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.
The N-WORD.
The W-WORD.
We don’t like the N-word.
Americans are Americans. Hyphenates find they can’t factually use American.
Hyphenates began renaming Americans WHITE people.
Americans are Americans. They are not “W-word” people.
The N-word is disparaging.
It is exponentially more egregious and disparaging to rename Americans
WHITE in their own country.
Hyphenates MUST STOP USING THE W-WORD.
Alternatively and equally, Americans may use the N-word.
Is that in the writings or documents of the American Founders; that Americans
will be referred to as W-WORD, WHITE?
Exactly what does “fundamentally transform” America mean?
Is anyone “fundamentally transforming” Peru, East Timor or China?
Seems like something fundamental is being violated.
Squeeky, what do you think of Ayn Rand, the rabid atheist?
And Byron, do you know what Squeeky thinks of libertarians, lol?!
@Byron
True. Blacks hold the key to getting married in their own pockets. Nobody can keep a black man and woman from getting married if they want to, and before the first baby is born.
BTW, where is it they are saying bad things about me??? I didn’t find it in the place I expected. Do you have a link??? Just curious.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
on 1, April 30, 2015 at 3:54 pmByron
Squeeky:
Correct me if I am wrong but aren’t you proposing a way for poor black Americans to rise out of poverty? it sure seems like it to me.
*******************
Pray tell, what is Squeeky’s proposal? I haven’t heard her give a proposal, I’ve only heard her laying blame.
Po
Put in layman terms, you have your opinion, and you ain’t going to let no facts get in the way of it! Funny how you ask for a study, and when one is given to you which shows an acceleration occurring after the racial component begins to die out, and the big welfare state starts, —- YOU still cling to the racist component. Even though, the post big welfare state increase is far in excess of any possible racial component.
This little part, “As of 1940, the illegitimacy rate among blacks nationwide was approximately 15%—scarcely one-fifth of the current figure.¨ Even back then, when there were separate drinking fountains throughout the South, and the slave masters were pretty much all dead, the rate was only 15%. Now, it’s 70%+, and you still want to blame Jim Crow and the slave masters.
Face it, po, you are not a reasonable person. You are simply an ideologue with a partisan axe to grind. And one whose false ideas, and wrongheaded opinions are hurting the very people you profess to care about.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky:
Correct me if I am wrong but aren’t you proposing a way for poor black Americans to rise out of poverty? it sure seems like it to me.
I have to wonder if Walter Williams is right, if he is well that makes you wonder why liberals keep embracing policies that keep millions of Americans in poverty. If they truly had any humanity, they would try something different, and then try again. But it seems they are, indeed stuck on stupid where the poor are involved. They keep doing the same thing in a myriad of different handouts always expecting a different outcome.
Who can believe what they say anymore? they are intellectual jokers who provide faux solutions for one thing, power.
Squeek
English is my 4th language actually, so thank you for being lenient…
Speaking of comprehension, what is your excuse?
Deriving a conclusion from a series of studies does NOT guarantee the veracity of the conclusion, perhaps only that it is logically derived.
I did not challenge the studies, I challenged how they are used, the conclusion they lead to .
You can keep yelling as long as you want that I must accept those conclusions, but the fundamental problems with those conclusions are glaring and addressed above, and I will offer them again, hoping this time that you would address them personally, or at least offer any study of your choosing that challenges them.
Squeek, the breakdown of the black family did not start with welfare services. it started hundred of years before, when the master separated the husband from the wife and sold the children away.
It is is further enabled nowadays by the war on drugs, the war on education and the war on the poor. Locking up black men at the drop of a hat at higher rates than that of whites for the exact same offenses does more to precipitate family breakdown than welfare services do.
As I said before, you confuse the symptoms with the disease. As if Black women would rather have government cheese than the father of their children around! That thought alone is racist and quite ignorant.
Welfare services, for most people, is not in lieu of work, it is in addition to work. The poor, black or white, work an average of 2 jobs, each paying minimum wage, and welfare services are there to supplement the income.
Put in layman terms, correlation is NOT causation. The effect is NOT the cause. The enhancer is NOT the cause and welfare services are NOT the cause of the breakdown of the black family.
Some folks are “just plain” bigoted and will turn themselves inside out and upside down to prove their biogtry is based in rational thought. It would be funny if it wasn’t so disturbing.
