Check Your Privilege

[Borachio]

Now see if i said "Thugees" instead, you might have a point.

But thug is an acceptable term for thuggee, according to wikis caption for the photo.

And the origin of the term lies in the Indian subcontinent rather than an island off the mainland of Italy.

I was just, rather pedantically, taking issue with the phrase "the mafia are the very definition of thugs".

Because the Thuggee are the very definition of thugs, instead.

But I'll agree that my point is pointless.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

You're letting Cheezy derail the thread again... arguing for pages over something that was quite clearly not even remotely the intention of the original poster. Just tell him he's wrong and talk about something more relevant...


degenerate

noun

noun: degenerate; plural noun: degenerates

/dɪˈdʒɛn(&#601rət/

1. an immoral or corrupt person.
"get out of my house, you degenerate!"

synonyms: reprobate, debauchee, rake, profligate, libertine, roué, loose-liver;


thug

/θʌɡ/

noun

noun: thug; plural noun: thugs; noun: Thug

1. a violent person, especially a criminal.
"he was attacked by a gang of thugs"

synonyms: ruffian, hoodlum, bully boy, bully, bandit, mugger, gangster, terrorist, gunman, murderer, killer, hitman, assassin, hooligan, vandal, Yardie;


Argument dismissed. Move on.

negro - Spanish for "black"
coon - a woodland creature with a black and white face
spade - a small shovel used for gardening
crow - a bird of the raven family
ape - a furry mammal

Call a Black person any of those and watch the trouble unfold. You know why? Because words have more than one meaning that often doesn't appear in a dictionary.

 

[Ryika]

Because words have more than one meaning that often doesn't appear in a dictionary.

Every single one of these words is specifically targeting black people, 'thug' is not.

Or are you claiming that...

A white person robs a store. "What a thug!"
A black person robs a store. "What a thug!"

...either the first one never happens or that the second one automatically has a different meaning than the first one?

 

[Kyriakos]

Crow and Spade are slurs for black people?

hm...

Anyway, word associations often are highly artificial. But it is the worst possible reaction to try to taboo mere words and acquired association. If a black person doesn't feel threatened/marginalised then it makes sense they won't really care about lame epithets in the first place- at least by and large. Even the so-called 'n word' is latin for black.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Stop being silly and address arguments presented to you in an intellectually honest manner. Stop trying to silence and shame people who disagree with you with ludicrous and insulting nonsense. Screaming "RACIST RACIST RACIST" at someone for over a page, when you KNOW that they were not expressing remotely racist views, is absolutely pathetic. I have no idea why all these other people are even indulging you by doing you the frankly unearned courtesy of even trying argue with such an asinine response.

 

[Ryika]

Stop being silly and address arguments presented to you in an intellectually honest manner. Stop trying to silence and shame people who disagree with you with ludicrous and insulting nonsense. Screaming "RACIST RACIST RACIST" at someone for over a page, when you KNOW that they were not expressing remotely racist views, is absolutely pathetic. I have no idea why all these other people are even indulging you by doing you the frankly unearned courtesy of even trying argue with such an asinine response.

Because it's fun trying to imagine what will come back as an answer.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

And let the goalpost-moving begin.

"lol why are we even talking about this" - great retreat when someone's proved you're defending racism.

 

[Borachio]

Crow and Spade are slurs for black people?

Sure.

Simply because both crows and the ace of spades are black.

Is this racist?


Link to video.

I think it - probably - well could be. Though I'll leave it to the experts to tell me what's what.

(Something to do with mice, and those with large ears and learning difficulties, working for circuses, I guess.)

 

[Kyriakos]

^If you like to gamble i tell you i'm your man

 

[Manfred Belheim]

And let the goalpost-moving begin.

I'm not sure the universe can cope with this level of irony.

 

[sophie]

Every single one of these words is specifically targeting black people, 'thug' is not.

Or are you claiming that...

A white person robs a store. "What a thug!"
A black person robs a store. "What a thug!"

...either the first one never happens or that the second one automatically has a different meaning than the first one?

You know what dog whistle means, right?

 

[Farm Boy]

It only works if you hear it and share a common understanding. I gotta admit, I don't share the understanding on everything you guys do. Different cultural experiences, all that. So in a very literal sense I myself could be walking along in a conversation when the "AH EFFING HA, I GOTCHA YOU NAZI RACIST SCUMBAG" moment happens. It can be like an intellectual version of a drive-by. Oh my, a drive by, how loaded.

 

[Leoreth]

Every single one of these words is specifically targeting black people, 'thug' is not.

But it is in contemporary mainstream media.

