# Thug - unacceptable racial slur? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 3, 2021, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202 "2021-03-03T15:06:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/1 "2021-03-03T15:06:05Z")
An [oped in today’s paper](https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/eric-zorn/ct-column-thug-language-dan-roan-race-zorn-20210302-fogeavnebnc5hcgbtbt5ps7ndy-story.html) designated the word "thug as a “problem word” - essentially an attempt to get around using the N-word. Do you agree? I am often confused by what I perceive as changing language usage, but I generally try to avoid unintentional offense. In my experience, thug historically referred to unintelligent violent people. A loan shark’s enforcers. Strikebreakers. The 1/6 Capitol invaders. … In my mind, such thugs were generally white. Some time back, I became aware of some rappers self describing thug life. (Am I incorrect in presuming the rappers declared themselves thugs, or was the term applied to them by whites?) So I adjusted my mental image and began thinking of some people of color as acting/looking like thugs or gangsta rappers. I’ve since thought of certain young white people as thugs if they dress and act in certain ways. If my recollection is accurate, it strikes me as curious if some blacks began using the term in a certain way, but then when whites accepted that usage, the whites’ use of the word became considered racist. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/2 "2021-03-03T15:17:55Z")
The only time I really see people suggesting it shouldn’t be used is far, far off the rails left (Social Justice Warriors) saying (telling us) that it doesn’t just mean violent person or gang member, that it’s specifically a racist term on par with the n-word. And, while the term may be used to describe black people more than white people, so far as I know, it’s not reserved for a single race. Of course, I also saw this same person chastise someone for saying “LeBron James is my spirit animal” calling them a racist for describing a black person as an animal. Having said that, I avoid it for the same reasons as the OP, if the meaning of a word is questionable (WRT race), I’ll just do my best to leave it alone. If members of the black community feel it’s racist and they’re offended by the term, it’s a good enough reason for me to stop using it. If it’s [white] social justice warriors deciding, on their own, that Black People _should_ be offended by it and therefore white people shouldn’t use it, I might need some more convincing. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/3 "2021-03-03T15:22:34Z")
> **[Definition of THUG](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thug)** > > a violent or brutish criminal or bully; a member of a group of murderous robbers in India's past whose activities were suppressed in the early nineteenth century… See the full definition > **[Thuggee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > Thuggee (UK: /θʌˈɡiː/, US: /ˈθʌɡi/) are actions and crimes carried out by Thugs, historically, organised gangs of professional robbers and murderers in India. The English word thug traces its roots to the Hindi ठग (ṭhag), which means 'swindler' or 'deceiver'. Related words are the verb thugna ('to deceive'), from the Sanskrit स्थग (sthaga 'cunning, sly, fraudulent') and स्थगति (sthagati, 'he conceals'). This term, describing the murder and robbe... ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/4 "2021-03-03T15:25:52Z")
It is a word I avoid, as when I hear it used, it is almost always directed at minorities. Not always, mind you, but enough that it’s a word I am uncomfortable using, no matter whether anyone tells me it’s okay or not. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/5 "2021-03-03T15:30:07Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > It is a word I avoid, as when I hear it used, it is almost always directed at minorities. - I was born in 1960 and as far back as I remember hearing it, it was a brutish criminal (street thug) or as mentioned upthread, a strikebreaker(union thug). I learned about thuggee much later but still long before rap took the term. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/6 "2021-03-03T15:30:19Z")
I’m not seeing any dictionary definitions which incorporate a racial element. Merriam-Webster says “a violent or brutal criminal or bully”, which isn’t intrinsically racist but certainly overlaps with racist stereotypes of blacks. I don’t know what percentage of the time the word is used as a racist euphemism, but it seems fair to say it isn’t zero. I can’t read your link because of paywall, but [here](https://www.npr.org/2015/04/30/403362626/the-racially-charged-meaning-behind-the-word-thug) are a [couple](https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/thug-tupac-racism-language-reappropriation-20190417.html) articles making that case. Here’s a notable quote from the second one: > Like the N-word, _thug_ was reappropriated in the late 20th century. Just a few years after the L.A. supergroup N.W.A took the reappropriated N-word mainstream, Tupac Shakur broke out with _THUG LIFE_ tattooed across his chest. “White folks see us as thugs,” Shakur said in [one notable speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=128ao5Xl_VY). “I don’t care if you think you’re a lawyer, if you’re a man, if you’re an African American, if you’re whatever the f— you think you are. We’re thugs and n-----s to these motherf-----s.” So it appears that the black people who started using it to describe themselves at least perceived that they were appropriating a word white people were already using to describe them. And they perceived that they were being called this due to their race and not due to their actual behavior. Conclusion: Might as well err on the side of not using words which some people find problematic. It’s not like English doesn’t have dozens of perfectly good synonyms available. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/7 "2021-03-03T15:31:37Z")
That’s how I grew up knowing it. It wasn’t racial. “Common thug” and all that was used, but over time it feels like the word’s meaning has shifted in the common parlance, so I avoid it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/8 "2021-03-03T15:32:07Z")
The origin of a term is utterly irrelevant to current usage. For most of my life, a thug was merely a criminal, and could be of any race or nationality. As the OP writes, though, it was appropriated by black culture and so has become a term associated with and aimed at blacks. In 2015, back when Baltimore exploded into riots, thug was an epithet generally hurled at the black participants and even used by judges. Hard to argue that it wasn’t a specifically racial use. Yeah, that makes it problematic for white users. Whether it’s equivalent to the n-word is a different question. Since Obama himself called the Baltimore crowd “criminals and thugs” I’d say no. But that was six years ago and the world has continued to change. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/9 "2021-03-03T15:32:19Z")
