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.
Support for Freddie Gray and against US police militarization (the ladder is a basic civil liberties platform that this blog refuses to espouse) has now expanded to Boston, Minneapolis, and D.C. (not in JT’s backyard, but by the law school he teaches at).
doesn’t*. look getting better already :). Thanks
DBQ
Are you like 70? I’m a millennial, you think I’m concerned about my grammar on a blog? I like slang more! Creation > Tradition
When a client needs advocacy, you can be sure I’ll have a sound brief ready. I’ll send it to you. Give me your email.
Ultimately, I appreciate the tips. But particularized tips based on writing examples posted on a blog don’t help. My aim is not to impress people on here with correct grammar.
Any online venues you would suggest?? I’m not a great writer, I’m ready to improve. Not many people want to help, but many wish to dominate and humiliate.
But since you have so much great advice and criticism for people on here, could you send your best piece to me?
People who steal things, destroy property and cause harm to others are thugs. People are also capable of justifying absolutely anything.
BREAKING NEWS ALERT! Freddy Gray Injured Himself?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-3061824/Witness-says-Freddie-Gray-trying-hurt-Baltimore-police-van-Wash-Post.html
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Baltimore is one troubled pirate territory. Somalia is worse. Nigeria is better. A duck is a duck, a ginny is a ginny and kin folks arse is good as any.
@Po
There are not always simple answers to questions, but this may account for the lack of black husbands and high rate of wedlock births:
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/1996/08/childrenfamilies-akerlof
This was a study done in 1996. But, it just makes sense. The welfare payments make the husband less necessary. And, if the husband isn’t working, then there is one less mouth to feed, a lot less booze to buy, and a lot less drugs, etc. Again, a song tells the story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2iub3GQMvw
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Paul
Are you sure that class was properly listed? Yeah?
Then maybe you don’t have your glasses on.
po – yuppers
@Byron
Where??? I never see me mentioned over at the obvious place where there are several people whom I used to regularly kick around before the Great Schism in January 2014. Which, I am glad I was not actively posting at that time, or it would have probably all got blamed on me. But anyway, there was one very pretentious twit in particular, whose smug bubble I popped a lot. But, I have never seen anything about me on those few times when I need a good laugh. Am i looking in the right place???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Nick Spinelli
“Squeeky, There is a recording of LBJ throwing around the word “nigger.” More than his use of that word, which was common 50 years ago, is his admission that the Dem party was using the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act to enslave black people once again. Jackie Robinson saw that clearly and tried to warn black folk. Hispanics see the stupidity of being beholden to one party.” Some things have changed and some have not in Johnson’s Hill Country. They still often use the “n” word and I won’t even mention what they call Mexicans. Things have changed though as you can’t find a democrat in that part of the state until you get to Austin. It is solid conservative republican and they plan to keep it that way by restricting voting rights.
paul, I did not expect you to get it, it is higher logic. Blame Rick for making me pull it out.
I had to.
I had to!
I did not want to.
But I had to.
po – I got an A in my graduate Logic class. If it was there I would have gotten it. Maybe you missed a step?
Squeeky, you made my point above. The extent of your search for causal factors is limited to knowing that the father is absent and that democrats are the bad guys, as always, for keeping blacks in poverty so they can earn their vote. As if the poor would rather remain poor just so they can get government cheese? As if the poor are so dumb that, like rats, they can be caught by some cheese on a platter?
By taking stock you mean pointing the finger at the poor, at blacks and yelling pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, lazy bums?
Do you offer any solution that doesn’t consist in blaming the victims ,,,and also blaming democrats?
po – they no longer give away government cheese. Actually, that cheese was excellent. As was the government peanut butter.
Squeeky:
Wasn’t LBJ mentored by FDR?
use
Squeeky:
you have quite the hostile following over at another blog, they sing your “praises” with much vigor.
Rick
Amusingly you’re being too literal. The evidence of finding the opposite circumstance from the supposed reality you cite is also evidence against your assertion being generally true. If something is 90% true it’s unlikely the first effort to challenge it results in a contradiction.
Obviously my position is that your claim is wrong and a simple test proved my theory much more likely than yours. I find this particularly amusing given your continuous complaints about how others’ extreme comments disrupt the discussion.
———————————-
It’s a damn shame you think yourself smarter than you are, Rick, otherwise you’d realize that you keep putting sticks in your own argumentative spokes. Saying that If something is 90% true, it’s unlikely the first effort to challenge it results in a contradiction implies a randomness factor that would do the testing for the theory, as if you were a kid playing hide and seek, and you kept accidentally stumbling upon your playmate within the first 5 rooms in a 100 room mansion. In this case however, YOU are the one who decided to challenge the theory by looking only for that 10% that would challenge the theory, kind alike when you know that the playmate only hides in those 5 rooms, and you limit your search to those 5 rooms, finding him each time, then claiming he is a bad hider.
In other words, randomness challenges a theory by searching the available 100%, you challenge a theory by searching the 10%, which is fine to prove the theory wrong but not to prove how easily countered the theory is.
.
Try again!
po – that is the worst us of (I hesitate to use the word) logic I have seen in some time. Clearly, logic is not your strong suit.
It is categorically untrue that the term “thug” is not applied to Caucasians. The term has been used in its current definition for hundreds of years. It’s inaccurate to claim that it is only used to describe African Americans.
As long as we are trying to help TJustice. in his/her future career…..
You wrote below…corrections are in [ brackets ]
“I don’t get [understand, comprehend] how me [I] being a law student has anything to do with making distinctions or being a good critical thinker. Me [I] being a law student merely suggests [that] I’ve passed [the] prerequisites and received opportunities (what opportunities? you should be more specific)
Also I think you need some commas in your sentences between phrases.
Seriously. If you are going to be a lawyer, write briefs, present documents to the court and communicate with your clients; you should practice better grammar and English skills. Take some English composition courses. Get in the practice, even in an on-line venue, and you will not embarrass yourself later.
I’m not perfect either. I know that I make mistakes too. However, I’m not spending big bucks to be a lawyer.
Trust me. I’ve fired people for not being able to compose decent communications to my clients. People will not trust you if you are semi-literate.
🙂
Squeeky, There is a recording of LBJ throwing around the word “nigger.” More than his use of that word, which was common 50 years ago, is his admission that the Dem party was using the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act to enslave black people once again. Jackie Robinson saw that clearly and tried to warn black folk. Hispanics see the stupidity of being beholden to one party.
@ Jill
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
Evidently your reading comprehension skills are at a rudimentary level.
I even wen to the trouble to put in BOLD
NOTE: this is not an excuse for the Cops to kill or be brutal either. They are just as guilty and should be punished, ONCE WE KNOW THE FACTS…that is.
Maybe you might try to read the words that I wrote THIS time. Hmmmmm?