By the way, this image is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the word “thug” (it’s featured on a popular paper target for shooters).
That’s it, I’m going back to “no-good-nik”.
Let’s use google as a semantic association network to provide us with helpful data.
“black thug” - 624,000 results
“white thug” - 375,000 results
“trayvon martin” thug - 381,000 results
“george zimmerman” thug - 215,000 results
Well that settles it for me. A black murder victim is more likely to be assoiated with the word thug then his white killer. It is a racially tinged word.
And I watched a Twilight Zone episode last night that had a “thug” in it. And it wasn’t a young Sammy Davis Junior, it was some random white guy actor.
It happens even in football. Richard Sherman of the Seahawks is a Stanford graduate, highly articulate, with a highly successful career. But he’s black and wears dreadlocks. So he’s a thug.
I prefer the term ‘savages’. I adopt this language from Clerks.
LOL. That’s funny. Good one.
You’ve been out of touch then…thug has been morphing for a while now. As with gangsta, pimp, ho and the ubiquitous N word, it means something different when you use it as a self applied label or self identify with the concept than when it’s applied by someone outside of your circle BY and outsider. That’s when it takes on overtones.
I’d say that ‘thug’ isn’t really a black thing, since I know quite a few younger hispanics who also self identify with that label and what it implies (and also listen to the late Tupac), but I don’t think this is a new thing that suddenly sprang up from no where.
People have been known to use racial epithets in football? I can’t believe that!!! 
I was recently called an asshole. Hard to believe, I know
I find this to be a racial epithet for white people. Clearly, a Google Images search proves this:
When discounting the anatomical and humorous images (such as an ass in a hole), the vast majority of the subjects are white. Many of the images of black people are in fact them calling someone else an asshole, which I can only assume is a white person.
Clearly this is a move of the term to refer to white people, which is unacceptable. It should now be treated a toxic as Thug or N-gg-r.
Fair?
(to be fair, Obama get’s an honorable mention on the search, but as he is president, I am sure we can explain that away somehow)
You’re aware that The Twilight Zone ended in 1964, right? A lot of things have happened in the ensuing fifty years.
Racists are going to be racists. Take “thug” away from the racists, and they’ll just find another term to use. But it’s a legitimate, English* word going back centuries, and I’m not going to let the racists claim it as their own.
*derived, like so many other English words, from a different language
There’s a whole lot more of them than there is of you. That’s how it’s going to be settled, because that’s how language works.
No I did not know that.
I didn’t realize that was the issue. I thought the issue was the politically correct trying to define those who use the word.
I steadfastly reject this sudden rush to use “thug” as a racial slur.
Ya know, I still use “retarded” as an insult, and I hope it doesn’t stop being offensive. By the time I’m using that word, I’m intending to offend you.
But I know plenty of offensive terms, and can make up a batch of new ones on the fly. I don’t need someone taking perfectly good words and making up new reasons to be offended by it, and I don’t see any reason to accommodate the truly stupid people who are looking for new words to be offended by.
If someone calls me a racist for using “thug”, I’m going to call them an illiterate jackass in return. Trust me, I’m not subtle enough to use code words, and have no use for them. If I was dumb enough to buy into the concept of humans having races, you’d know.
Well, looting and rioting are crimes. Also some of these looters and rioters are attacking the police. Nearly 100 police have been injured.
Nahhhh. While I appreciate the sentiment behind the thought, I’ll continue calling something that waddles, quacks, and drops little avian feces on my newly-laid carpeting “a duck”, too
no matter how offended the little quacker might be over my ‘labeling’ it as such.
This is why I like to use little used words to confuse people. Knave, miscreant, rapscallion, scallywag, lollygagger, barrator, shitcunt