There are certain words you’re not allowed to say on TV. And there’s at least one that we white people aren’t allowed to say at all, ever. Unless you want everyone to know for sure you’re a bigot.
This is the word of lynchings and bombed out black churches. It’s the word invoked over centuries of castrations, rapes, torture, and enslavement. It’s a word so heinous, so degrading, that if we’re forced to mention it at all, it’s best to call it the N-Word.
Despite the vileness of this word, we white folks sure do have a tough time giving it up. We’re so addicted to it that we’ve come up with a way to keep saying it, all the while pretending that we’d never even think it.
Well, this is a wake up call. Let all my white brothers and sisters take notice: When you call black men thugs, I know what you’re really saying. Everybody does.
Racism is so embedded in our culture, I’m sure many folks who are throwing around the word thug honestly don’t consciously realize what they’re doing. But if ignorance was ever an excuse, it’s not anymore. Now you know: When you say thug, it’s just a socially acceptable way of saying the N-Word.
What does it mean to be called a thug? Malech Thomas, a youth minister in Baltimore, puts it this way:
“How it made me feel as a black man? Carl Stokes said it best: It’s almost as if they just called me a nigger. Really. That’s really what it is, they wanted to say nigger, they wanted to say animal, so thug is a nice political translation of nigger.”
My fellow white Americans: Wake. Up. Is this who we want to be?
Depending on our age, most of us are aware of how fiercely many white Americans resisted the 20th-century Civil Rights movement. From our vantage point in 2015, we like to imagine that we are on the right side of history. We want to believe that we support Martin Luther King’s work for justice, peace, and reconciliation. Right?
That’s straight up delusion as long as we’re out there calling black folks thugs. We’re no friends of Martin King when we blame those experiencing police brutality for their own murders. We’re not on the side of justice when we choose to write off an entire generation of black men as unworthy of breath.
That’s what happens when we use that word. We dismiss black men as being subhuman, without reason or morality. We ignore the cry of thousands of our brothers and sisters in the streets, looking for justice in the only way that seems to have any effect. We cut off the conversation and call in the riot police, because those people are just thugs.
If we ever want to see justice and peace in America, if we ever want to break the cycle of hatred and violence that grips our nation’s soul, we can no longer put off this conversation. We have no choice but to stop silencing and marginalizing our black brothers and sisters. We have to really listen, and absorb what we’re hearing. Until we do this, we will carry inside us the fear, guilt, and hatred of 400 years.
Are you willing to go there?
Amen brother. Well said.
I can easily imagine this happening–and no doubt it already has in the mud-pit of Fox News–but it hasn’t yet become pervasive, like “inner city”. If we want to distinguish the people who are looting from the regular people, what word(s) can we use?
I wonder why it’s necessary to separate people categorically from “regular people.” Are “they” so different from “us”?
I would say “no” in answer to the question as you phrased it–looters, vandals, gang members…they’re all people. But there are *some* bona fide thugs, of “white”, black, asian, latino, and virtually any other ancestry there is. I would call them “bullies”, I guess. Haven’t you ever been bullied?
By the way, I do like your blog and web site–especially your “slogan”, if that’s an appropriate term for the statement in your page banner.
looters?
Oh, no–is “looters” unfairly classifying people? Whilst I think sensitivity to different cultures’ concerns is on the verge of becoming impractical, I appreciate your point, Ms. Barbara.
I think it is a difference in timing. If certain individuals are currently looting or rioting (or laughing or playing) those individuals AT THAT TIME are looters or rioters (or laughers or players), but it is inaccurate (at the least) to label everyone currently in city X as looters or rioters (or laughers or players).
Precisely! Well-stated.
i have no problem using thug as a label for individuals or specific groups when talking about thuggish behavior.
An example. The young adults who terrorize my neighborhood on ATVs and motor cross bikes are thugs. There is no civil rights cry, no appeal against oppression. Without regard to race, they are thugs.
The activities they engage in are meant to intimidate. I can find no redeemable quality to riding on sidewalks when pedestrians, including the elderly and children, are present. None whatsoever in riding through public parks where children are playing. No justification or justice is at the root of creating unsafe driving conditions in the streets, or causing property damage when they ride across private lawns.
These are acts of thuggery. The appropriate label for the individuals perpetrating these crimes is thug.
When labeling those participating in what is going on in Baltimore, what has gone on in Ferguson, and other places in general terms, I wholeheartedly agree that thug is inappropriate.
But please don’t generalize and call everything racist where there is just reason to call a thug a thug.
As White people, we are socialized to emphasize our *individual* perspective, behavior, intention, etc. But when it comes to beginning to understand multigenerational oppression, we White people must start to acknowledge the cumulative affect of the larger group’s oppressor status. Just because *you* don’t use the word “thug” exclusively to degrade/dehumanize/criminalize our Black sisters and brothers doesn’t mean that our Black relatives don’t get targeted *as a rule* by White people in positions of power (cops, business owners, politicians, etc).
In other words, stop seeing the world through our individualized lens and start seeing systems of oppression at work.
Blessings,
LizOpp, The Good Raised Up
Thanks for this, Micah. Amen! Yes, “thug” is originally racist/imperialist. If one needs to describe behavior, one can describe behavior — without overuse of adjectives, and without labelling people. I find Friends’ disciplines on language are really useful for cooling and settling the mind. Sometimes it’s necessary to call things out, and it can be a great challenge to do it without falling right into what you’re trying to name!
All good points, everyone–nice to find a blog that has followers who are so thoughtful.
You christians make me sick!
Still sticking to thug when it comes to those breaking the law by riding ATVs illegally in DC. Watch the video portion.
http://www.wjla.com/articles/2015/05/1-dead-5-injured-rash-of-overnight-shootings-in-d-c–114315.html
What if the thug is a cop?