Case in point: a “celebration”? Does it make it better somehow that these criminals were not protesting a killing by police but rather celebrating a football win? What an odd perspective.
Your “five days of burning” includes exactly one fire at a convenience store. ONE. And some trash cans.
Ohio State? Sure couches and dumpsters. Also people’s CARS. And you know as well as I do, living in Ohio, that this is just one of many, many football riots here - they are routine and expected regular occurrences.
If you prefer not to look at the OSU football riots instead of the larger point I made, then look at the pumpkin riots or the Woodstock 99 riots or the post Olympic beer tent closing riots or the Vancouver hockey riots or the riots in Huntington beach after a surf competition or the football riots in Denver in 2014 (to name just a few). Plenty of looting of stores and other businesses, burning and rocks thrown at police in those cases. And no one calling the white perps thugs.
"Do we use the term “thugs” for white rioters after football games and such? Those who burn cars and couches and tear down college property for no reason at all except a game WIN? "
Well, of course I do. They’re thugs too. They aren’t mutually exclusive. Or I might use the term low-lifes, or vandals, or scum. Same as I would for black, purple or polka dotted people who acted that way.
What magically about the word thug codes it as racist? What makes you think the racists who say thug wouldn’t have equally applied that term to white people doing something bad? Is it the hard g sound? I’m being totally serious here.
@ohiomomof2, none of the reporting about the OSU riot I looked at this afternoon indicates that there were car fires. I am not saying there were not, just that every source I looked at, from the Dispatch, the Plain Dealer, NBC, HuffPo and the WaPo, stated that there were approximately 90 couch or garbage can fires, some of which spread to dumpsters.
The most significant property damage reported was the temporary south goal posts being torn down.
Maybe you consider that to be functionally equivalent to the millions in damage caused in Baltimore, but to me they are categorically different. And, by the way, there were many, many fires in Baltimore. According to Reuters, there were 61 structural fires and 144 car fires set during the riot.
In addition, as far as I know there were no reports of violence directed at individuals including police or looting in Columbus, while the opposite is certainly true in Baltimore. Not sure what aspects of these two situations you find similar.
I think you would have a better case, frankly, to compare the reporting of the activities in Baltimore, involving primarily black protagonists, with reporting of the activities of Occupy Wall Street or the earlier WTO riots, both of which involved primarily white protagonists. In those instances, you have a commonality of significant property damage and violence directed at the police that is missing in your OSU example. In those instances though, reporters, at least on the right, did refer to the Occupy Wall Streeters and WTO protestors as thugs.
I don’t recall being told it was a racist term at that time. I also don’t think President Obama called the Occupy Wall Streeters thugs.
@guidedbywire. Substantively, I agree with much of your last post. If we are to talk about context though, what is it about the use of the phrase thug in this context that you find problematic? Because if what you are saying is that the use of the term should be proscribed in all instances when discussing people of color because some people may take it out of context, then I don’t really see a substantive difference between that position and saying the word should not be used because it in fact implies a racist intent.
The use of the term for black people much more than for white people doing the same things. Particularly in the media, not your personal usage of the word.
Conditioning? I didn’t think of black people when I heard the word until sometime in the past year or so when the term was used so often to describe protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson.
@Ohiodad51 - I read cars. But if you prefer, look at the OSU-Michigan game in 2002 (and I could name a bunch in the 13 years in between, as I’m sure you well know).
That’s only one example. I listed a few in my previous post. There are many more. And the language used by the media and most people to describe them never includes “thugs” or anything other than the sort of language you used - it was just a “celebration”.
That semantic drift in “thug” seems to parallel the drift in “geek” or “nerd”. All these words were once consistently terms of opprobrium. Now, in at least some communities, they have become badges of honor (albeit for very different attributes.) Although in the case of “thug”, the drift may be moving in two directions, one way in the black community and another in the, uh, closet racist community.
Meanwhile, old farts like me continue to use it the old-fashioned way (to refer to habitually violent people regardless of race.) I don’t take my language style cues either from Tupac Shakur or from Rush Limbaugh.
We’re not talking about a word like “gay” here, which has drifted so far and almost so universally that most American English speakers have stopped using it (and in some cases maybe even understanding it) in its earlier meaning.
Nevertheless, I can appreciate that “thug” is an emotionally charged word.
I wouldn’t say that the young woman with the backpack in the Yale video was acting like a “thug”. She didn’t bludgeon the Master of Silliman College. She shouted him down. We don’t arrest college students for that particular behavior. We could expel them. That, mind you, would be fairly extreme. The politically correct term of opprobrium for it might be “fascist”, unless you already are using that word to describe the foulmouthed young woman herself (https://www.theburningplatform.com/2015/11/12/fascism-at-yale/). Maybe we should take a breath and save that emotionally-charged word for actual fascists … and the word “thug” for actual thugs.
