The word "thug"

[Great Rumbler]

Disqus.

[nudemacusers]

I say it with a soft 'g'

[Madrun Badrun]

I say it with a hard 'k' to be ahead of the trend I'm predicting will happen.

[chronovore]

I say it with a soft 'g'

What, like “luge”?

[Phoenix Dark]

I can't cosign policing language. A thug is a criminal, and if someone commits a violent act or crime sure, I'm fine with calling them a thug. My problem is with the double standard that exists with respect to its application, and the broad way it's used.

For example if you're white and shoot up a movie theater or school you're a troubled young man with family or mental problems that need to be understood. If you're black and commit any crime you're a thug. Likewise if you're simply a black person who says or does something that offends, you're a thug too (see: Richard Sherman, Stanford graduate).

In short my view is that there's nothing wrong with the use of the word. But if it's going to be used, it should be used for criminals. Not just black criminals and "black people who annoy me."

[Mr. Nobody]

^Grand opening, grand closing.

[studyguy]

I can't cosign policing language. A thug is a criminal, and if someone commits a violent act or crime sure, I'm fine with calling them a thug. My problem is with the double standard that exists with respect to its application, and the broad way it's used.

For example if you're white and shoot up a movie theater or school you're a troubled young man with family or mental problems that need to be understood. If you're black and commit any crime you're a thug. Likewise if you're simply a black person who says or does something that offends, you're a thug too (see: Richard Sherman, Stanford graduate).

In short my view is that there's nothing wrong with the use of the word. But if it's going to be used, it should be used for criminals. Not just black criminals and "black people who annoy me."

Quick glance around the internet shows a bunch of defense against intended usage vs the double standards.

I mean throwing out a dictionary definition is all well and good. No one is going to dispute the literal meaning, but one would have to be blind to not see how it's applied out in the real world, especially within the media at large. Shit the more offensive defense is the claim that rappers call themselves thugs, so by association the black community at large has somehow earned the title.

That shit's gross af.

[jakefromstatefarm]

I say it with a soft 'g'

I say it with a hard 'k' to be ahead of the trend I'm predicting will happen.

fortition and/or lenition to word final velar stops in SAE

[FinNeato]

I generally avoid using it because of the connotations of the word. It can be used as a dogwhistle by some people when it's used exclusively by them to refer to minority criminals and/or used indiscriminately to refer to a group of minorities. The problem is there are still some people who use it in a legitimate fashion, who don't intend those racial connotations. I guess we could try to make the word unacceptable in all contexts because of those who misuse it, but then it becomes a linguistic treadmill where racists move onto the next word to turn into a dogwhistle, like "criminal." Pretty soon all the words describing a person who breaks the law have racial connotations and then there isn't a noun to describe a person who breaks the law that isn't perceived as being potentially racist.

[Eel O'Brian]

I like using Dumbass instead

[CatsCatsCats]

Maybe we just shouldn't label people using the verb "to be"

spoiler (click to show/hide)

what emoticon do I use for when I'm being a dirty hippy?

[close]

[chronovore]

Yeah, honestly there should be a poll choice for “news outlets,” as they’re the ones most guilty of defining the racially delineated use.

[Madrun Badrun]

I like using Dumbass instead

'Those dumbasses have done nothing good since getting off the cotton fields.'  Wow I totally think I could pass that off as non-racist to old white people.

[jakefromstatefarm]

I think there's too much of an emphasis on the word thug as a talking point, and maybe even on the usage of coded racial language overall.

imo, words like thug and criminal are already inherently coded to police deviant behavior. They'll always reflect certain demographics the dominant culture won't find agreeable, in America's case this is most commonly articulated wrt race.

[Kara]

Use best avoided.

[Madrun Badrun]

Use best avoided.

Yep, like Jew, or Puerto Rican, which I'm not comfortable saying after 30rock.

[Joe Molotov]

Can we also talk about how white athletes have "high football/basketball IQs" or are "leaders in the locker room" but black athletes are "freaks" or "beasts"?

[headwalk]

In short my view is that there's nothing wrong with the use of the word. But if it's going to be used, it should be used for criminals. Not just black criminals and "black people who annoy me."

thug is basically any kind of bruiser over here. don't need to be a criminal or anything. infact in football it's a label that generally gets stuck to white guys more than it does black. for everyone one fellaini there's a charlie adam, kevin nolan and joey barton.

[Madrun Badrun]

Can we also talk about how white athletes have "high football/basketball IQs" or are "leaders in the locker room" but black athletes are "freaks" or "beasts"?

I thought whites were Studs? 

[Kara]

Can we also talk about how white athletes have "high football/basketball IQs" or are "leaders in the locker room" but black athletes are "freaks" or "beasts"?

JUMPING OUT OF THE GYM

[Steve Contra]

"PD sure is eloquent explaining this, we need more people like him talking about Baltimore"

[Joe Molotov]

"PD sure is eloquent explaining this, we need more people like him talking about Baltimore"

"Sir, are you a black father?"

[Beezy]

https://instagram.com/p/2CXLT4ENHS/

[Brehvolution]

I've always associated it more with juggalos and white trash. 

Even in movie credits thug1 and thug2 are always white people.

[Phoenix Dark]

"PD sure is eloquent explaining this, we need more people like him talking about Baltimore"

"Sir, are you a black father?"

http://www.thebore.com/forum/index.php?topic=42089.msg1996342#msg1996342

[Rman]

I never use it. 

[ToxicAdam]

Fuck tha (word) Police


This is the never-ending battle of semantics. Any time a word describing a group of persons reaches a certain critical mass, it then becomes 'offensive' or 'loaded'. if old, white people collectively agreed to stop using the word thug and replaced it with 'lampshade', in 10 years time,  lampshade would be considered a slur or a racially-coded word. 

