Discussion for article #235771
âWe donât have thugs in Baltimore,â Rawlings-Blake said.
Oh yes you do have them, Mrs. Mayor, they have been setting your City ablaze. May I suggest you think a little before blurting out things that hurt you and your City?
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âWe donât have thugs in Baltimore,â Rawlings-Blake said.
Why do politicians always seem to feel compelled to compound one unfortunate comment with another?
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The Mayor is looking a bit wobbly in the past few days. I hope she gets her feet under her soon. Sheâs on the National stage now and the scrutiny of that light is like the scrutiny an ant feels when a magnifying glass catches it on a sunny day.
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Help me here: why is it ok to tattoo âthug lifeâ on your arm or title your album that, which connotates certain behaviors, but is wrong to call people who engage in that behavior thugs?
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I dunno how more plainly to say this: STOP. USING. TWITTER. YOU. FUCKING. MORONS.
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I very rarely look at Twitter, or a personâs tweets, and come away thinking: âman, that person is so intelligent!â
One of my best friends lives in Baltimore and is definitely a thug. Thugs is an âin the eye of the beholderâ proposition.
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The reason the shit hit the fan is because some of Baltimoreâs thugs are wearing badges.
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Bingo.
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Most of them are.
I just think of all the infrastructure and educational improvements that could have been made by the City of Baltimore, with the almost $6million and counting theyâve paid out to victims of violence committed by the Baltimore Police.
Freddie Gray is far from the first, and sadly I already know in my heart he will not be the last.
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NWA, Iâm afraid.
Ms. Mayor, stop âsplaininâ!
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She really shouldnât have used that word and painted all the rioters with such a broad brush. Some of the rioters probably were thugs but I suspect the majority were sincere in their outrage against decades, centuries of law enforcement abuse and scapegoating of minorities for the benefit of the rich. The infuriating part as usual is the police who ignited this whole situation get a pass on their murderous thuggery.
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I wished she had not used the term âthugsâ. When I heard her say it last night, I said to myself, nope you should have not used that termâŚI personally felt it was inappropriate for to have done soâŚglad that she backtracked, but sheâs got to get that kind language under control.
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Wanna bet Mrs Mayor? On Monday during a CNN broadcast we all witnessed a fellow in a gas mask stabbing a firehose that was needed to put out the fire at the CVS Drug store. The store had also been looted and destroyed. The people who did this were not fine upstanding members of the community ⌠they were THUGS trying to destroy the neighborhood and injure or kill police.
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Iâm in my 40s and have lived most of my life on the west coast of the US. My experience has been that the only time I ever heard âthugâ used was in reference to hip-hop culture and black people. Thatâs it. Itâs always been a clear dog whistle as far as my personal experience has gone (or a pop culture reference, i.e. âthug lifeâ). I was surprised it was being thrown around in this conversation when âcriminalâ seemed obvious, by the mayor and anyone else. The word has never been popular, in my experience, to describe rioters or vandals or criminals in general without the racial element attached. Maybe thatâs just my experienceâŚ
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Just to be clear, you understand that she is backtracking on her previous use of the term, right? This has nothing to do with her acknowledging the criminal element and everything to do with word choice. Your comment doesnât seem to be in context, so just checking.
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There was no need to backtrack on her original statement.
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Who said that was okay? Who decides what constitutes acceptable counter culture? Answer: no one.
If it makes money, it get appropriated, but thatâs it and there is never a formal blessing placed on it.
Thereâs also context. Pesky thing that context⌠NWA making a political statement which has intentional offensiveness built into it as part of the statement (hopelessness) is different in context than established members of a societal power structure using it to brand others.
If you donât get that whole thing of context, you need more help with that than can be provided in a comment section. In short all things are not equal; pretending racism doesnât exist does not make it so.
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