their own devices will choose quality over quantity every time, placing more resources in each child and choosing for longer birth intervals. Men's situation is more confusing, but most evolutionary biologists say that men choose quality as well when they can be certain of paternity. Only then is it worth while to invest in an offspring.

All of these issues are related, I think, to how different cultural groups fare in the mainstream society.

Taravb, you are very well intentioned, as I was when I was younger, until I realize how the situation was.

I discussed thousand of times with my parents, calling them racists and intolerants. The problem is that I had not lived inmersed in a state where the gypsies were really around. When you hear the people who live among them (normally poor) then you start to hear about hundreds of stories.

Do you really think they are poor? Ok, more stories then:

Doing a field job for an engineering company I had to watch for places where a building could be built. In Villaverde, one of the most depressed zones of Madrid. I had never been there, and I was a bit frightened. No way! Villaverde people is normally poor, but I never had the sense I was unsafe... until I reached a gypsie zone of small houses by error. I feel threatened (the way they watch at you, pointing to you, talking between them, and gesturing). Poor people... poor people with Mercedes Class E cars, the best health insurances in Spain, the best lawyers, and full of gold jewelry.

You don't believe it? Ask any jeweller in Spain to whom he sells the most of the gold jewelry.

So they are not as violent, and the reasons for violence are racist... Day yes, day no, we awake with a headline on TVs where a gypsie has killed another gypsie for the most ridicolous reasons (6€ of a debt, a discussion, a commentary,...).

It is extremely rare to see a crime in which a non-gypsie killed a gypsie. Believe me, extremely rare.

The girlfriend of a friend of mine works with one of the best lawyers of the south-east of Spain. She has told me that the best client is the local gypsie boss and some of his friends. They have a handful of Mercedes, the best health insurance possible, the best car insurances, and obviusly one of the more expensive lawyers... and still he lives in a chabola, making business with drugs.

You say that they don't have ID cards. In Spain it is obligatory to have one, and in the past, the police tried to made them to have one (go to the commisary and give the data). It is impossible. They don't want to have ID cards.

Taravb, the most easy thought is that what we have here is a generalized case of racism against a marginal collective. The truth is even more simple: They don't want to integrate. They have their rules, their laws, their customs, and their way of life (living at the expense of other in the majority of the cases).

Believe me, I hate racism. I don't have problems with inmigrants (as long as they respect the laws), but I don't like gypsies at all, as a culture, as a way of life. I don't mind if their skin is browner than mine.

Fernando

Taravb, I applaud you! You've taken the high road in a very emotionally laden subject.

Although I consider myself an educated person, I must admit that I have not studied the history of the Roma to understand their current problems. I will look up those sites that you mentioned to learn more about them. Also the book mentioned by llawlor.

You never know what you can learn at MadridMan's All Spain Web Page!

I just can't go from isolated incidents and generalizations (and "friend of a girlfriend of a friend" stories) to the belief that all gypsies are either:

1) petty criminals
2) parasites who take every offering of help (education, housing, health care) and either destroy it or demand more (though they should demand more access, from what I have learned, because they are not given fair opportunities in many of these areas--including jobs)
3) Mercedes-driving, flashy jewelry-wearing drug kingpins

I stand firmly by my earlier posts...all of these things can be seen in any marginalized group (AND IN THE MAJORITY!!!), and all of these accusations are hurled against minorities in America (for which, BTW, we Americans have taken a lot of criticism from supposedly more "enlightened" European citizens!). I see this here in my own community, where Native Americans are called lazy or drunk or worse, and people talk about how ungrateful they are. And people give examples of the ones who have profited by crime, as if the drug king living large in Andalucia or in Minneapolis is representative of an entire group.

I do not deny that gypsies might commit more crimes. I just say that if there were a level playing field, they would probably commit the same number as any other group in Spain (and they would also probably become more integrated, over time, into mainstream culture there--the door to the mainstream can be locked from EITHER SIDE).

Every majority can look at the customs and practices of minorities in the worst light...they are nomads, they don't want to have homes like ours, whatever...but until the majority starts to listen to the concerns of the minority and tries to understand the lives they lead (their traditions and customs, their aspirations, their obstacles), we can't expect change to happen.

And regarding gold jewelry...Gypsies have traditionally converted their material wealth into jewelry. This makes perfect sense if you're always in danger of being "asked" (forced) to move on. Why use a bank? Gold holds its value, is easy to carry, and makes people feel attractive.

And regarding the skirts--women's traditional dress includes long skirts because there are rules about modesty. It's okay to show the tops of the breasts (and may even be encouraged!), but the legs should be covered. This is the case in many cultures.

Finally...a bit more information about the treatment of gitanos in Spain...admittedly, 15-year-old information, but I can't imagine things have changed dramatically for the better since 1985:

From Ian Hancock's "The Pariah Syndrome":
"A lower life expectancy among Gypsies than the national average is also reported from Spain, where Gypsies have been condemned by a hostile society to live in poverty and ill-health. The average life expectancy of a Gypsy male is 64 years, nine fewer than the Spanish average. Only a quarter of Gypsy children attend school, only 26 percent of Gypsy men have regular employment ... (Ellman, 1985:J2).

A year prior to that report, in Zaragosa, Spain, non-Gypsies violently opposed city authorities' building houses for the local Gypsy population, and retaliated by burning them down and attacking the Gypsy children trying to attend school there, pelting them with bricks (The New York Times for October 25th, 1984)."