Jessie.slimer
BIT Beta Team
No, many of us just think the world today is way to PC
Pandemic threat? Anyone else concerned?
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bigredfish
Known around here
I’m not about to let you or anyone else redefine words to support an agenda. Thugs are thugs regardless of color.
Race baiting is a sign of someone with no valid factual argument.
Frankenscript
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Gotta get back to work. We can continue later.
I leave you with this:
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I leave you with this:
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Oceanslider
Known around here
No difference, so color saying it should be no difference. You have a black(back) friend, I have Black Relatives. What is the difference? A THUG is a THUG. Can you show me all the incidences of leftist violence in the past years? How does it compare to the rights violence. Not comparable because there isn't much.
Thank GOD for the work of the Trump administration and most state & local governments.
The original estimated death toll was 2.1 Million people. Now we are looking at a small fraction of that number, and the vast majority of those had deep underlying conditions. I am curious if you are equally critical of Cuomo forcing nursing home facilities to take COVID patients.
Oceanslider
Known around here
What a joke "The LINCOLN Project".
Jessie.slimer
BIT Beta Team
I was originally not a big fan of Trump. He wasn't my first choice, but I can't see how this could've been handled better by a different president. Dems didn't want the travel ban. How would that have worked out?
Tell me specifically what a different president could have done better.
And no, Hillary could not have suicided the virus.
sorry had to
Q™
IPCT Contributor
Clearly the word "thug" is interpreted by many Americans as a code word for "nigger." Knowing this, I don't utilize the word "thug" and I avoid it not to be "politically correct" but rather to be sensitive and polite to those who have charge with it. And since this is clearly a word with charge, why would anyone -- particularly the leader of America -- employ that word? The answer has to be (1) he's employing it to dog whistle a faction of his base, or (2) he's simply fuQing stupid, or (3) he's simply a complete ASSHOLE. Even money on all three.
bigredfish
Known around here
"Many" Americans take offense at many things these days, and "interpret" them to fit their own agenda, its fashionable.
I don't associate the two words in any way, never have. And when exactly was that word determined to be the N word equivalent? and by whom?
It was apparently a legitmate word to use by a black President just 5 years ago.. (Skip to 2:38)
I don't associate the two words in any way, never have. And when exactly was that word determined to be the N word equivalent? and by whom?
It was apparently a legitmate word to use by a black President just 5 years ago.. (Skip to 2:38)
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Assuming racist intentions by use of the word "thug" is a massive and ridiculous jump and really faulty logic. It merely opens the door to people making unfounded prejudicial statements based on what they Think the speaker means. It also allows someone to blatantly dismiss any argument made by any person using that word. Until today, I have never associated "thug" with any racial word. I have never heard anyone else associate "thug" with any racist term-- EVER. it is used to characterize BEHAVIOR. If people are going to twist everything into an offensive racial meaning, nobody will be able to speak anything without massive butthurt ensuing.
Thug = N****r is just made-up bullshit.
bigredfish
Known around here
Exactly.
Another example of the PC crowd gone off the rails..
Another example of the PC crowd gone off the rails..
Frankenscript
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Sorry, you are wrong and purposefully ignoring what has already happened.
Read this, from 2015 in the aftermath of Baltimore:
Excerpt:
But nevertheless, thug is an interesting word, and to the extent that we need to be able to hear it as more than some antique, static, dictionary definition, then I think that that's part of the process of healing as well. Black people saying thug is not like white people saying thug.
Also keep in mind Trump talked about shooting people... Not ok. Context matters.
Oops. Just noticed it was media. Here's the transcript:
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
A certain five-letter word has been used repeatedly over the last few days.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAYOR STEPHANIE RAWLINGS-BLAKE: ...The thugs who only want to incite violence...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GOVERNOR LARRY HOGAN: ...Our city of Baltimore to be taken over by thugs...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: ...And thugs who tore up the place.
BLOCK: Thugs, the word chosen by President Obama, Maryland's governor, Baltimore's mayor and others to describe those who looted and burned stores in Baltimore and in some cases that were later retracted with an apology. So why is thug so charged? John McWhorter has been thinking about this. He teaches linguistics at Columbia University and often writes about language and race. Welcome back to the program.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Thank you, Melissa.
BLOCK: John, I've been looking at the Merriam-Webster definition of thug, and it describes it as a brutal ruffian or assassin. What's the origin of this word?
MCWHORTER: Well, the word originates in India as a word for roughly that. And because the British ran India for a good long time, the word jumped the rails from Indian languages to English, and that's the reason that we in America have used the word for a very long time. And until rather recently, it did mean what you might call a ruffian, but of course, things have changed.
BLOCK: Well, how have they changed?
MCWHORTER: Well, the truth is that thug today is a nominally polite way of using the N-word. Many people suspect it, and they are correct. When somebody talks about thugs ruining a place, it is almost impossible today that they are referring to somebody with blond hair. It is a sly way of saying there go those black people ruining things again. And so anybody who wonders whether thug is becoming the new N-word doesn't need to. It's most certainly is.
BLOCK: Although, if you think about it, I mean, in two of the pieces of tape that we played, we heard from an African-American mayor of Baltimore and an African-American president of the United States using that word.