IMO it can be a racial slur. It’s not always used as a racial slur. Calling peaceful BLM protesters “a pack of thugs” would be using it as a racial slur – calling the violent insurrectionists of Jan 6th “a pack of thugs” would not be. IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/10 "2021-03-03T15:33:41Z")
This long academic article may help with context and perspective. [From “brute” to “thug:” the demonization and criminalization of unarmed Black male victims in America](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5004736/) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/11 "2021-03-03T15:34:16Z")
Here’s an NPR piece from five years ago about “thug” being adopted as a “new euphemism” and dog- whistle. > **[The Racially Charged Meaning Behind The Word 'Thug'](https://www.npr.org/2015/04/30/403362626/the-racially-charged-meaning-behind-the-word-thug)** > > NPR's Melissa Block speaks to John McWhorter, associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, about the use of the word "thug" to describe Baltimore rioters. Here’s a more recent piece > **[The problematic history of the word ‘thug’: From rioting Pa. coal miners to...](https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/thug-tupac-racism-language-reappropriation-20190417.html)** > > Thug has a checkered history from its origins as a 19th-century Hindi word for thief to its present-day status as a racist dog-whistle. Many years ago I wouldn’t have said the word was racially charged, but it does seem to have developed that way of late. I have heard black people described as “thugs”, but I can’t recall hearing that word used for white malefactors, even the ones at the Capitol on January 6. None of this has anything to do, really, with the word’s origin in referring to members of the Thuggee cult. From all accounts – and I’ve read quite a bit about them – they weren’t a nice bunch of people and they were hard to root out. They preyed on innocents, and don’t appear to me to be any sort of nefarious plot by the British to justify colonial rule. On the other hand, talking about them can easily descend into racist tropes. Even though Spielberg and company tried to emphasize what the historical facts were, a lot of people came out of the second Indiana Jones movie with very negative and undeserved impressions of Indian religions. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/12 "2021-03-03T15:41:27Z")
Strikes me as odd. I recall in the 00s, when the Patriot Act was passed, folk discussing whether “jackbooted thugs” would be knocking down doors. And 2 months ago, I thought the insurrectionists were referred to as thugs. Are either of those usages inappropriate? Was there any reasonable interpretations that those were euphemisms for racial slurs? Or if a particular rapper declared himself to be leading the thug life. Is it racist to call that person a thug? As so often in such instances, I wonder exactly how many people, and what types of people, are objecting to the term. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/13 "2021-03-03T15:47:23Z")
I wouldn’t agree because the term is still used often enough to describe non-black people that it shouldn’t be regarded as a slur against black people. Antifa, the Chinese Communist Party and its violent supporters in Hong Kong, etc. have all been described as “jackbooted thugs” here or there. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/14 "2021-03-03T15:53:40Z")
I think it’s very much context dependent and has changed in my lifetime. When I was growing up in the U.K., it was certainly not associated in any way with racial minorities. In that culture, a (white) football hooligan would readily have come to mind. I haven’t lived in the U.K. for some time, not sure if that’s still true there. I’m not sure if I would feel the need to avoid using it myself in the U.K., and I would certainly not make any negative assumptions about hearing it there. But in the U.S. today, although there is no _explicit_ association with race, I think what has happened is that it has become a dog-whistle term used by racists to describe “uppity” young black men when they cannot get away with using the word they really _want_ to use. That baggage makes it very difficult for anyone to use now. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/15 "2021-03-03T15:57:56Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Or if a particular rapper declared himself to be leading the thug life. Is it racist to call that person a thug? Really? Have you not noticed that there’s asymmetry about what vocabulary is acceptable? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/16 "2021-03-03T16:23:46Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > But in the U.S. today, although there is no _explicit_ association with race, I think what has happened is that it has become a dog-whistle term used by racists to describe “uppity” young black men when they cannot get away with using the word they really _want_ to use. That baggage makes it very difficult for anyone to use now. Right. It might still be OK to refer to “Mafia thugs,” but using it today to refer to Blacks should be avoided. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/17 "2021-03-03T16:26:05Z")
It certainly can have racist connotations, and it’s use applied to white people doesn’t negate that. White police officers clubbing protesters can be called thugs. White insurrectionist storming the Capitol can be called thugs. But a Black male gets called a thug just for wearing a hoodie. It’s the asymmetry in its use between races that makes it problematic. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/18 "2021-03-03T16:28:10Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > But a Black male gets called a thug just for wearing a hoodie. Okay - but what about calling a BLM looter a thug? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/19 "2021-03-03T16:28:46Z")
Cops and others have made “thug” into a racial slur just by using primarily for black people, particularly black men, regardless of whether there is any evidence that the people so labeled are criminals. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202/20 "2021-03-03T16:32:42Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > When I was growing up in the U.K., it was certainly not associated in any way with racial minorities. In that culture, a (white) football hooligan would readily have come to mind. I haven’t lived in the U.K. for some time, not sure if that’s still true there. I’m not sure if I would feel the need to avoid using it myself in the U.K., and I would certainly not make any negative assumptions about hearing it there. At the start of this thread I thought about what image came to my mind and it was exactly the same as yours: a white football hooligan. So this must be more unique to an American audience (I’m in the UK). I still hear the word thug being used and there are zero racial connotations that I have ever detected. But I daresay that will change soon if this is being mooted as a problem in the US. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thug-unacceptable-racial-slur/934202.md?page=2)