OR–
We could ignore those idiots and keep using the English language to its full capacity.
You are free to use the language any way you choose, something that has been said repeatedly throughout the thread. Nobody is telling you what to do, we’re just telling you the potential consequences of your choices, the objectively reality of the semantic baggage that the word now carries.
If you choose to continue to use the word “thug” in some contexts, the reality is that people may think you’re a racist. If you don’t care about that, that’s on you. But the only “idiots” to blame for this fact are the racists who adopted the word as a dog whistle.
(Jumping off from this, not meant as disagreement exactly.) Well, partly. But also we can blame unconscious bias and unconscious associations that can make that word more likely to pop into your head to describe a black person you disapprove of than a white person you disapprove of. So continuing to use it without being careful about to whom you apply it means you are most likely reinforcing the connection. It will be unconscious, but can nevertheless be a racist usage, which perpetuates the racist connotation of the word.
A person is a racist by intention. But a person can do a racist thing unintentionally. Using “thug” in a biased manner is a racist thing that one can do unintentionally.
Yet, not using “thug” in a biased manner is so simple and easy that any child can learn to do it. So why do adults continue to do so? Because they haven’t looked inside themselves and made the effort to improve, probably. But that’s totally on them and can’t be excused.
Yes, I appreciate that racism can be unconscious culturally-ingrained bias rather than deliberate and intentional.
However, it’s not clear to me that this is the best example of that, I think it’s culturally dependent. I am quite sure that I have some ingrained unconscious racial bias, as we all do, but I did not grow up in a culture where this particular word was used to express that bias. I’m not claiming to be better than anyone else, it honestly just doesn’t have that association for me internally. Perhaps as I live longer in the U.S. that could change, at my age I don’t know.