MCWHORTER: Yep, and that is because just like the N-word, we have another one of these strangely bifurcated words. Thug in the black community, for about the past 25 to 30 years, has also meant ruffian, but there is a tinge of affection. A thug in black people's speech is somebody who is a ruffian but in being a ruffian is displaying a healthy sort of countercultural initiative, displaying a kind of resilience in the face of racism etc. Of course nobody puts it that way, but that's the feeling. And so when black people say it, they don't mean what white people mean, and that's why I think Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Barack Obama saying it means something different from the white housewife wherever who says it.
BLOCK: You're saying that African-American, in this case, politicians, who use the word thug should be given a pass because they understand it in a different way? I mean, the mayor certainly walked back her use of the word. She didn't want to be associated with it. She said, you know, I spoke out of frustration. They're really misguided young people.
MCWHORTER: No because I think that if an African-American woman uses the word thug today, we're not always conscious of all of these overtones in the words that we use. But I think that when she said that, she didn't mean it the same way as her white equivalent would. The word means two things, just like the N-word. And I think all of us are sophisticated enough to wrap our heads around that.
BLOCK: When do you see a turning point in how the word thug is used in our culture?
MCWHORTER: Well, it seems to have made a major change with the rise in popularity and cultural influence of rap music and the iconography connected with that. I would say that the word thug in the black community had a very different meaning by 1990 than it had had in 1980. But that thug image has never been a purely negative model. It's always been part ruffian and part hero.
BLOCK: I'm thinking of Tupac Shakur who had thug life tattooed across his stomach, I think.
MCWHORTER: Exactly, and Tupac Shakur is thought of as a god by many people. If he was a thug, then clearly if a black person says thugs were messing up the neighborhood, then they mean something other than reprehensible, shall we say, N-word. We have different races in this country, and different races have different ways of using language. Thug ends up straddling different subcultures.
BLOCK: The word thug also - I can think of a number of other applications. I mean, folks on the far right might talk about jackbooted government thugs coming to take over our communities
MCWHORTER: That was the original meaning. It changed though. One of the things that Americans have a whole lot of trouble with - actually, that people in developed societies with written languages have trouble with - is that words never keep their meanings over time. A word is a thing on the move. A word is a process. And that's what's so confusing about the N-word. And that's what's so confusing now about this word, thug. Any discussion where we pretend that it only means one thing is just going to lead to dissension and confusion.
BLOCK: There are a lot of people now, John, who are saying, you know, why - and probably listening to this conversation saying, why are you talking about the meaning of this word, thug? That is really the wrong question to be asking and the wrong thing to be focusing on right now.
MCWHORTER: (Laughter). Well, to tell you the truth, my interest in all of these events is what made these whatever-you-want-to-call-thems rise up the way they did. And as far as I'm concerned, I feel that although the rioters were not articulate - they were not performing anything that I would call an exactly coherent action, the fact that this has happened is symptomatic of severe problems in Baltimore and similar cities. And the problem is the relationship between the police and young black men. Now, is it justified to tear up your own neighborhood to protest against it? I would say not. But the fact that it's happened is something that I think we can use as a possible turning point because I really believe that if a generation of young black men grew up in this country without thinking of the cops as the enemy, then America would really start turning a corner on race.
But nevertheless, thug is an interesting word, and to the extent that we need to be able to hear it as more than some antique, static, dictionary definition, then I think that that's part of the process of healing as well. Black people saying thug is not like white people saying thug.
BLOCK: John McWhorter, thanks for talking to us.
MCWHORTER: Thank you.
BLOCK: John McWhorter teaches linguistics, American studies and music at Columbia University. His latest book is "The Language Hoax."
Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
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Q™
IPCT Contributor
And yet it's not too fucking hard for anyone with any semblance of ability to assess people to ascertain that I am about as far from the "PC Crowd" as one could be. I say "Merry Christmas" to everyone...but if your kid was autistic I wouldn't ask you"how's your retard doing", and not because I was "politically correct", but rather because I can -- at times -- be polite and I wouldn't want to offend you. I tell you that it is true that many people associate the word thug with the word nigger. You believe whatever the fuck you want to believe; honestly I don't give a shit, although I'm surprised at your stated position @bigredfish because I've previously thought you to be a thoughtful and polite person.
beepsilver
Getting comfortable
Jessie.slimer
BIT Beta Team
So its OK for black people to be racist then. Got it.
My what a tangled web they weave.
Q™
IPCT Contributor
No. He's definitely an asshole.
Frankenscript
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It goes both ways.
If I am with other white folks and use the term "cracker" to describe an ignorant white guy, it has one valence that is ok in that social context. If a black person calls a white person a cracker, it has a much more pejorative context.
bigredfish
Known around here
We've already agreed I'm an asshole. But we'll have to respectfully agree to disagree on this Q, I quit letting others put words in my mouth, or twisting them to fit their agenda quite some time ago.
But we'll have to respectfully agree to disagree on this Q, I quit letting others put words in my mouth, or twisting them to fit their agenda quite some time ago.
Q™
IPCT Contributor
Q™
IPCT Contributor
I remember that! You were most gracious in acknowledging this fact!
