I will simply repost here a slightly adapted version what I wrote today in the weekly Roma hate parade thread here on /r/europe:

I am very saddened to see the vitriol that so often pops up on this subreddit directed at an entire ethnic group when the topic of the Roma comes up. While I do not wish to condone the actions of individual Roma criminals or to gloss over the fact that certain internal systemic problems plague many Roma communities, to use these facts to paint an entire ethnicity with such a broad brush of condemnation is absurd and unsettling.

What I find especially jarring is the historical myopia through which people view these events. One can't talk about the "Roma problem" without acknowledging that the problem started when the Roma were literally enslaved during the middle ages and have been subjected to an incessant wave of abuse and discrimination ever since to varying extents. Sometimes this oppression took an utterly inhuman form, the most extreme example being the mass murder of Roma during the Holocaust, which in some places such as in Ustaše led Croatia, led to the virtual annihilation of the prewar Roma populations.

It wasn't until fairly recently that serious efforts have been undertaken in most countries to remedy the socio-economic status of the Roma and to reduce their traditional social stigma. A lasting solution to the tensions between the Roma communities and the broader societies of Europe must be rooted in a frank acknowledgement of the existing problems. Such a process requires both recognizing existing problems in many Roma communities (including organized crime and child abuse) as well as the ongoing history of explicit and implicit discrimination against the Roma.

Pretending that the problem is one-sided and rooted in the "inherent corruption" of the Roma is an appalling attitude that I hoped had been relegated to the dustbin of history...