Just out of curiosity, how many pages have been spent trying to get Max to apologize?
I mean, I definitely see where he's coming from, in that I didn't realize until the last couple of years that there ever was bigotry directed toward the Romani, or (for that matter), that "gypsy" typically referred to an ethnic group rather than those living a particular lifestyle (which was simply one of travel, not of thievery; and while the gypsy fortuneteller trope is one I encountered, it was also never one that I ever considered could be offensive). While I'm at it, I'll also add that I'd never seen the word "gypped" written until fairly recently, and assumed it was spelled "jipped", and so never guessed at the etymology or that it might have any wider offensiveness than might be taken if somebody were to accuse a person of cheating them.
So, I guess what I'm saying is, it doesn't seem that farfetched to reach a point where you assume they're words without a larger history behind them, or where it doesn't occur that using them could lead somebody to conclude you're intending to demean. All that said, that doesn't make the suffering that has occurred any less real, nor does it mean the burden is always on the listener to guess at the correct meaning. An error committed through ignorance is still an error, and in the scope of this discussion we've clearly moved to a context where it's entirely reasonable that offense could be unintentionally caused through the careless use of a word, through expanding our potential audience to "every human with an internet connection". So yeah, I'm of the "Oh, that was a mistake, my bad, I guess I'll try to be a bit more sensitive in the future" persuasion.
Now, here's where my post diverges from the actual issue, to just discussing etiquette. I'm saying this because, if I don't, it's very likely that it'll come off as the standard "Don't rock the boat" reasoning for getting people to drop uncomfortable topics, and I want to be clear that the rest of this paragraph has nothing to do with the merits of what Max actually said, but only with how it's been reacted to. So, my question is, who actually was offended over the choice of words, there? Because it seems to me that becoming offended on behalf of the Romani who might hypothetically be offended is to overstep defending them, and start asserting that they should conform to your ideas of what they should find offensive. Now, that's not a general case for every possible use of the word; if somebody said, "Man, gypsies are all lying, thieving bastards", that's a very valid thing to object to without actually being the target, but when malice isn't even slightly implied (as here), the right thing to do as far as I can tell is just to mention that maybe a better choice of words would be good in the future, since you probably do want to say something, and then just move on.
And for the people who've popped in just to say things like, "Maybe you should accept that you said something stupid", you're making comments that are worse than the one you're opposing - you're actually aiming to harm (however moderately) through what you're saying. If you're not actually going to argue, and instead just want to fight, you should probably stop yourself before you click that Post button, because you're not helping. All you're doing is contributing to a psychological trap, in which your opponent associates your apparently unreasoned aggression with your side, and concludes on some level that your entire side must be equally illogical. For that matter, you're also giving good reason to come up with rationalizations to defend whatever you're opposing, where before it was almost certainly just a random choice with no weight behind it. I know that's not everyone who's been posting, so don't get me wrong. And given the magnitude of this shitstorm, I've only actually skimmed the conversation - this entire paragraph may, in fact, be aimed at nobody, and if so, I apologize, but it's an impression I've gotten.