So, it's not really the word you have a problem with, it's the types of people saying the word and the context they're using it in.

   

[Rufus]

That "Just call them nig.gers" retort is the best way to deal with words like these. Pull the curtain back to counter with shame and go on with your life.

[Kara]

If I engaged with primary source material from America's days as an apartheid state I'd wager thug was a coded word then too; people like to overestimate the creativity of bigots.

[Van Cruncheon]

i've already heard "them thuggers"

[bork]

THUGS.

[Kara]

#rememberwhen Tony Hawk Underground was abbreviated THUG even though underground is a compound noun? Makes u think...

[bork]

#rememberwhen Tony Hawk Underground was abbreviated THUG even though underground is a compound noun? Makes u think...

[Phoenix Dark]

#rememberwhen Tony Hawk Underground was abbreviated THUG even though underground is a compound noun? Makes u think...

#staywoke

[bork]

THUGGIN' AND BUGGIN'

[jakefromstatefarm]

i've already heard "them thuggers"

I actually really like Barter 6 :avbehh

[Positive Touch]

I mean you can say it's just a word, but people damn well know what they mean when they're using it. unless ofc you're dealing with the disingenuous jaydub types who say they'll use it to describe anyone but only ever happen to use it when taking about black people

[Kara]

Mods please change my name to "Polo Ally Correct" thanks in advance.

[naff]

g rap and memes 

im geographically dislocated from any place where it is common parlance for a person involved in violent or criminal behaviour

[studyguy]

(Image removed from quote.)

I mean you can say it's just a word, but people damn well know what they mean when they're using it. unless ofc you're dealing with the disingenuous jaydub types who say they'll use it to describe anyone but only ever happen to use it when taking about black people

Shit like this is why social media is always gonna carry a big ass L.
Grandstanding racists out in full view with an echo chamber to back them. Sure it'll be the same for the delusional motherfuckers who take petty issues too far and blow it out of proportion but I'd rather see people argue whether a dress is blue or white any day over some legit racist taking center stage to blast out ignorance.

[dkdk]

Can we also talk about how white athletes have "high football/basketball IQs" or are "leaders in the locker room" but black athletes are "freaks" or "beasts"?

lol i love it.
you'd think white folks would want to trumpet all their physical freaks to level the playing field. i don't see any black Gronks or JJ Watts outchea

[benjipwns]

Can we work out a trade where we send thug and some other potential draft picks or minor leaguers to get the "n-word" back?

[Kara]

You might want to scope out a definition of thug, it's really not that generic in its meaning.

[Barraco Barner]

[HiResDes]

[Madrun Badrun]

Can we work out a trade where we send thug and some other potential draft picks or minor leaguers to get the "n-word" back?

I think there should be a make shift street ceremony where white people have to step on an icon of John Wayne before they can say the word. 

[Madrun Badrun]

And by 'they' I mean whites

[Phoenix Dark]

Once more on the whole "thug debate," addressing the argument people's motivations when using the word are steeped in racism. Setting aside for a moment the disturbing realization that to believe that means you also think those endangering the lives of innocents, and destroying property that doesn't belong to them, by rioting are the real victims here. God's Word explicitly says we are not to do evil so good may come. It is a very dangerous game to pretend you can read people's motivations or what's on their hearts. Motivations are typically God's domain, and the worst trouble I've gotten into during my career is when I have mistakenly believed I could do it.

However, if this is the new standard that literally means every word can simply be redefined based on the motivations of the speaker, which is moral relativism at its core. Now we're not even fixed to word definitions that predate us, either? So if the terms "hooligan" or "jerk" or "miscreant" were used instead, would they suddenly be racist? Does the term thug exist only within a racial context? Or does it transcend it? Are we really saying that calling thugs in the Baltimore case anything other than "misguided African-Americans who have a legitimate point" is now racist? Have we not had "thugs" as a term before today's racial debates? Of course we have, but we haven't had the "n-word" which is further evidence they're not the same.

Besides, it is the human heart that corrupts words. It is not the words that corrupt our hearts. The human heart is so wicked it can even turn God and Jesus Christ into swear words, and they are the holiest words in our language left on their own. Once more, we attempt to clean the outside of the cup rather than dealing with what's on the inside. This is what "social justice" does to pervert actual justice, which only begins when we admit we are all sinners in need of a Savior. That the system isn't the problem, but WE are the problem. And we create all the systems.

This is why I am focused on this debate. It appears to be a sideshow, but really it speaks to the heart of the societal scam(s) that has us imploding in the first place.

https://www.facebook.com/stevedeace/posts/441381816041863

Liberals and the ungodly annihilated.

[Madrun Badrun]

I think most people have an adverse reaction the first time they discover words can change their meaning.  Just most people discover this fact as a preteen.

[Brehvolution]

It applies to the pieces of human shit who violently lash out at random innocent folks.

Like protesters at an abortion clinic.

[Eel O'Brian]

Maybe it's because I'm an old school nerd, but honestly whenever I hear or read the word thug the first thing that pops in my head is the henchmen dudes who were hired by the main villains in the old Batman TV show. That, or purse-snatchers and muggers from old superhero comics.

[bork]

[Kara]

Maybe it's because I'm an old school nerd, but honestly whenever I hear or read the word thug the first thing that pops in my head is the henchmen dudes who were hired by the main villains in the old Batman TV show. That, or purse-snatchers and muggers from old superhero comics.

Your Batman example is more or less an accurate description of the word.

The strong visual implication of "thug" is the root of its status as a crypto-racist epithet, for the gallery's edification.

[Am_I_Anonymous]

I mean this whole thing insulates the idea that black people don't understand the connotation of the word "thug"

Here's one for you: Yeah we know who the thugs are too. Stop patronizing us.