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Interesting conversation and video included here.
Is thug a racially charged epithet?
At a news conference in suburban Seattle, he brought up a word that has been used too easily and abused too much.
That word is “thug.”
“It seems like the accepted way of calling someone the n-word,” Sherman said.
Richard Sherman will be a media attraction during Super Bowl week. (AP)
He might not be exactly right, but he’s close enough. Too often “thug” is a cleaner version of a racial epithet, directed at African-Americans (sometimes by other African-Americans). That word was attached to Sherman almost immediately after he called out 49ers receiver Michael Crabtree following his game-saving play in the Seahawks’ 23-17 victory over San Francisco.By contrast, Tom Brady left the field screaming at a referee after a controversial call in a loss to the Carolina Panthers in December. Brady didn’t slow down to congratulate anyone on the other team. He could be heard using more offensive language than Sherman did on Sunday.
Not many called Brady a thug.
The word has been bastardized and adulterated for years, even centuries. According to Urban Dictionary, a thug is “someone who is going through struggles, has gone through struggles, and continues to live day by day with nothing for them. That person is a thug, and the life they are living is the thug life. A thug is NOT a gangster. Look up gangster and gangsta. Not even CLOSE, my friend.”
Sherman, a Stanford graduate with a big bank account, is not going through struggles. Not in that sense, anyway.
The colloquial (or “urban”) definition comes from the late rapper Tupac Shakur. The actual definition, from the dictionary, is even further removed from how it’s being used now. A “thug” in the literal sense is a “violent criminal.”
Sherman is hardly a violent criminal. Calling himself the best cornerback in the NFL is not the trademark of a violent criminal. Nor is insulting Crabtree in a televised interview with Erin Andrews. Nor is yelling. In that sense, Rep. Joe Wilson is a “thug” for screaming, “You lie!” to President Obama during his State of the Union address in 2009.
Wilson is not a thug. Brady is not a thug. Sherman is not a thug.
Just more bastardization of the language by the ignorant. Most probably have no clue as to the word’s origins.
How many words are we going to ban?
Just because some Hawaiian dumbass claims “pineapple” is a derogatory racist slang term because “that haole” called him one, doesn’t mean I have to stop using it to refer to a tasty fruit.
“Thug” is a word in my lexicon, I have never used it with any regard to race.
I’m a Sherman fan, but he’s wrong in this case. He’s unknowingly bought into the PC agenda. It’s not the word, it’s the intent of those using it.
The basic twisted logic behind this isn’t far from the same used by those who want to prohibit the displaying the American flag, because some might find it offensive.
Who said anything about banning a word?
As far as R. Sherman “unknowingly” buying into the “PC agenda,” you’re crazy if you deny the existence of racially coded language.
R. Sherman hasn’t done anything thuggish, but he’s no Shane Battier either. Battier consistently lives up to the ‘Duke brand’ of athlete, never being caught speaking in game or sub-culture vernacular. Sherman tries to have it both ways, and it just doesn’t add up. It looks a little phony, imo.
Also, he looks like Busta Rhymes. Woo-Ha!
Who said anything about banning a word?
It was a rhetorical question. An extreme extrapolation based on previous actions of the “word police”.
you’re crazy if you deny the existence of racially coded language.
I don’t.
But “language” is more than just the spoken word.
Just because Melissa Harris-Perry says “Obamacare” is racially coded language for the “N” word doesn’t make it so. It doesn’t make everyone whose uses the term a racist.
Just because some punks inject racial overtones in their use of “thug”, that doesn’t make the word itself a racial term.
“Boy” can have racial overtones, depending upon how it’s used. Doesn’t mean the word itself is racially charged and everyone needs to shy away from using it.
Sherman tries to have it both ways, and it just doesn’t add up. It looks a little phony, imo.
Sherman’s story is an impressive one. Much worthy of admiration.
Sherman isn’t the player he is because he’s the fastest, strongest, or most athletic. He’s the ball player he is because of his intelligence, work ethic, and passion. He’s an emotional player who has to play that way to play his best.
The interview was a result of nothing more than that. Catching an excited, emotional player seconds after he made the play of the game to send himself and his teammates to the Super Bowl. Emotion, excitement, and vindication… against a player with extended history, and a former coach he still claims blackballed him.
