Bizarre, Politics, Society

Baltimore Councilman Accuses President and Baltimore Mayor For Using Racist Term In Calling Rioters “Thugs”

20130915StephanieRawlings-Blake1280x1920-1President_Barack_ObamaBaltimore City Councilman Carl Stokes (D) went on CNN yesterday and attacked President Obama and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D) for referring to rioters in Baltimore as “thugs” saying, “just call them n*ggers”. It is a familiar controversy for readers of this blog. Last year, various commentators objected to my writing about the “thuggish” behavior of Seahawks’ cornerback Richard Sherman
 as inherently racist — a position that I rejected. I have continued to use thug as both a noun and adjective. Now it appears that President Obama and Mayor Rawlings-Blake are being accused of the same use of racist code words by Councilman Stokes.


In the meantime, City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young apologized to rioters for calling them “thugs.”

“What we’re seeing today is not about Freddie Gray,” Young said. “It is about the pain, the hurt and the suffering of these young people. There’s no excuse for them to loot, riot and destroy our city. I made a comment out of frustration and anger when I called our children ‘thugs.’ They’re not thugs. They’re just misdirected. We need to direct them on a different path by creating opportunities for them.”

On CNN, Stokes objected to the use of the word when prompted by the host and said

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“of course it’s not the right word to call our children thugs. These are children who have been set aside, marginalized, who have not been engaged by us. No, we don’t have to call them thugs . . . “calling them thugs — just call them n*ggers. Just call them n*ggers. No, we don’t have to call them by names such as that. We don’t have to do that. That is exactly what we have set them to. Now, when you say ‘come on,’ come on what? You wouldn’t call your child a thug if they should do something that would not be what you would expect them to do.”

He added that he supported the recent video of a mother slapping her son for participating in the riots, but insisted that it was the right thing to do (not because of his participation in riots) but to keep the police from killing him: “she was trying to save his life. It is clear that it’s better that she hit him than the police hit him and brutalize him and take his life from him.”

In my view, Stokes is wrong on the use of the “thug” as well as his criticism of the President and the Mayor. He views mirror an effort to bar the use of words deemed to be “codes” when used to criticize minorities. The same objections were heard earlier on this blog and other sites. Beanie Barnes was one of those calling out those who use the word: “Suddenly he was ‘classless,’ a ‘thug’ from Compton, and any manner of other negative terms that one can substitute for the N-word. Sherman was no longer human, but a racist caricature.”

I disagree with this view, which ascribes a racist rather than a descriptive element to the use of the noun. The word “thug” has been used widely on this blog to rather to people of different genders, races, and backgrounds. It is possible for blacks like whites to act like thugs. It is their behavior that is driving the use of the word like burning police cars and robbing people in the streets of Baltimore.

No, neither President Obama nor Mayor Rawlings-Blake are racists. These rioters are thugs.

330 thoughts on “Baltimore Councilman Accuses President and Baltimore Mayor For Using Racist Term In Calling Rioters “Thugs””

  1. Perhaps the word “thugs” is simply overused. In this day and age of media awareness, it carries so much drama. Like anything popular, though, it rather loses its impact with overuse. I mean, it’s kind of 90s, isn’t it? (Recalling President Bush I and his “jack-booted thugs” comment.) 🙂

    1. Iconoclast – thugs has been around for about 1000 years. In this case it is the correct word.

  3. I believe second degree murder is not considered pre meditated murder.

  4. Squeeky – I wonder if they will present the jury with the option to go for a lesser charge IF the murder case is not proven without reasonable doubt. There have been mistakes in past cases where a jury was forced to acquit because they couldn’t prove a pre-meditated murder charge, and were not given the option of going with a lesser charge.

    I have not seen all the evidence, or know the threshold where manslaughter becomes murder, so perhaps it won’t be an issue.

  5. From reading all the links, I believe the charges were filed as soon as the medical examiner ruled it a homicide. The question is was it murder or negligent manslaughter. (I am not a lawyer, so forgive me if I don’t have the correct term.) If the report is true, it sounds like the officers showed a callous disregard to someone in medical distress.

    The police take responsibility for the welfare of the people they arrest. I’ve been on a ride-along where we took a suspect to the ER for a minor scratch.

    We’ll have to follow this closely and see what evidence is presented and how it plays out.

    1. When you hit someone with a bunch of charges, in the UK it is called “laddering” and it used to make your crimes stats look good.

  6. More than enough evidence for probable cause. Good, I hope justice is served.

  8. Thanks – I just saw the additional links. I’ll check them out.

  9. I found more information. What jumps out at me was that he told the officers driving the van that he was asthmatic, and was having trouble breathing, but they did not take him immediately to the hospital. As an asthmatic, I know firsthand how rapidly an asthma attack can deteriorate. The other problem was that he was on the floor of the van and not restrained by a seatbelt. Another person who’d been arrested said he heard a thumping back there, like he might have been hitting his head. Again, from my perspective as an asthmatic, he might have been thumping his head to make them come back there and check on him, because he couldn’t breathe. As someone who had allegedly recently underwent spinal surgery, thrashing around on your stomach in the back of a van could have possibly caused the spinal injury. Hopefully the autopsy, when it’s released, will shed more light.

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/05/01/many-questions-still-remain-in-death-freddie-gray/

  12. bettykath:

    I just heard they had deemed this a homicide. I have FAP internet, so I can’t watch the video. Thanks for the link. Did they share what information they had that led to the charge? The article didn’t say . . .

    Would evidence of manslaughter be failure to follow medical protocol? Failure to take him to a hospital when he didn’t have his inhaler? Failure to notice his legs going limp suddenly? I am so curious how this will turn out.

    I hope this charge is based on evidence, and not riots. I also hope that, like the Brown case, they release all evidence to the public at the appropriate time so we can all see it.

  15. All six officers involved in the arrest and transport of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old man who died under unexplained circumstances in police custody early this month, will face charges for their roles in his death.

    The Guardian reports that Goodson, along with the other five officers, will be charged with “second-degree murder, while charges including manslaughter, assault, and misconduct in public office were brought against five other officers.”

    https://youtu.be/w5EIjwn1g6k

  17. the savages in baltimore are sick…with a sense of entitlement…these animals steal, pillage and plunder…mothers stealing with daughters, fathers with sons…one father was seen smoking “butt-naked”…(PCP) with his son, just after he looted a store!…The mayor of Baltimore is a fox…superfine!

  18. African Americans are a minority. In order to compare apples to apples, one must compare the percentage of African Americans who are unwed mothers on public assistance with the percentage of Caucasians, or Latinos, or Asians, who are unwed mothers on public assistance.

    What is concerning is that the trend is rising, shockingly so for African Americans, but also for other demographics as well.

    We can be polite and ignore it, or we can care about the kids born into these challenges, and take the harder road of talking about what to do.

  20. Karen, I listed many possible solutions upstream a little bit.

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