I opened an account here solely so I could comment here. You are not alone. This show is hideously racist, as well as being totally nonsensical. I absolutely cannot buy the idea that a high-priced lawyer would put up with a conman husband in and of itself - unless there is further character development showing the wife to be a fly-by-night operator herself perhaps? And there is nothing at all OK about ripping people off by playing on their superstitions, fears, and loneliness for lost loved ones. This is not Michael Weston, helping people in need. This is just another nasty conman, ruining lives and battening off the blood, sweat and tears of people in need. So this show was challenged BEFORE its blatant racism is thrust into our face. I cannot imagine how anyone thought the portrayal of the Romani in this show was appropriate or anything even approaching OK. It's like turning on the TV to see an old time minstrel show, with the blackface and the pidgin English and the "Massa" this and "Massa" that. And if you think this is ok - it's not that you MIGHT be a racist. You ARE a racist. The Romani are a repressed and abused people all over Europe. During WWII, the Nazis decided to exterminate them right along with the Jews and any unfortunate people in Europe of African descent. They very nearly succeeded. From a starting population of less than a million Romani all across Europe, they murdered about half a million. In many places in Europe there were no Romani left. This was called the Porajmos - the Devouring. Today all across Europe, Romani are abused and discriminated against. Their homes are firebombed while "racial purists" stand outside with guns and shoot them as they try to escape the flames. Men, women, children - they don't care. Romani women are sterilized without their knowledge or permission - 3 recently sued in the EU courts and 2 were awarded damages - the third had died in the meantime. In the UK, they are the most hated of all minority groups, even worse than so-called "pakis" and blacks. European politicians commonly make racist remarks about them being thieves, dirty, smelly, subhuman - horrible things they say in public and on the record and get APPROVAL for it. Their children are taken from them and put up for adoption to non-Romani families - the UK is notorious for doing this, snatching children for no or contrived reasons. Such as putting a Romani woman in a room with no furniture so the social worker can "write her up" for changing the baby's diaper on the floor and using that as a reason to take her baby from her and put it up for adoption. I've got news for those bigots - I ROUTINELY changed my baby on the floor, it was a lot easier that way. Wanna come and try to take my baby away? (Of course he's over 30 now so its probably a moot point - but it still makes my blood boil.) Any time some piece of EuroTrash starts nattering on about our "racism" problem here in the US, just ask them how they treat Romani. If they've got a smidgen of a conscious, it'll shut 'em up pretty quick. If not, they'll probably launch a racist diatribe fit to melt your ears and make you wish you could not-hear that. Assuming YOU'VE got a smidgen of a conscious, that is. Romani were actually enslaved in some places until 1864. That's right - they were slaves. Laws were passed making it legal to kill a Romani man. It was not considered murder. Eventually that "privilege" was also extended to adult Romani women in some places. You could kill a Romani without consequences. Children were to be taken away and raised in "hospitals" because they were vermin and had to be taught to behave like the "civilized" majority who were slaughtering their parents. Even today these attitudes not only exist but are approved of by the white European majority. Today - now - Romani are segregated in schools, just like we did with black children. They are taken from their parents and given to non-Romani or sent to "re-education" centers - just like we did with American Indians. It's not the "gypsies" who kidnap children and steal them away from their parents - its the Gadje. It is us. Their houses are set afire and people wait for them to come out so they can shoot them - just like we did with blacks. They are refused regular employment and housing and forced to live in substandard conditions or turn to crime to survive, which they are then blamed for as if that is their first and only choice - just as we have done with many of our own minorities including Chinese immigrants brought here to be used as slave labor to build our railroads and our formerly enslaved black population. Romani in Europe are incarcerated at 60 times the rate of the majority population - while they are only 20 times more likely (due to their status as subhumans who can't get jobs) to actually commit crimes. Just like we do with our black population here. There is no way anyone should be able to watch this show without cringing through the entire thing, if you've got an ounce of simple humanity. While we don't arrange actual pogroms to go out and burn their houses down, we don't respect them any more than your average white European. This is all happening now, today, all across Europe and in the UK. This isn't hundreds of years ago. It is NOW. I loved Burn Notice, but this thing? This thing is not Burn Notice. This thing is a disgusting amalgamation of unbelievable, unsympathetic main characters with a thick overlay of blatant bigotry and racism. Watch this only if you are a racist.