Completely understandable. Blown out of proportion. The press just doing what the press does.
… this is all just another day on the battlefields of “The War that Never Ended…. ”
For a hundred and fifty or more years…. both sides rush to arms whenever an opportunity like this presents itself and as usual blow everything up to move some more big money over to their side….
The simple facts are….
1. It was a the LAST MINUTES OF A BIG GAME.
2. Sherman and the other SeaHawks guy who caught the tipped ball (whatever his name is.. he’s the real victim here ) made a BIG PLAY… both in terms of the athletic ability required and it’s outcome on the game.
3. It was a the LAST MINUTES OF A BIG CLOSE GAME..
4. Sherman and Crabtree were playing FOOTBALL…. which is violent and they had being going at each other both physically and verbally NONSTOP FOR THREE HOURS
5. It was a the LAST MINUTES OF A BIG CLOSE FOOTBALL GAME.
6. Sherman and Crabtree are KIDS.
7. KIDS WILL BE KIDS.
8. It was a the LAST MINUTES OF A BIG CLOSE FOOTBALL GAME PLAYED BY KIDS.
9. Some people did not like what spilled into their TV rooms… others were less affected… still other just laughed.10. No news is NO NEWS…. unless you have another reason to make NO NEWS… news.
Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching….The fix is easy…. No reporters or cameras on the field postgame. Just do what the roundball guys do. Postgame, the players and coaches do that stupidwalkdownthelineandshakeeverybodyshand thing, then go straight to locker room. Press conference starts in about 15-20 minutes… Winners first, Losers second…. duh.
But then what would the money-movers do?
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!Based on the definition of thug, I’d say that Sherman is most definitely is not a thug. I’m amused at how much traction this story has received, and especially liked Sherman’s comment about the Vancouver/Calgary hockey game during which 5 fights broke out after about 2 seconds.
Sherman spoke out right after making a huge play that sent his team to the Super Bowl. The same talking heads who constantly discuss individual matchups and achievements whined about Sherman “taking away from his team”. Give me a break.
As far as I can see, Sherman is a good ballplayer who got emotionally worked up at a time when one would/should/could expect as much. Way too much has been made of it.
He’s been characterized incorrectly IMHO, but I won’t judge those doing it to be racially motivated in their use of the word. Perhaps some are, but I’d suspect way more to be either “bandwagoning” the use of a convenient word, or more likely still, just completely ignorant, as ‘foose pointed out.
Sherman, tired of being called a thug (understandably), probably felt unjustly targeted. My guess is that he’s felt that way before due to situations that genuinely were of racial origins, thus he felt justified in using the transitive property here to describe the misuse of “thug”.
But that doesn’t make it so.
Yes…Many who grew up in Compton, and survived to acquire a real Masters Degree from Stanford, wear Dreds and yap, are thugs.
Humans never cease to embarass me.
Arf…
I thought his comments were classless. That doesn’t make him classless. He just made a mistake. And anybody that thinks Crabtree is a “sorry” receiver might want to think again. They have a thing. The Seahawks and 9ers have a thing. And he and Harbaugh have a thing. But it was still awful.
Some are even suggesting this was all concocted by Sherman, to engage in this race discussion. Apparently he has some commercial out there.
And no he is not a thug. Plenty of thugs out there, many of them my own skin color.
I also find the irony very thick and deep that 49rs fans complain about Sherman’s incident when their own Anquan Boldin yapped on just about every play during the Panthers game, and threw in a head butt for good measure.
Not a thug in the least. The optimist in me hopes that those who wished to describe Sherman as a “thug” just have a limited vocabulary and can’t find another word to use. The realist in me knows that folks saw a darker skinned loud man with dreads and leaped to the word “thug” although he used no foul language, didn’t comment on Crabtree’s personal life, nor make any threats of violence.
People loved the personal animosity teams/players had for each other in the past…people clamor for a time when rivalries mattered and players genuinely didn’t like one another…the NFL mic’d up both Sherman & Crabtree before the game to capture this kind of fire while the game progressed, they wanted this and they got it…but truth is for the fans WE wanted this, and now we’ve got it too…
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