Rant #1,434: A Thug Is A Thug

I love the dictionary.

As a writer, I use it almost every day to check on the spelling of words, the meaning of words, and where these words that we use in our everyday conversation come from.

The media, in all of its fervor for the new flavor of the month--race relations--has latched on to one word as the linchpin for this unsettling environment we are now in, and since the problems in Baltimore, the PC Police have gotten involved, telling us that a certain word is not to be used anymore, because to these bastions of what is right and what is wrong, the word, around for centuries, now has racial connotations.

The word is "thug," and for some reason, for some people, this word is as bad as the "N" word in today's parlance.

But for free-thinking people like myself, "thug" has meant what it has meant for years and years, and casting a racial tone over its use is akin to being racist yourself.

Looking up the word before I wrote this column today--I must REALLY love the dictionary to be doing this at 4 a.m. in the morning--I found the following definition of the word "thug":

• A cutthroat or ruffian; a hoodlum.
• One of a group of professional criminals, devotees of Kali, who robbed and murdered travelers in northern India until the mid-1800s. 

Yes, the word derives from thuggery, an Indian term to describe the acts of these professional criminals way back when.

Now, where is the racial connotation there? Perhaps for those of Indian ancestry--but not even really for the general population, just the bad ones--but not for those of African American background, that's for sure. And we never use the second definition anyway, it is the first one where the term is used, and that can be used to describe anyone of any background.

The word has been "adopted" by the English language to mean a crook, a criminal, an overall louse.

That crook, criminal or overall louse can be white, black, yellow, brown, orange, pink, purple or chartruse.

Where is the racial connotation there?

The problem is that it perfectly describes the garbage that lashed out at Baltimore in the Freddy Gray incident, destroying the very town they live in and taking away businesses and private residences from people of their own background.

People began to call these people thugs, and, well, in this politically correct world, all of a sudden, if you used the word to describe these individuals, you were a racist.

The president refuses to use the word, the media--which itself created the frenzy over the word--stays away from it, and numerous famous people, including TV's Soledad O'Brien, has told people that she cannot tolerate people anyone using this word, and that they should refrain doing so.

Well, Soldedad and your PC Police buddies, too bad--I will use the word "thug" to describe these miscreants, because it has no racial connotations at all. You have given it racial connotations, so who is the racist here?

Heck, on Facebook, there has been quite a debate about the use of this word. Facebookians--now there is a word--have told others on the social networking site to refrain from using the word, while others now use the word more than ever, to push the face of these opponents into the mud, so to speak.

Me, I was seriously thinking about starting up a Facebook page devoted to the word "thug." It is the perfect word to use to describe those who destroyed their own town because they didn't like the situation.

Boo hoo.

What are we supposed to call these individuals, animals? No, animals would not do such things to their own environment. People, like our so-PC president has called them? No, sorry, they are not people. Real people would not act in such a way towards their own, or to anybody, for that matter.

So, thug is perfectly acceptable. It perfectly describes those who took the law into their own hands, deciding that since they didn't like what was happening, wah, wah, they would see to it that the very stereotype that those of color want to rid the world of was perpetuated.

Wah, wah.

Thug it is.

And if you don't like it, I would "thug-gest" that you go elsewhere, because to me, that term is perfectly, 100 percent, acceptable, and no one--not the PC Police, not the president, and not self-hating TV personalities--is going to tell me what words to use in my daily writing, reporting and speech.