(10-16-2014 08:21 PM)MotoRocket Wrote: (10-16-2014 05:29 PM)tolfbfan Wrote: Just visited my mom at her nursing home. After what she called me I would of been happy with "thug". She has bad days.....oh well!
It's would have. Not would of....you're such a thug... 
Seriously, I agree the word thug is used often, but seldom in anything but a derogatory way. I never viewed it to be racist
Yep, same here. I'm glad to see Dwight responded with a different post later...thank you for that as my blood pressure instantly shot up when reading the first one. I've read this a couple times over the last couple months or so and it makes no sense to me. To me it seems like the race-baiters of the world want (or maybe need) it to be considered a racist term to further their agenda. Until the last couple of months, I never would have guessed that anyone could consider that term to be racist as I've seen a combination of white, black, and hispanic people all fit that bill at different points of my life. Politically I'm a centrist being neither republican or democrat. Having said that, my next comment would boggle the mind of a liberal probably to the point of headplosion (this is an example of one of my prejudices that you will all learn about in a few minutes
). This comment is that when I think of a thug, one of the people that come to my mind right away is Richie Incognito.
I also feel that there is no doubt some racist people left in this country and it is not specific to any race although the race-baiters would like you to believe it is mostly white people vs. black people. I just recently moved back to Ohio after living in Chicago for nearly 8 years and although I did bristle up once in a while for something that felt racist to me, I noticed it more from hispanic people vs. black people and vice versa and the first generation white Americans (like straight off the boat from Poland, Ukraine, and Russia). I honestly feel like some people need racism to exist more here than it actually does.
The other thing is that I feel the race-baiters and the uneducated do not have the will or capacity to understand the difference between racism and prejudice. I do feel that there are a lot of prejudices in this country. I also feel like in most cases, it is the responsibility of the groups that people prejudge to change those prejudices if they don't like it (for the most part). I say this because most prejudices are developed from a learning process through multiple experiences over time but I'm sure for a small majority that is not always the case. With that said, if UofToledofans came to the conclusion that the kid was a thug because of how he walked, talked, or pushed people around but without getting to know him personally to validate that thought...it would be a prejudice against people that do those things. Now if he thought he was a thug because he's black and all black people are thugs, then he is a racist person (but I got more of the first and none of the second from his post).
I personally [and I believe a majority of this country too] am not racist. I personally [and I would guess 99.9% of the US population with IQs over 110] do hold prejudices based on things I've learned. It's human nature and as I think about it...seems to be mammal nature too. Some can say that they are the greatest people on earth and are better than thou because of whatever reason but I bet if I asked them if they would be more likely to take a midnight stroll down the sidewalk for a few hours in the neighborhoods here with streets ending in "wood" (majority black population) or in a subdivision in Sylvania (majority white population), anybody not lying would say the Sylvania neighborhood due to prejudices they've learned from watching the news, etc. Same thing in Chicago...I'd walk anywhere any time on the northside but I was uncomfortable at times even driving through areas of the southside during the day and wouldn't have caught me there at night if I didn't need to be due to my prejudices. It doesn't mean that anybody believes all black people are bad news but in those areas, we have learned that good news doesn't come out there. But same as insinuating that thug is a derogatory term against one race, one would argue that by being less comfortable on the south side a person must be racist.
Sorry so long-winded but this crap has been grating on my nerves lately more and more every time I read it.
