Can someone explain this to me?

No clue how that can be racist. Certainly wasn't when it was coined.

You'ld have to go back 6 hundred years ago in India.

 

Just another fan to stoke the flames!

 

Our dear leader has used the term for the rioters in Baltimore, ISIS, the Russians in the Ukraine and in the crap in Africa.
But he won't use the the term Islamic extremism or Islamic terrorism to Islamic people chopping off heads and burning people alive but he will call them thugs.

Maybe it is akin to the fact that black people can call themselves "N" and many are using the term thug but others dare not or be called racist.

Added..This is Tu Pac gunned down in Vegas in a drive by...not a thug just a misguided youth.

 

I see what you did there @RightHand...

As to your original question, it is all about perception. The "N" word has such a stigma attached to it that few in "polite company" will use it in any situation other than extreme anger or exasperation. As such, a new label needs to be created. When, where and who was the first to declare that "thug" was a racial epithet? Without knowing that, the veracity of the claim will be hard to prove or refute. It would truly be interesting to know who is pushing this...thought process and what their motivation is (yeah, we already know the latter half of that).

How could "thug" be considered racist, you ask? Well, in the media, when was the last time you heard anyone of non-minority ethnicity referred to as a thug? Thinking back, I can't come up with one off the top of my head. If the term is being used exclusively (or apparently exclusively) to describe a specific ethnicity and the connotation of the term is negative...it must be "racially motivated" and therefor racist*.

Do I agree? Absolutely not, but I'm outlining a scenario that is more than a little plausible. Do I think there is something "sinister" going on? Well, maybe not sinister but certainly not on the up and up. Labels and their ethnic over/undertones engender emotions and feelings. The N-word is verboten now but they, in this case those of African heritage (my neighbor calls himself black but...whatever) and not on the whole but the vocal portion, need something else to prove they are downtrodden, put upon, due reparations, being kept down by the man, blah, blah, blah. The narrative was slipping and wasn't front and center anymore...time to make up a new way that they are victims.

* - I don't subscribe to the term racist. It's simply incorrect. Humans are a race. The correct terms are "ethnically motivated" and "ethnicist". Race doesn't come into it. Blacks and whites intermarry and reproduce all the time, proving they are the same race. Words have meaning, that's why we use them instead of pointing and grunting.

 

Thugs were a gang of thieves and murderers hundreds of year ago in India. Google Fu it.

 

@madmax - and nobody likes being called a thief or murderer, ESPECIALLY not those who are thieves and murderers. Just sayin'...

 

Yet post number 5 has a pic of someone with Thug tatted on his belly...

 

Some of the sick wear it as a badge of honor.

 

Political correctness.

It sucks.

 

I'll counter that with the word Bigot. If you will check a 1950s dictionary it is simple and easily defined and has nothing to do with race. Fast Forward to the 70s and the new BUZZ WORD for a prejudiced white person against blacks is a bigot.

Bottom line is a new Hot Topic BUZZ Word is invented or changed by the media to become the latest bad boy on the block and used to Tar and Feather those that fall out of favor with the PTB.

Check out the NAZIs of the 30s and see how they did it with the Jews.

 

Really just a bit of brain washing for those that do not take the time to define the words they hear on the Media Buzz Box.

It's all about control of the masses in the most easily broadcast manner.

AKA Dumbing Done The Sheeple and that's a pretty low place.

 

"thug
THəɡ/
noun
1.
a violent person, especially a criminal.
synonyms: ruffian, hooligan, vandal, hoodlum, gangster, villain, criminal; More
2.
historical
a member of a religious organization of robbers and assassins in India. Devotees of the goddess Kali, the Thugs waylaid and strangled their victims, usually travelers, in a ritually prescribed manner. They were suppressed by the British in the 1830s.
Translations and more definitions
Thug | Definition of thug by Merriam-Webster
Merriam-Webster › dictionary › thug
Mobile-friendly - He was beaten and robbed by street thugs. <the Mob boss regularly sent his thugs after people who were slow to pay ..."
People are judged by their actions much more than their skin color, and that is just as it should be. But when you act like a thug, expect to be called a thug. They come in all colors and creeds, but with the "polar bear game" and "knockout" (which I would call thuggish behavior) being completely black on white crime, blacks are labeling THEMSELVES as thugs by their actions. There the facts themselves are racist, because the highest proclivity for thuggish behavior, would seem to be behavior in the BLACK community.
You could argue skin heads or neo Nazis, but they are no where near as prominent in society as young blacks, bent upon mayhem.

 

Thug comes from Thuggee followers of Kali... so named from the Hindu word meaning deceivers... I think the current word is Poser... sounds kinda descriptive to me...

 

Pretty sure we down here don't worry to much about words, labels, Political correctness or any of that other word crap. I mean how many times can an outsider not from here use the term coonass to the point that we laugh at them, Or do we?
Or we make it a point to break it off in their a$$
They wont know it until it starts to hurt.

 

Seriously RightHand, if you are concerned with or care in anyway with what MSNBC says about it, you just might need to go enter a cave and not come back out. Frankly I thought you said you were a tough old broad. Tell anyone who is offended by "Thug" to grow up. open your eyes. and get real.