@po
I reiterate. Is English your first language??? Or, are you just plain stupid??? Please let me know, because if you have a language impediment then I don’t want to taunt you and make you feel bad about yourself. But, if you are just plain stupid, then I wouldn’t feel any remorse about doing that. Now, you just asked, “Do you have any study that counters my assertions?” Look above, or here, I will post it the third time, and maybe you will read it. I even bolded, capitalized, and italicized,the word, “studies” for you, to make it easy for you to find it!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
What beliefs, Squeek, that the legacy of slavery, jim crow laws and the continuous and relentless demonization of black skin in the US is echoing still through the breakdown of the black family? And that the increased incarceration rate of black people is another important factor?
How would I change those beliefs when it is obvious to everyone but the most blinded?
Do you have any study that counters my assertions?
You actually make my point, where/when the drug war is not fully in effect, and black men are not wrenched away from their families to fill up cells in for profit prisons, black people are actually maritally inclined.
Annie, I am not holding my breath waiting for Squeek to acquire self-awareness.
“Po, you ain’t Jesus, and therefore you ain’t perfect. Maybe it is way past time for you to consider the possibility that you are, and have been, flatly wrong about some of your beliefs.”
Squeeky, you first. Then everyone else could follow your example. Self awareness is a gift.
@po
Are you able to read and comprehend English in a competent fashion, or is it a second language for you??? Because, while you repeat the silliness about:
“the breakdown of the black family did not start with welfare services. it started hundred of years before, when the master separated the husband from the wife and sold the children away.” you completely ignored:
and you skipped:
This is why the conservatives accuse the left and liberals of being ideological to a fault, and unable to assimilate information which runs counter to their pre-existing narrative. Po, you ain’t Jesus, and therefore you ain’t perfect. Maybe it is way past time for you to consider the possibility that you are, and have been, flatly wrong about some of your beliefs.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
@Squeeky: “Are you able to read and comprehend English in a competent fashion, or is it a second language for you???”
Perhaps you should read a bit more widely. The following paragraphs are take from the interview of Mingo White in the ‘Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews” which can be found at Project Gutenberg.
Mingo tells some of the details when he was sold from his parents and his parents were later sold from each other. He relates that when he next saw his mother years later he was speechless and could only find words for her after his acting ‘mother’ counseled him to speak up.
I am sure the damage to African American families and community has many sources. But surely slavery and Jim Crowism as well as today’s racism have done incalculable damage.
Anyone who believes we can find easy answers in a few decades of statistics simply is not thinking critically.
From the interview with Mingo White:
“I was jes’ a li’l thang; tooked away from my mammy an’ pappy, jes’ when I needed ’em mos’. The only caren’ that I had or ever knowed anything ’bout was give to me by a frein’ of my pappy. His name was John White. My pappy tol’ him to take care of me for him. John was a fiddler an’ many a night I woke up to find myse’f ‘sleep ‘twix’ his legs whilst he was playin’ for a dance for de white folks. My pappy an’ mammy was sold from each yuther too, de same time as I was sold. I use’ to wonder if I had any brothers or sisters, as I had always wanted some. A few years later I foun’ out I didn’t have none.
“De nex’ time dat I saw my mammy I was a great big boy. Dere was a ‘oman on de place what ever’body called mammy, Selina White. One day mammy called me an’ said, Mingo, your mammy is comin’.’ I said, ‘I thought dat you was my mammy.’ She said ‘No I ain’t your mammy, yer mammy is ‘way way from here. I couldn’t believe dat I had anudder mammy and I never thought ’bout hit any mo’. One day I was settin’ down at de barn when a wagon come up de lane. I stood ‘roun’ lack a chile will. When de wagon got to de house, my mammy got out an’ broke and run to me an’ th’owed her arms ‘roun’ my neck an’ hug an’ kiss me. I never even put my arms ‘roun’ her or nothin’ of de sort. I jes’ stood dar lookin’ at her. She said, ‘Son ain’t you glad to see your mammy?’ I looked at her an’ walked off. Mammy Selina call me an’ tol’ me dat I had hurt my mammy’s feelin’s, and dat dis ‘oman was my mammy. I went off an’ studied and I begins to ‘member thangs. I went to Selina an’ ast her how long it been sence I seen my mammy. She tol’ me dat I had been ‘way from her sence I was jes’ a li’l chile. I went to my mammy an’ tol’ her dat I was sorry I done what I did an’ dat I would lack fer her to fergit an’ forgive me for de way I act when I fust saw her. After I had talked wid my real mammy, she told me of how de family had been broke up an’ dat she hadn’t seed my pappy sence he was sold. My mammy never would of seen me no mo’ if de Lawd hadn’ a been in de plan. Tom White’s daughter married one of Mr. Crawford’s sons. Dey lived in Virginia. Back den it was de custom for women to come home whenever dey husbands died or quit ’em. Mr. Crawford’s son died an’ dat th’owed her to hab to come home. My mammy had been her maid, so when she got ready to come home she brung my mammy wid her.
