Rural America is playing catch-up. Again. Moo.
I just want to reiterate that I accept words evolve. I am rejecting the claim that this word has already evolved to a racial slur. I can accept that a specific group has adopted it for their term meaning “Cool Black Badass” (something I am learning from this thread), but that doesn’t mean that the population at large sees it that way, nor that this adoption makes it a slur when used by someone not of that group.
I think that this is outrage looking for an outlet. If the word used had been any other pejorative, there would have been a similar outrage, possibly with a different rationale attached.
People said negative things about a bunch of opportunists who did bad things. And a bunch of apologists have found a way to shame those people. And remarkably, they have succeeded.
What they wanted to hear was “poor marginalized urban residents who have been fucked over so often that they lashed out in an unfortunate but understandable way.” Anything more harshly judgmental is racist (to the people complaining about the use of the word thug).
“Cool black badass” is not the redefinition of thug that’s under discussion in this thread. The usage that people are objecting to is “thug” as “any young black male.”
Also, no one’s arguing that all uses of the word “thug” should, from now on, be treated just like the word “nigger.” What people are pointing out is that certain segments of society have, for some time now, been using “thug” as a catchall for any young black male, and that particular usage is racist.
If people had been using the word only to describe people who were acting in a violent or criminal matter, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. But some people have not been so circumspect in their usage. “Thug” is routinely used in the media to dismiss all of the protestors at Ferguson and Baltimore, not just the ones who were looting shops. That’s the usage that’s racist, and that’s the usage that people are calling out.
Well, I can see you’re clearly approaching this conversation with an open mind.
Isn’t he such a cute little thug?
I rest my case.
For the record, I would have been equally shocked and offended if someone had said of my 2-YO (or any aged, for that matter) white son, “What a cute little shit!”
but I wouldn’t have automatically taken it as a “racial slur”; I would have taken THAT as an ignorant and inappropriate usage of another English word, too.
Is “thug” really that great of a word? Christ, new words enter our vocabulary all the time. I can’t even keep up with them. If a word is bothering people then shitcan the god damned word. Easy peasy.
Here’s a new one to take its place:
And there was a whole fucking page of new words along with “jank”. Help yourself.
ETA: sorry, I inadvertently channelled Lewis Black.
And yet I dont accept ‘activist judge’ or ‘socialist’ as a slur just because a group uses it as one.
I believe that part of the issue is that “thug” is indeed being used as a racial epithet, as a substitute for “nigger”:
Incorrect. The Thugs were simply cut-throat thieves. Their motivation for killing was robbery, plain and simple.
Worship of Kali was popular among the Thugs, but there were also many Muslims, Christians and Atheists in their number.
Kali is a popular goddess in India, her followers are not required to commit ritual murder. She is sometimes depicted as a benevolent mother figure, and sometimes as a heroic warrior fighting and destroying an army of evil demons.
The Thugs weren’t all black/brown, there were many white members in the gangs.
Nazi thug gets 484.000 hits. I though it was a word mostly used for Nazi browshirts and skinheads and such. Whatever, Americans are funny.
Perhaps we should stop calling looters thugs, and call them patriots instead:
“Thug” is like “boy.” Both words can be used to refer to non-black people with no racialized connotations. But both, when used against black people, tap into a history and complex of connotations such that they can’t be used without racist effects.
To expand on this, the use the word “thug” to describe poor, young black men–which is who wears those fashions/adopts that body language–carries a connotation that poor, young black men are more prone to stupid, mindless violence than dude-bros. And in certain circles, it’s certainly code for the n-word.
And that assumption–that poor young black men are violent–is the root of all of this, which makes it particularly unfortunate that people are (I am willing to believe, unknowingly) using a term that is loaded with racial implications. What I do not understand is people refusing to believe that this usage even exists, or that it’s only known to some small sliver of the population. That’s just not the case.
This is a childishly naive view of how racism works.
When someone posts how their opponents’ arguments amuse them, I imagine toddlers laughing and giggling at the bright colors in a chart that they can’t read. It’s almost never a sign of erudition when someone posts about the amusement engendered by an argument.
I’m a little confused: folks that reject the “redefinition” of thug as a racial slur, do you genuinely think that the word isn’t often used as a racial slur? If you think it is used this way, then be a fuckin descriptivist already and recognize that the word’s been redefined, not by politically correct people, but by racists using the word in that manner.
But remember that words can have multiple definitions. “Colored” is a racial slur sometimes, but not in all contexts: when my daughter colored a picture last night, there wasn’t a racial slur involved. Just be aware that the word DOES have a racially-tinged usage–i.e., definition–associated with it, and use the word carefully so that your audience doesn’t think you’re using the racist meaning of the word, unless that’s what you intend.
I don’t really care about “thug,” but this thread has me slam wore out on “dogwhistle.”
Ironically “dog whistle” has become the “dog whistle” of the liberal. Its the new favorite word around here.
It means “there are what WE consider racists here…gather round and start the fightin”.
I don’t worry about what ignorant people think about things I say. If I use the word “thug” I trust that intelligent people, like you, will NOT assume there is a racist overtone unless you have good reason to think so. And I trust myself enough to think that I won’t give you good reason to think so.
That’s exactly right…it the word is referring to a stereotype, and an element of that stereotype is being black. If someone says a white kid is “acting/dressed like a thug,” that’s code for “acting/dressed black/gangsta/ghetto.”
I guess I was never given the secret decoder ring, because that’s not what I mean when I use the term. If I said a white kid was acting like a thug, it would be because he was… believe it or not… ACTING LIKE A THUG. There is such a thing as “acting like a thug”.