please explain to us all why Richard Sherman was called a "thug".
Display of aggressive ghetto attitude expressed in poor English. Attempt to be intimidating.
Felony strong-arm robbery, assault, drug use, possible attempted murder, resisting arrest, etc.
Felony assault, attempted murder, burglary, drug abuse, sale of drugs, illegal firearms deals, possible rape eluded to in texts, misogyny, vandalism, trespassing, fights, blood thirst toward snitches, etc.
Friends admitted he launched into loud, aggressive, angry, profanity-laced verbal tirade at Dunn after an admittedly polite request to turn volume of blasting gangster rap with lyrics about violence down. Accused of making death threats and possibly brandishing a weapon or something he hoped would be taken for a weapon by Dunn.
Or, maybe I'm working from a flawed premise. In any case, please, explain what's going on.
Happy to explain. See, there are a few key facts you're ignoring here:
Most of these young men embrace and self identify with such descriptors as "thug" "gangsta" etc. They talk about and glorify the "thug life" and most of these kids, when they were alive, would have been thrilled to be called thugs, and seen as scary and intimidating and dangerous. That was what they'd been working hard to cultivate as their persona and reputation. Trayvon and Big Mike would bristle at being talked about like harmless children.
Sometimes, "thug" is applied somewhat loosely to include people who appear to be styling themselves as thugs, emulating thugs, being "wannabe thugs" or acting LIKE a thug at a particular moment in time, even if that's just in the form of speech patterns.
This is common for many, many terms and there will always be people who apply terms more loosely and freely than others do. A white guy could be called a "hick" based only on his accent or driving a truck, or the state he was born in, or other similarly flimsy evidence. Someone can easily end up being called "white trash" in much the same way. Some people play fast and loose with these dismissive terms, and aren't adhering to a very high standard of proof on them.
That's not racist, it's lazy and it's human.
A girl could end up being branded a "slut" for just hooking up with one guy one time while intoxicated at a party if certain people noticed, and had an axe to grind. Is that sexism or just people being people? As in, intellectually lazy and judgmental, gossipy and mean.
Sherman and Davis are far weaker cases than Trayvon and Brown - accordingly, far fewer people called them thugs as compared to those other two.
If you expect others to agree "thug" is just a stand in for the N-word, as you've claimed, you'll need to explain why Marc Lamont Hill, Michael Eric Dyson, President Obama and his family, Bill Cosby, Morgan Freeman and Neil Degrasse Tyson aren't called thugs. And why Trayvon's studious, law-abiding brother wasn't called a thug by anyone I ever saw.
Until you can do that, I'll be considering your claim that being labeled a thug is some dangerous and unavoidable fate for blacks to be the nonsense that it transparently is.
Blacks avoid that label the same way anyone else does: speak well, obey the law, don't dress like an idiot, keep tattoos to a minimum, don't try to be intimidating, don't be violent.
Just because a higher percentage of blacks are embracing thug status does not magically transmogrify "thug" into a racist term for blacks. I've seen plenty of white thugs.
