08-31-2016, 10:35 PM
(08-31-2016, 07:07 PM)treee Wrote: Perhaps you'll find this interesting
http://www.npr.org/2015/04/30/403362626/the-racially-charged-meaning-behind-the-word-thug
This makes no sense at all.
Thug in the black community, for about the past 25 to 30 years, has also meant ruffian, but there is a tinge of affection. A thug in black people's speech is somebody who is a ruffian but in being a ruffian is displaying a healthy sort of countercultural initiative, displaying a kind of resilience in the face of racism etc. Of course nobody puts it that way, but that's the feeling. And so when black people say it, they don't mean what white people mean, and that's why I think Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Barack Obama saying it means something different from the white housewife wherever who says it.
There is no way in hell Obama or Rawlings-Blake were using the term to show that the "thugs" they were talking about were displaying a healthy sort of countercultural initiative, displaying a kind of resilience in the face of racism . The ONLY thing they were using "thug" to describe was the criminal element. Go back and read the quotes from Obama and Rawlings-Blake.
When back people call each other "n*****" it does not mean "criminal". Whe black people call each other "Thug" it means "criminal". The fact that some part of the SAfrican Americab communbity glorify criminal activity does not change the meaning of the word.
I have heard lots of white racists call Obama a "n*****" but I have never heard one call hima "thug". The two words have very different meanings.
