I completely disagree that this is what the issue is about, since I haven’t seen anyone calling for “the removal of the word from our vocabulary,” either here or anywhere else. Perhaps you could reference a post number for us?
Hey, me too! And I’m a suburbanite as well. I don’t claim expertise with language, slang, identity and community either. I just go by my own experiences.
Just curious, can you give an example of the sort of proof that would convince you? Perhaps a self-avowed secret racist admitting that yes, they have employed this usage often on the internet? Perhaps 25 saying the same thing? 100?
In my case, I was convinced by reading dozens if not hundreds of posts and comments (not here, btw) by people who had otherwise firmly and unambiguously established themselves to be racists employing the word. I didn’t require confessions by the users; it was a pretty obvious and consistent pattern.
Would you like to torture the meaning of the English language to “decode” that post into something other than what it obviously is?
How about Post #65?
Is there some way you want to interpret that as anything other than saying the use of the word “thug” is racist?
What substantive argument did either poster make countering the original assertion (that surrounding a car during the homecoming parade was thuggish behavior if I recollect correctly). They made none. They just jumped to impinging motives. That is bad.
As far as the “type of proof” I would accept that thug had become yet another code word for racism (again, like golf and hard work), I would accept usage of the word with the intent of disparaging a group irrespective of the conduct of the individuals under discussion. I do not accept that the use of the term thug by someone who may have voted republican at some point in the last ten years, or heaven help us even someone who watches NASCAR, necessarily means it is a racist term.
@guidedbywire and @Pizzagirl - There has been a trend to use “thug” as a codeword to describe black criminals. I first saw it in newspaper articles when a crime has been committed and the race of the suspect is not revealed as part the description. Comments sections would use “thug” as a codeword for such suspects as a protest against the newspapers decision not to describe the race of the suspect. Many of these comments were racist in nature.
However, it would not be reasonable to expect the use of that term by the general public or a CC poster to have the same overtones.
No but it would be reasonable for individuals to listen to others who say that for many it does have racist connotations rather than digging in one’s heels and saying that it hasn’t been their experience so it’s either not true or irrelevant. The latter way of thinking is, imo, very provincial.
And imo it is equally provincial for you to not to listen to others who say it does not have racist connotations rather than digging in one’s heels and insisting that your experience trumps theirs and gives you the right to define words for everyone else.
That’s not defining words for everyone else, it’s saying how the words affect THEM. One can respect how people say words make them feel or not, that’s always a choice, but you can’t deny the experience of others when they say a term makes them feel some way.
So that professor is saying that President Obama and the mayor of Baltimore, both of whom are black, were using a codeword for the n-word? That seems pretty far-fetched to me.
Here’s what I think: racist people tend to use insulting words to demean black people. These could include thug, animal, low-life, welfare queen, shiftless, and lots more. I think perhaps we are making a mistake by looking at the specific word–it’s easy enough to change a codeword, after all.
@zinhead, the link is bad but if that is a link to the interview with the Columbia professor then all I get out of that interview is that the professor is saying basically that he knows people really mean to be disparaging of blacks when they use the word thug. He assumes the essential fact (that the person who is commenting is a racist) and then adjusts the meaning of the language used to provide “proof” of this racism.
Maybe your link is to a different piece, but if it is the one I am familiar with I am not sure that anyone should be allowed to impute racism even if they teach at Columbia and get interviewed on All Things Considered.
Well since I was the one who wrote post, #65, yes. I would direct you to the immediate follow-up, post #66, where I explicitly say “To clarify…I was in no way suggesting that Pizzagirl was using it in that fashion.” And furthermore by post #121 where I said “Nobody is telling you to give up using the word altogether. No one is trying to change the denotation of the word. Nobody is accusing anyone who uses the word to be an automatic racist.” (emphasis added).
I wasn’t attempting to counter the original assertion. Nor was I trying to discredit or tar those condemning the behavior. I was simply vouching that, in my experience, the word has indeed acquired an additional connotation in some (again, not all) contexts. And that users should be aware of that.
Well, that sums up pretty well what convinced me. You’re free to not believe me of course, and wait until you encounter a critical mass of this type of usage yourself.
