But I think it’s not principally racism, it’s not (generally) directed toward any ethnic group. It’s a widespread dislike of people who choose to live in roaming groups that don’t have stable ties to local communities, who don’t appear to want to participate in the same social contract. No doubt there are good travelers getting tarred with same brush as the criminals, but I think it’s a belief that the itinerant lifestyle is inherently associated with criminality that is the root of the dislike. That belief may be mistaken or it may be correct, but disliking people who make a certain set of behavioral choices in their life is not the same thing as racial bigotry.
There are always excuses. There always have been. There’s nothing special about this ethnic group, or any other, that justifies bigotry. Maybe some are just suspicious of nomads. I don’t think that’s a good thing, but based on my understanding of human nature, the vast majority of the negative feelings towards the Roma are no different than the vast majority of the negative feelings towards black people, or Jews, or any other racial/ethnic group.
Do you think that the Roma or Travellers became itinerant, historically, out of choice?
Here you go
“I consider you to be the most dangerous poster on the board. You’re smart, patient, affable, and make compelling emotion based arguments, and you go unchallenged when wrong. You appear to be open minded but you are not. You are pleasant to a fault in a “bless his heart” sort of way. People want to believe you even when you present horseshit like that pro-publica article.”
Do you think they have no choice now?
Even Republicans?? 
Do you think hatred of them is based solely on their current behaviour?
In point of fact, a lot of Romani and Travellers aren’t itinerant anymore, but still suffer discrimination.
Of course the Romani have been horrible persecuted for hundreds of years as an ethnic group.
I was talking about modern attitudes that I experienced in Europe. Perhaps my experience was atypical, but growing up in the U.K., I never heard anyone express views specifically against the Romani as an ethnic group. Many Romani have indeed settled, but I never heard of anyone complaining that a Romani family had bought a house down the street - whereas I would certainly hear that kind of thing about black, Indian, Pakistani families. I can’t think of any racial slur directed against Romani from when I was growing up - “gyppo” is all I can think of, and that’s directed against travelers of all ethnic groups. And, of course, many travelers in the U.K. are from other ethnic groups, notably Irish. The negative sentiment that I saw was always expressed toward itinerant groups because of the perceived criminality associated with being itinerant.
Doesn’t the much lower level of prejudice against the settled Romani people in the U.S. seem to bear this out?
You’re allowed to hate them in America, but if they move elsewhere they’re immigrants and then you have to be polite. 
…try Eastern Europe. Hell, try Italy. Even settled Romani were being deported there.
And generalized prejudice against travellers includes the Romani, so I don’t know why you think “gyppo” doesn’t count, it very much does. The only one that’s specifically not applicable, I think, would be Pikey, as far as I understand that’s just for Irish Travellers.
And all that “lucky heather” jokey bullshit I saw in the UK - hell, even on UK TV - isn’t about criminality - unless you consider begging inherently criminal. It’s just prejudice against another culture.
No, it points to those Romani’s ability to assimilate, and the inherent colourism of US racism. Romani are ethnic, but mostly ethnic in a vaguely European way. They could pass for Italian or similar. The USA is much more of an ethnic meeting ground than a lot of Europe.
Then there are the Amish locally. A friend of mine hired an Amish crew to put up a workshop adjacent to his house. He was very pleased with their work.
Then, a year later, he came home to find two Amish dudes touching up some of the paint on the workshop. They wouldn’t accept any money, they just thought one year was too soon for paint to be fading.
That’s a fair point.
And I’m not suggesting that the Romani have had anything but horrible treatment historically. But if you’re going to try to figure out how to get rid of hatred, it’s sensible to try to understand exactly what people actually hate.
Except that “being itinerant” is not an ethnic group, is it? If not all Romani are itinerant, and not all itinerant people are Romani, I don’t see how it makes sense to insist that a slur that appears to be motivated by dislike of itinerant groups is a racial slur. (For the avoidance of doubt - I’m not for a moment defending the slur, just commenting on what attitudes lie behind it.)
Of course I’m not claiming that actual racism against Romani people doesn’t exist. But I’m questioning whether it’s the driver of most people’s attitudes in the U.K. and modern Europe. Would traveling groups continue to be marginalized to anywhere near the same degree if they settled? I don’t think so, and I think they should be given much greater government assistance to take that choice. There are major concerns for the traveling community in the U.K. post-Brexit, many of whom are poorly documented.
“gyppo” isn’t a descriptive occupational pejorative, like tinker or knacker. It’s based on the actual exonym used for the group. How can it not be a racial slur? Yes, the usage has broadened to include Irish Travellers, but Gypsy originally meant just Romani. It was used for a hundred years before Irish Travellers even existed.
The etymology is not relevant to modern usage or understanding underlying modern attitudes.
Likely true. In fact, it had slipped my mind that she needed to be restored to my Ignore list until this thread brought her back to my attention. And now I’m questioning whether I want her on my ignore list. Some of her pronouncements are veritable gems of surrealism. F’rinstance:
One can be forgiven, perhaps, for concluding that she has an, ummm, idiosyncratic method of assigning meanings to words. Possible, for example.
We live in hope…
Of course it is relevant as to whether it’s an ethnonym or a mere descriptor of itinerancy. And it’s clearly not the latter because it isn’t universally applied to all itinerants - crusties and other New Age Travellers aren’t called gyppos.
Well, as long as its only your head…
Most people in North America wouldn’t even understand this sentence. Here, “travellers” means someone on vacation or a business trip.
Pretty sure that’s a hippopotamus head you’re referring to. An itinerant one, perhaps, but a hippo none the less.