Quote:
Originally Posted by corporatejay
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5004736/
words and symbols evolve and the term thug is no longer an appropriate way to refer to black folks.
Edit: For the record, I'm not calling you out or anything, but letting you know how that word is perceived. It's your choice if you want to have to explain yourself all the time.
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I'm reading that far differently than you.
If I called a group of black teenagers a "gang" for no reason other than their race, I'd be racist. Not because the word gang is inherently racist, but because I inferred that this group was a gang due to their skin or implying they were involved in criminal activity because of my racial biases.
Now if I called a group a "gang" because I knew they had gang affiliations, were throwing up gang-signs, had gang colours, known criminal pasts, and acted in a threatening manner; that's not racist regardless of their skin colour.
It's the same with the word thug.
It's about the portrayal and incessant need to paint young black males, especially those killed by police, as thugs (and not even necessarily using that word), even when there's little reason to (either they didn't do anything criminally, or it didn't matter in the big picture).