God, I hope not, because I frequently vote Republican and try to watch as much auto racing as I can.
And the “city leaders” who attacked the mayor for calling out the appalling behavior in Baltimore got exactly what they wanted. These “children” became “misguided” rather than “thugs”.
Note the difference in the actual meaning of the words. People who are misguided are not necessarily at fault. People who are misguided sometimes do the wrong things with good intentions. Misguided people can break things and jump on cars even if they are really concerned about uncalled for police violence. Thugs operate from baser motives.
I submit that the city councilman’s tirade had much more to do with providing cover to the rioters within the larger context of the protests than it had to do with any serious or preexisting concern with the etymology of the word thug.
@guidedbywire, yes, post #65 was intended to support the original statement in post #61 (that thug was considered to be a racist term) rather than address the substantive point. But you asked for examples of posts seeking to remove the use of the term thug from acceptable conversation, and those were the two closest at hand. Or is it your position that stating that the term thug is used “by an enormous number of vile people” was not intended to indicate the word is inappropriate?
And I would ask you the same question I posed in post #164. Of this “critical mass” of posts you have seen by racists, what is it about the actual statements made, other than the use of the “coded” definition of thug, that convinces you they are actually racists? In other words, how do you divine racist intent without reinterpreting the words used?
That, by the way, is a serious question. Generally, as our language evolves, it does so as terms are used in expressly new and distinct ways in literature, music, media,etc that make it clear the term has taken on a new meaning. But when we discuss these racist code words which seem to have cropped up over the last several years it is always in the context of disparaging the motives of people who, absent this special meaning of a particular word, do not appear to be overtly racist. I have never been able to get my mind around why people find that to be so persuasive.
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? When OSU won the national championship here and almost 100 fires were set, college property intentionally destroyed and the main street in Columbus blocked, the (mostly white) rioters weren’t called thugs. They were called “revelers”.
There are so many examples of the use of “thugs” exclusively to describe black people doing no worse than large groups of white people do. Used not even by overt racists, just people (or in these cases, members of the media) choosing one word over another depending on the race of the subjects.
“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?”
Yes, terribly clever. Particularly because the situations are so eerily similar. I mean everyone knows that a riot in celebration of a win in a sporting event for approximately 4 hours that resulted in some 80 dumpster/couch fires and ripped down a set of temporary goal posts is exactly and completely the same thing as five days of looting, burning and throwing rocks at police that resulted in almost $10,000,000 in damages. Terribly clever analogy.
It was intended to indicate that it can be inappropriate in some, not in all, contexts. I can’t speak for the intent of the author of #61, but my intention was not to support an attack on a poster, but to vouch for having encountered that usage. I feel like I made it clear enough in my subsequent posts that I wasn’t talking about all instances or contexts. I employed the phrase “enormous number of vile people” to convey that I’ve seen it happen a lot…more than once or twice. But once again, not in all contexts.
I don’t know how many times I can say that I am not trying to remove the word from acceptable conversation. In fact, I’ve given specific examples where I think the word is a fairly safe distance away from any racist connotation.
From my viewpoint, this whole argument seems to have devolved to variations on this:
Side A: In some (but not all) contexts, many people think the word ‘thug’ has acquired a racist connotation. Be mindful.
Side B: I refuse to believe that using ‘thug’ is a racist codewode in every situation. Here’s an example.
Well, I don’t keep a transcript of everything I’ve read on the internet, so you’ll forgive me for paraphrasing. But it was a lot of stuff along the lines of traditional, old-fashioned racist and bigoted clamour. Including interspersing more aggressive terms like ‘animals’ and ‘subhuman’, complaining that the thugs are threatening their way of life, using the term widely to refer to African-Americans who are merely vocally advocating for a cause rather than engaging in actual criminal behavior. etc.
In other words, it’s their other words.
Perhaps some people do that, but I don’t agree that it is always the case. At least that’s not my view. To put it another way…if someone uses the word thug, I don’t assume them to be a covert racist. Nor do I call out the word as a tactic to shift the focus from their substantive points to their motives. I acknowledge some people do, but that’s because there are extremists on both sides.