To (say) Thug or to not (say) Thug, that is my ?

rgambs said:

Last-12-Exit said:

rgambs said:

pjhawks said:

inmytree said:

suddenly the word "thug" is being placed in the same vein as the n-word...when did this happen and why...?

just wondering as I was at my 2nd job last night and one of my coworkers was super upset that Obamz used the word "thug"....and the TVee peoples on CNN were debating it...so, what gives...?

i actually had the same thought myself. I have no idea why some are now trying to make it racist. i mean how are you to describe those young gang members who were looting and rioting? maybe we should have called them those young preppy kids.

Then why isn't that term thrown around when white people riot and loot?

I'm waiting for someone to provide evidence of major news sources calling white criminals thugs.
We have had threads on this very board in which white people were making trouble and thug never came up.
I am not disputing that these kids are thugs, but when a word is only used for a particular race, it is being used in a racist way.
Just like how nobody calls James Holmes a terrorist but the Ft. Hood shooter surely gets called that... I'm sure it has nothing to do with skin color or faith. Right.

The fort hood shooting was a terrorist act. The Colorado shooting was the act of a crazy person. There's a difference.

Please explain the difference

Nevermind, don't want to derail the thread.
I will just say there isn't a difference and any difference could be negated by using another comparison...such as the attacks on tje Sikh temples and Synagogues which weren't terrorist acts.
The point is that this selective use of words is racism.

rr165892 said:

So if I use the term Soccer Hooligans,is that offensive to Europeans ?

Haha, I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find someone offended by just about anything.

This is actually the context I used the word "thug" most while growing up. Hooligans and thugs to me were the skinheads. They were white guys. I NEVER thought of blacks as thugs. I know times change, and words change, and meanings change, so I get that. But I'll keep using the word thug based on actions, not skin color. If someone doesn't like it, that's on them.

rgambs said:

Just like how nobody calls James Holmes a terrorist but the Ft. Hood shooter surely gets called that... I'm sure it has nothing to do with skin color or faith. Right.

I also don't want to derail the thread but I do want to agree and expand here. Absolutely, James Holmes' crime and the Fort Hood shooting have a quite a but in common. So too with the Marathon bombings. No one calls Holmes a terrorist in part because of skin color and faith, but also because we as a society give the Tsarnaevs and Nidal Hasan too much credit. We take them at their word that they did the things they did because of jihad, because of U.S. occupation, etc. It feeds into our ongoing arguments about religion and U.S. foreign policy and the middle east and on and on. Holmes didn't write a spiffy note in a boat, or claim to be a "Soldier of Allah", so we (correctly) regard him as the piece of shit mass murderer that he is.

Last-12-Exit said:

From what I've read, James Holmes wasn't killing in the name of God or Allah. The other two were. That's the difference to me.

James Holmes wanted to kill people. The Tsarnaev brothers wanted to kill people. Allah provided them with a misguided justification and easy, ready-made excuse. I do think we can and should make a distinction between the two, but they are not altogether different.

This is when it happened.
http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2014/01/22/3194121/richard-sherman-thug-acceptable-version-word/

Kat said:

This is when it happened.
http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2014/01/22/3194121/richard-sherman-thug-acceptable-version-word/

Yeah, I've brought that up on here before. To say that people weren't using the word thug in a racist way to describe Sherman is being disingenuous at best.

The word has been co-opted by racists who can't call black people the n word in public anymore. Do I think that most of the posters here use it in a racist way? No, of course not. Do I think that a very small minority here do? Yes.

dignin said:

Kat said:

This is when it happened.
http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2014/01/22/3194121/richard-sherman-thug-acceptable-version-word/

Yeah, I've brought that up on here before. To say that people weren't using the word thug in a racist way to describe Sherman is being disingenuous at best.

The word has been co-opted by racists who can't call black people the n word in public anymore. Do I think that most of the posters here use it in a racist way? No, of course not. Do I think that a very small minority here do? Yes.

Sherman came across like a raving lunatic in that interview. It came after the NFC Championship, a game with a television audience of 56 million people. Many of them were seeing and hearing from Richard Sherman for the very first time. Many of them had just been introduced to a defense that proudly called itself, "The Legion Of Boom." If Sherman came across as a thug...well...racism probably isn't the biggest reason why. The easiest, maybe, but not the biggest.