 

[Kyriakos]

But it is in contemporary mainstream media.

But that is sort of a self-perpetuated false connection, no?

I mean what if tomorrow the media present supposed slurs for black people being random words, eg apartment, cave, fork, monk Timothy, whatever

 

[Flying Pig]

I'll bring forward the game Call of Juarez: The Cartel as an example for why the Mexican Drug Cartels haven't been fetishist yet. People make a big fuzz and start crying if you pick up such a topic and try to represent it in a way that is entertaining to watch/play - sure the controversies surrounding this game can still be found on the internet.

And I'd argue that anyone who would try to fetichize black crime and make it look cool could as well shoot their career and bury it in their garden, just because it's less painful than being lynched by the social justice mob.

Do you think that's because we still feel threatened by black crime and Mexican crime in a way that we don't feel about Italian crime? Part of that is simply that we hear more about it - though, as I said, that certainly hasn't always been true - so the idea of The Godfather is more distant and much less close to home. However, I suspect that, on top of the relative rate of crime from each group, you've also got something about how they are seen: in a lot of public discourse, you've got black and Mexican people as a kind of bogeyman lurking somewhere beneath it - remember that Maine governor a few weeks ago who said that drug crime in his state was a matter of incomers called 'D-Money, Smoothie, and Shifty' and 'half the time they impregnate a young white girl before leaving'? If we looked at things objectively, there's no reason why we should be any less (or any more) happy about celebrating a drug cartel or black street gang than we should be about celebrating the Mafia.

 

[Farm Boy]

The old mafia thugs have been around long enough to mainstream. You call mainstream thugs "sir" and "Mr. Mayor."

 

[Leoreth]

But that is sort of a self-perpetuated false connection, no?

I mean what if tomorrow the media present supposed slurs for black people being random words, eg apartment, cave, fork, monk Timothy, whatever

I don't know what you mean by "false" connection. The media cannot decide on their own what words are used and what their connotation is. In a way, they also have to play by the preconceptions of the people they are targeting (consciously or subconsciously) with that kind of reporting. But sure, their behavior directly contributes to the perpetuation of those slurs and what they are associated with.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Although I am quite curious as to how widespread is the belief that "degenerate thug" is a racial slur (I have never, ever heard even a hint of this before this thread), there are still two things which are quite clear without even addressing that:

1) Nobody but the most disingenuous or deluded can believe that BvBPL actually meant it in that sense. It's quite clear from the context what he meant, and it wasn't that. As intent is pretty fundamental to any accusation of racism then it's quite clear that merely pulling obscure linguistic "facts" out of your behind is totally insufficient to justify any accusation of racism, let alone to be considered in any way "proof" of such a charge.

2) Even if BvBPL was guilty of "appalling racism"... this has no bearing whatsoever on the factual accuracy of any of his claims or arguments, and so using this as an excuse to sidestep the challenge of addressing them is lazy and dishonest. "You said bad words I don't like" is not a refutation or an argument.

This thread could really do with a moderator (in the debate sense, not the forum sense) to keep things on track as this is not the first time that such a gross act of misdirection has been allowed to be perpetrated in this thread.

 

[Kyriakos]

I don't know what you mean by "false" connection. The media cannot decide on their own what words are used and what their connotation is. In a way, they also have to play by the preconceptions of the people they are targeting (consciously or subconsciously) with that kind of reporting. But sure, their behavior directly contributes to the perpetuation of those slurs and what they are associated with.

It is tenuous at best to link a term such as "thug" or "degenerate" to a race group instead of individuals in that or other race groups. I am pretty sure i have routinely heard 'thug' used in 90s mafia movies about concurrent times, and seldom did those even have black people (with some exceptions, eg Hoodlum).

Basically it is suspect, cause you might as well try to claim that 'murderer' is now a slur for black person, or 'homeless' or 'drunk' or whatever. Those words are way too general in language, so only through suspicious and artificial means do they somehow get jived as being racial slurs.
In effect you (your media, TPTB etc) create another taboo, which serves just so as to dilute focus on the actual social and economical issues, by making all this a circus of 'i knew you were a filthy racist!!!' gotcha moments, usually uttered by tv clowns and idiots/goons.

 

[luiz]

I'll just note that for people with a normal moral compass, advocating violence against "class enemies" and murder of police officers is worse than saying "degenerate thugs", even if the guy meant it in a racist way (which I'm sure he didn't). I don't see how people who shamelessly advocate the former two can claim moral outrage over the latter.

If you think violence and murder are acceptable means of political struggle, own it. You're immoral (according to the definition of morality shared by most of mankind). You don't get to scream about other people's supposed immorality.