Baltimore 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
“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.
Squeeky
I appreciate the distinctions and the tips you’ve given. I tend to embellish a bit on here.
I don’t get how me being a law student has anything to do with making distinctions or being a good critical thinker. Me being a law student merely suggests I’ve passed prerequisites and received opportunities.
Many lefties you dislike have shined in law school. Obama. Both Clinton’s. I’m sure there is more.
Also, simply because we arrive at different conclusions does not mean one is thinking critically and one not. The hallmark of a critical thinker is that the answer does not necessarily matter, the beauty is bound up in the thought – not the conclusion.
Nonetheless, I appreciate the comments.
TJustice – I don’t think Obama shined in law school. There are two ways to get on the Harvard Law Review, selection by the faculty and selection by the students. Obama was selected by the students. And then the selected students vote amongst themselves for Editor. As editor, Obama wrote only one article.
Po, my standards of behavior guarantees I would never find myself in a position of someone (other than the criminally minded already) thinking I should be killed. And that’s not racist, white-man thinking, it’s a statistical fact.
on 1, April 29, 2015 at 4:37 pmTyger Gilbert
“…..or just execute him after the first couple of convictions (preferably).”
“Execute him”? Wow on the road to Totalitarianism, march!
Paul C. Schulte
po – not all rioters are thugs but some rioters are thugs. Does that make you feel better?
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Thank you, Paul, always know how to make me feel better 🙂
Better yet though, all rioters are thugs or no rioter is a thug.
po – I cannot agree that no rioter is a thug, so to make you happy I will agree that all rioters are thugs.
Jill, the length of Gray’s rap sheet only demonstrates that the legal system is broken and now favors the criminal. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been repeatedly released to repeat his criminal behavior over and over against the public. A properly functioning justice system would either truly rehabilitate this type of criminal or it would keep him confined — forever if necessary, or just execute him after the first couple of convictions (preferably).
Tyger, may you never find yourself in his position. One never knows one needs killing until someone else decides it is so.
The fact that some of you are making the case that someone guilty of nothing more but than to run from the cops deserves to lose his life, says an incredible lot about who you are a person… that you are both perfect and inhumane.
And these are the same crying over government overreach and loss of personal freedoms.. which makes them hypocrites too.
Squeek, according to your logic, Nabokov was a pedophile.
Rick
Are you this literal about everything or are just so about my comments?
Did you think that my initial comment made the case that EVERY single case of black rioting is called thuggery/mob and EVERY single case of white rioting called something else?
Are you serious?
That would be as silly as saying that the example you offered to disprove my comment made the unilateral case that black rioting is NEVER called thuggery.
Come on, man, we all speak generally, that is implied into the subjectivity of speaking from one’s perspective without relying on charts, numbers and the like.
po – not all rioters are thugs but some rioters are thugs. Does that make you feel better?
Funny how this is not about black or white, but of shades of Gray in Baltimore, but some people are saying it is about racism. Racial PC at its best, or worst.
Assuming DBQ’s listing of Freddy Gray’s rap sheet is correct, as a friend of mine from Texas used to say, “He just needed killin’,” even if it wasn’t an intentional act. Somebody like that is bound to get whacked eventually anyway.
DBQ,
It doesn’t matter what kind of rap sheet a prisoner has. Once a person is under the control of authorities it is the legal duty of those authorities to maintain that person’s safety. This would apply to Dick Cheney even though he admitted to ordering the war crime of torture. It simply does not matter what a perpetrator did. It matters that law enforcement maintain legal and ethical treatment of any prisoner.
This is what the rule of law means. We have lost the rule of law because people are continually making exceptions to it when it suits them. If they do not like a group, well, who cares what happens to them? On the other hand, if they like the man in the suit who orders civilians shot down by drones, who cares about that?
If we don’t stop being relativists about who deserves protection under the rule of law, then we are all going down. That’s the truth and it’s exactly what is happening in our nation.
If it’s not too late, the only hope we have of turning our country around is to oppose injustice against any people, even those people we don’t like. For me that would mean should GWB, Cheney or Obama ever be brought up on charges for war crimes, that they would not be harmed while in custody, that they have no violations of their rights, and that they have a fair, civilian trial. If they experience abuse at the hands of the authorities, that abuse should be protested and I would do so.
TJustice
So many events in the American revilution you could not blame on the British or you would be “reprehensible”
If Monday’s rioters are as deserving of our esteem as those in the American revolution why are those who support them working so hard to credit others for their actions? I suspect AR rioters were quite willing to accept responsibility.
po
Thank you for finding the exception to confirm my rule.
There is no evidence this is an exception. I disproved your assertion literally the first place I looked. Nor was this surprising since such extreme statements strike most people as unlikely.
Would it have satisfied your so “evidenced” starved mind had I added “generally” to my claim that “Whenever there is a riot after a sports event, no one refers to the participants (overwhelmingly white) communally as mob, or individually as thugs.
Perhaps you try identifying the “evidence” included in this statement before you ask a question which presumes there is some. Bias and animosity are not evidence.
Now, if you are going to prove me wrong, go all out. At least pull out several events
Again we see po’s odd expectation of evidence: his own assertions require literally no evidence while challenges require “several” events in support.
bigfatmike
@po “should we claim that nigger, when used by some, is not racist?”
