Minneapolis PD Suffocate Unarmed Black Man Who Later Dies in Hospital

[Coach]

Originally Posted by schteve_d

I use thug somewhat regularly and have never even considered it to have any sort of racial connotation. The Merriam Webster dictionary, Wiktionary, Wikipedia, Cambridge English dictionary. None of these sources cite any racial connotation.

Almost as if all of the resources are likely contributed to and edited by predominately white people.*


*disclaimer this is a statement pulled directly from my butt with no actual research done on the specifics of contributors to such sources. But I'm fairly sure it's probably true.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Weitz

He tested positive on April 3rd, and apparently was an asymptomatic carrier.

well this seem the perfect solution, Chauvin catches Covid from Floyd and dies in remand like thousands of other prisoners that no one so far has given a tinkers about

[schteve_d]

Originally Posted by Coach

Almost as if all of the resources are likely contributed to and edited by predominately white people.*

Oh boy.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by transplant99

I really dont care what you, in particular, think.

Nobody is asking you to, I won't lose sleep. I just find it hard to believe you need it explained to you (again) when you use it exclusively to refer to Black people. Self-reflection is probably your greatest tool in figuring this out.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by troutman

Not important, but I heard today Floyd's autopsy also revealed he was positive for COVID. [MSNBC]

The problem here is that someone (or rather, plenty of someones) are going to say that that's why he couldn't breathe, despite there being no reason to think that he had any symptoms whatsoever.

[OMG!WTF!]

I think thug goes hand in hand with thug life...a term created by 2Pac referring to mainly black males but also hip hop culture in general. Thug life sort of means surviving in the face of racism and societal pressures. The verb..to thug..is a reference to the hustle or the grind or the stuff black men do to survive. I've also heard it is also an acronym for The Hate u Give or something. So I think there is a clear connection to black culture at least if not black people specifically. Although I have several white relatives who think they're thugs and would be honored to be called that.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

I think thug goes hand in hand with thug life...a term created by 2Pac referring to mainly black males but also hip hop culture in general. Thug life sort of means surviving in the face of racism and societal pressures. The verb..to thug..is a reference to the hustle or the grind or the stuff black men do to survive. I've also heard it is also an acronym for The Hate u Give or something. So I think there is a clear connection to black culture at least if not black people specifically. Although I have several white relatives who think they're thugs and would be honored to be called that.

I'm a bit confused about what you're trying to say here, in particular about the practice of using the word "thug" when referring to black people. It sounds like you're saying that it makes sense for that to be used solely as a term to describe black people (or white people who "think they're thugs") because of its historical use in hip hop... Is that right, or am I misunderstanding your post?

[PsYcNeT]

I think it's more that the usage of thug to describe black people is most commonly heard from the dogwhistle crowd, eg. Hannity, Ingrahm, Limbaugh, etc.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by schteve_d

Oh boy.

Sorry, you're right. The sacred institutions of Webster's and Cambridge dictionaries and the internet are free of the systemic racism and bias that plagues literally everything else.

The point is, if a systemically oppressed person tells you that a word is negatively associated with their community, the answer is not to argue with them over stupid semantics. Say "Oh, I didn't realize. Sorry." And start using a different word.

[Harry Lime]

I like the word hooligan. Please don't anybody change the meaning or direction of this word so that I can't use it anymore. If thug was just thug before it was popularized by 2Pac, if I hear hooligan on the radio I will lose my ####.

[nik-]

Thug, for me, exclusively refers to 19th century Indian serial stranglers.

[schteve_d]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

I like the word hooligan. Please don't anybody change the meaning or direction of this word so that I can't use it anymore. If thug was just thug before it was popularized by 2Pac, if I hear hooligan on the radio I will lose my ####.

And ruffian. I still laugh when I say it thinking of my late grandfather! He wasn't a ruffian, but he did love the word!

[MarchHare]

If you Google the word "thug", this is literally the first result. Take a moment to read the article and learn something.

https://www.npr.org/2015/04/30/40336...-the-word-thug

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.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Coach

The point is, if a systemically oppressed person tells you that a word is negatively associated with their community, the answer is not to argue with them over stupid semantics. Say "Oh, I didn't realize. Sorry." And start using a different word.

Yeah, no. An individual, or even a group of individuals, deciding that they're offended by a particular word does not result in an immediate requirement for an apology and a deletion of that word from your lexicon. That's not really what we're talking about here. There's a traceable pattern of "thug" being used in a particular manner that casts a particular group of people as uncivilized and violent, and that ties into a history of claims that they, as a race, are inferior for precisely that reason. It's not a matter of a minority telling you they object to the use of the word. It's about why they object to it, and that objection being, in this case, clearly justified.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Yeah, no. An individual, or even a group of individuals, deciding that they're offended by a particular word does not result in an immediate requirement for an apology and a deletion of that word from your lexicon. That's not really what we're talking about here. There's a traceable pattern of "thug" being used in a particular manner that casts a particular group of people as uncivilized and violent, and that ties into a history of claims that they, as a race, are inferior for precisely that reason. It's not a matter of a minority telling you they object to the use of the word. It's about why they object to it, and that objection being, in this case, clearly justified.

I agree. I was being simplistic in my response.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I'm a bit confused about what you're trying to say here, in particular about the practice of using the word "thug" when referring to black people. It sounds like you're saying that it makes sense for that to be used solely as a term to describe black people (or white people who "think they're thugs") because of its historical use in hip hop... Is that right, or am I misunderstanding your post?

Just that there is a definite connection to black culture where others were saying it's just a word. I'm not sure if it's bad to use it or not. Maybe it's a bit like black people using the n word.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by schteve_d

I use thug somewhat regularly and have never even considered it to have any sort of racial connotation. The Merriam Webster dictionary, Wiktionary, Wikipedia, Cambridge English dictionary. None of these sources cite any racial connotation.

I can't speak for other black people but I don't inherently find the word offensive. I admit that at certain times the goalposts are inexplicably moved as to what words are offensive and in what context... not that this is an admission that I'm obligated to make.

If somebody calls me a thug I'm offended because I'm not a thug, not because I'm black and they called me a thug.

[schteve_d]

So, to summarize, 2Pac changed the meaning of the word and now I'm an ####### for using it?

[Acey]

Originally Posted by schteve_d

So, to summarize, 2Pac changed the meaning of the word and now I'm an ####### for using it?

That's clearly not a summarization of what I just said but if that's your overall take on the whole situation then... sure.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by schteve_d

So, to summarize, 2Pac changed the meaning of the word and now I'm an ####### for using it?

Kind of yeah. Thug was just a word..ex Al Capone was a thug..until 2Pac applied it to hip hop culture. When you look up thug in the dictionary, there's isn't much reference to black culture. Not even in Urban Dictionary. But when you look up thug life, there is. Words change meaning all the time. Life is not the word in question.