Like I said. None of the sources I looked at reported anything other than the garbage can/couch/dumpster fires. Not saying it didn’t happen, and maybe when Campus Rush says there was damage to 20 cars that meant that those cars were set on fire and the WaPo, Dispatch, PD et al just missed it. Hard to stretch even this report into $9,000,000 plus in damage and throwing rocks at cops though.
I think what happened last year is very different than what happened in 2002, not least of which because there was violence involved in 2002 (and Baltimore) that was not obviously present last year. By the way, here is one media report referring to the 2002 idiots as thugs. I am sure there were more.
One further point. If I recollect correctly, it was the Mayor of Baltimore along with President Obama who injected the term thug into the Baltimore riots. Are they racist because they didn’t call the rioters in Columbus thugs last winter?
@Ohiodad51 You will love this, us both being, former greats of the gridiron (embellishment followed by a necessary giggles). My niece and godchild is a freshmen at MichState–and there is not a bigger sports fan than her. So, this week, upon their breakdown at the end of the game against Nebraska, I made a well timed text to basically egg her on…something to the effect of–
“hey sweetie, how we doing up there in Lansing…” (note, Nebraska had just driven, in under a minute, the length of the field and took the lead" There was silence…so, I thought, she might be caught up in the game or getting a snack/drink…so, I followed-up with a " ???".
She immediately replied back, with “sorry nino” (her name for me)–" I was just checking this house on what sofas I can light on fire"
If you need to fixate on 2015 instead of on the larger point I’m making, what I read was that two cars burned because they were adjacent to a dumpster that was set on fire. 2 is a lot less than previous riots after football games, that’s true. But my point remains.
Bravo for the Lantern reporter calling it what it was - “thugs”, though even then the rioters were partially excused with alcohol which seems to be used as a mitigating factor. as is often the case with white rioters. Black people riot because they’re made that way, white people riot because they’re drunk.
Here’s coverage of a similar event 13 years later:
“Police use tear gas on joyous, couch-burning Ohio State fans”
@boolaHI, LOL. Two of my son’s buddies are freshmen on the MSU team this year. One of them was one of the guys who got to the punter at the UM game. That was pretty cool to watch.
I assume by “this context” you mean in the earlier part of this thread, as it was applied to students blocking the car? I didn’t find it problematic on its own. I’ve said over and over now (and this really must be the last time, in consideration of the patience of those reading along) that I did not consider Pizzagirl to be using it with racist or coded intent.
The reason I weighed in was to agree that in other contexts, it’s often used that way. And it’s probably a good idea to be mindful. Lest someone misinterpret things.
No, I’m not saying it should be avoided in all instances when discussing people of color. But regardless, I do see a difference between listeners’ assumptions and speakers’ intent.
I don’t think pointing out a word’s connotation in context has to be anything more than saying “be mindful about how and when and in what contexts to use it”. You seem to be suggesting that doing this can only be an accusation aimed squarely at the speaker. Think of it more of a helpful tip for avoiding unintended misunderstandings.
@ohmomof2, I am not fixating on the 2015 riots in Columbus. As I understand it, you asserted that the media coverage of that event should be compared to the media coverage of the Baltimore event. I find the situations to be different in both kind and intensity. I believe that as serious, rational beings, we should and must draw distinctions between the way that we respond and address situations that are so obviously different.
I simply reject your premise that “black people riot because they are made that way, white people riot because they are drunk” I have not seen that argument made anywhere, and I do not find it persuasive when it is “assumed” because of the use of “code words”.
I freely admit that there may be other sports riots in the past which were more akin to what went on in Baltimore, but the problem with looking through news coverage of those riots is that the farther back in time you go, the less power there is in this allegedly evolving definition of the word thug. I mean really, what value is there in looking at news reporting from the 1990s if this racist meaning of thug has only sprung into being in the last several years?
I would also point out that the last I checked, black kids go to Ohio State, and white kids live in Baltimore. I would bet all the money in my pockets that there were drunk black kids lighting old coaches on fire in Columbus last year and that there were white kids looting stores in Baltimore.
I actually linked one in post #191. But that’s not my premise, it’s a common way riots are portrayed depending on whether the main group is white or black. (And yes, a few white folks participated in the Baltimore protests as did a few black kids in the OSU riot but were not in the majority in either case).
And I agree that “thug” has only recently picked up steam as a term people find racist. But characterizing black and white people differently when they riot is not a recent phenomenon. There are numerous studies on that which I can link if you are skeptical.
With regard to whether or not “thug” is an appropriate term for the kids blocking the car, maybe you should actually see what they did and make a decision for yourself (e.g. notice they did not “surround” the car as was stated multiple times earlier, notice they left as soon as the police told them to): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6zwnmlzZSQ