I can never hear the word without a silent shudder. But I would never try to force others to adhere to my personal standards on language.
Some pubic intellectuals such as Ta-Nehisi Coates and others have claimed exactly that – in some contexts and when used by some individuals the word is not racist.
Go figure?
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BFM
Every word, no matter how horrific will be embraced by a segment of the population it targets as a way of defusing it, removing the sting and thereby deny it its power. It is so for nigger as well as for fag and bitch.
Rappers took over nigger and made it theirs, while telling those who aren’t black that they cannot use it. There is enormous power in it, and those who want to deny the victims the usage of the tools of empowerment, however misguided, are bullies.
The non-white who claim right to using the word nigger, like the men who claim usage to the word bitch, or the straight man who wants the rights to fag, are all bullies, no less.
As I said before however, though I would not call anyone that which may upset them,I do not seek to deny anyone the right to saying anything they want. Hell. let them knock themselves out!
That, however, does NOT change the fact that society has deemed that rioting blacks are thugs and rioting whites aren’t. That is my issue.
So, Squeek, DBQ, I do not care whatever you say. I am looking past you, you are not that important to me that I would require anything from you, other than intellectual honesty. I am pretty sure there is something you would take offense to being called. I am sure you would not be so cool were you called that.
Have you taught your children that it was okay to call anyone whatever the hell they want? If yes, then you are at least consistent. If not, then you are hypocrites.
Don’t call this guy shoeshine boy. Could be a reason why the Baltimore murder rate is on the high side. Thug against thug settling a score.
Rick
Thank you for finding the exception to confirm my rule. Would it have satisfied your so “evidenced” starved mind had I added “generally” to my claim that “Whenever there is a riot after a sports event, no one refers to the participants (overwhelmingly white) communally as mob, or individually as thugs.
Yet, whenever black people are involved, whether communally or individually, the word thugs is pulled out against them as fast as a cop shoots them.”
Now, if you are going to prove me wrong, go all out. At least pull out several events when the participants were mostly white, and compare them to several events where the participants were mostly urban/black, then conclude.
@TJustice
You said, “So many events in the American revolution you could not blame on the British or you would be “reprehensible”
Okay, you said you were a law student, sooo let’s practice “making distinctions”! Let’s see, in 1776ish America, the Americans were SELF-SUFFICIENT, and somebody from outside the “community” was taking stuff from them, and bossing them around. Sooo, they “rioted.”
In 2015ish Baltimore, you don’t hear SELF-SUFFICIENT at all. What you hear is just the opposite, that the “community” IS NOT SELF SUFFICIENT and that people from outside the “community” ought to be giving even more stuff to them. Sooo, they “rioted.”
See the difference??? The Baltimore Blacks aren’t rioting because they are being robbed by outsiders, but because outsiders aren’t being “robbed” enough to support them. Why don’t you try some critical thinking like that! It will come in useful.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
nick, lol
Rick
So many events in the American revilution you could not blame on the British or you would be “reprehensible”
10,000 marched peacefully and all you can talk about are high school kids (prevented from using the bus to get home b/c the police shut the buses down)
This inference is not true. The local all-news radio station (WBAL) had reporters at Mondawmin Mall all day. They reported real-time that students ran from the high school (Frederick Douglass) to the mall immediately after leaving school. The school is across the street, they witnessed the entire buildup. Had the proximate cause been a lack of buses there would have been a delay as the students determined buses weren’t merely late and to reach consensus. Instead the act of moving to the mall and the aggression at that location were immediate.
Efforts to excuse rioters by blaming others are reprehensible.
@NickS
Meanwhile, the Pansies For Plato crew is reading that Ferguson is home to Emerson Electric’s headquarters, and that somehow is the reason why black folks there are poor, and can’t pay their traffic fines and court fees. I guess maybe they expect some kind of osmosis to occur, just from the nearness of people who are working and have jobs.
Never mind that those same poor folks can somehow afford to pay for dope and booze and tennis shoes and hair extensions. And since they are poor, they are already getting money from the government, sooo you think they could maybe afford that little old marriage license. And since somebody is paying for their schooling they could maybe try to get decent education. But, no. It’s the rich white folk’s fault. With mental giant white folks like that, it’s no wonder things stay the same in Baltimore, and poor Black America generally.
I say that as somebody who is more progressive on economic issues, but until larger numbers of poor black people decide to start behaving themselves, there isn’t any amount of money that can fix the problem. In fact, it would be like throwing money at a drug addict.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Mr schulte
So everyone convicted of rape in the system is a thug even if wrongfully convicted when indeed they didn’t rape anyone?
What about unreported rapes and incestual abuse? How do you judge those?? I think the Kreskin reference fits perfectly here.
nick spinelli
I like the kreskin reference, he always maintained he was an entertainer.
And I’ve never advocated for the type of action that actually stifles speech unlike yourself. I’m on here discussing… Meanwhile you support endless violence which directly conflicts with freedom of speech.
I think you should re-read george Orwell. I’m not sure how one individual in my standing could make you feel like you have to alter your language to sound proper.
TJustice – you misread what I have written. Reread my comment.