@Squeeky
What are “Post-Civil War studies” and why would anyone take at face value the claim:
“The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn’t do, what Jim Crow couldn’t do, what the harshest racism couldn’t do. And that is to destroy the black family.”?
Even if there is a correlation between out of wedlock stats and welfare policies, it takes a lot more to reach a sweeping conclusion like the one above.
Further, if the statement is true why would you display such hostility to the African American community and families. If you believe the statement then decline in the African American family originates with (mostly) white legislators.
I say enough with the blame game. Lets figure out what it takes to get young lives back on track with education and jobs.
LOL! OK, wrong photo! Here’s the right one.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/08/12/article-2025167-0D62123400000578-108_634x440.jpg
Squeek, the breakdown of the black family did not start with welfare services. it started hundred of years before, when the master separated the husband from the wife and sold the children away.
It is is further enabled nowadays by the war on drugs, the war on education and the war on the poor. Locking up black men at the drop of a hat at higher rates than that of whites for the exact same offenses does more to precipitate family breakdown than welfare services do.
As I said before, you confuse the symptoms with the disease. As if Black women would rather have government cheese than the father of their children around! That thought alone is racist and quite ignorant.
Welfare services, for most people, is not in lieu of work, it is in addition to work. The poor, black or white, work an average of 2 jobs, each paying minimum wage, and welfare services are there to supplement the income.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/31/article-2094172-1188377A000005DC-210_964x628.jpg
Thugs with morality problems come in all colors.
@Jill
You asked, “Did these criminals come from broken homes? Do you think it was genetic? What is your feeling concerning these [White Collar] criminal thugs? Seriously, do you have a theory about them?”
I don’t think we ask the same questions because most of them are white, and white folks don’t have the same degree of illegitimacy problems, yet. Plus, most of rich White Collar thugs are in their late 40’s and 50’s plus, now, which would have put their childhoods back in the 1950’s and 1960’s when illegitimacy was even less of a problem for White people.
Plus, most of the White Collar thugs went to college, and usually the better type colleges. So, whatever the family situation, there was enough there to at least get the kid a college education. Not every problem has the same source. I suspect that a form of mental disorder or differently-ordered thinking is behind most of the white thugs. And richer, higher functioning black thugs. But, you have a whole bunch of poor black thugs for whom it is not a mental problem, as much as a moral problem.
Black people who grew up in an earlier time, when there was more black marriage, and a much, much lower rate of illegitimacy also relate their sorrow at how things have changed in their community. This is probably why:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1672
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
“The word “thug” has been used widely on this blog to rather [sic] to people of different genders, races, and backgrounds. It is possible for blacks like whites to act like thugs.”
JT – You normally insert links (e.g., “here and here and here”) to support such claims. Please post links to such uses that pre-date the Sherman post.
Jill
You won’t pin Paul,too wriggly, too slippery… his comments never go beyond 2 sentences, preferably just one. You’ll have to hang him without a rope, or a very short one.
Yep, this country will keep going down as long the ones tasked to think and protect the lesser, side with their masters against the lesser.
Entire cities won’t be able to pay their retirees, jobs and pensions will disappear, stores will close, the economy is compromised seriously, more jobs lost, more people needing help, more economic steps taken with hard repercussions, more social programs cut…why, Jamie et al rigging the game to insure they make more money.
This is not democrats or republicans, this is all of them. And as long as you keep blaming one side, you are being played.
po
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.
Once again po shows he’s unable to understand the limitations of his own arguments. While randomness might be required to refute a systematic study his argument is no such thing. His argument is simply asserting whatever he believes without any evidence at all while demanding others’ positions be supported by systematic analysis.
The difference is quite revealing since the dual standards are perfectly in line with Team Red / Team Blue assertions. It’s easy to conclude your side is right when you accept it as a matter of faith while dismissing all contrary evidence as insufficiently comprehensive.