It was the very insidious racism against Gypsies that made me not be surprised at all when recism against Eastern Europeans, Latin Americans, north Africans, black Africans and East Asians became more visible in Spain.

Look I am not a gypsy and I don't know any personally, but I can tell you that for the longest time the official position towards gypsies was that gypsies were not a separate ethnic group, but just Spaniards who had chosen to dress differently, speak differently, and have a different lifestyle. This is actually wrong: gypsies are a distinct people with a distinct language, culture and a nomadic lifestyle.

When a sedentary community's reaction to nomads is to enact vagrancy laws, you have a problem. You also have a problem when  society's idea of accomodating nomads is to offer them a house and a plot of land. On the other hand, a lot of Spanish gypsies are settled and have been for a long time, especially in the South, but segregation is quite real, and tensions between gypsy and non-gypsy neighbourhoods do occasionally flare up.

And to pretend there is no "problem with black people anymore" is an exaggeration, quite apart of the fact that the "problem with black people" was entirely about white people.

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper