By Josh Levs, CNN, April 29, 2015
(CNN)A term used by President Barack Obama and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to characterize rioters has given new life to a debate over the word "thug."
"Of course it's not the right word, to call our children 'thugs,'" Baltimore City Councilman Carl Stokes told CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront." "These are children who have been set aside, marginalized, who have not been engaged by us. No, we don't have to call them thugs."
"Just call them n-----s. Just call them n-----s," he said. "No, we don't have to call them by names such as that."
The Rev. Jamal Bryant drew the same comparison Wednesday morning on CNN. The President and the mayor are wrong, he said. "These are not thugs, these are upset and frustrated children."
This is what the word actually means.
Thug
noun
1. a cruel or vicious ruffian, robber, or murderer.
2.(sometimes initial capital letter) one of a former group of professional robbers and murderers in India who strangled their victims.
Give me a break! If Stokes is offended by this word, then he needs to actually take a step back and consider who it was being directed at.
The right to peacefully protest has been defend across the country over and over again but what people take issue with is when those protests are used to commit criminal acts, like robbery and setting fires topped off with attacking police officers.
Destroying businesses and private property is not part of what most folks were trying to do, yet to others it was an opportunity to act like a bunch of thugs. The word is not used to describe color or even as an insult to the protestors. Deal with it!
If Strokes believes children were being called thugs, then he should think about what some of them were doing at the time then rethink how all the rioters actually did more damage to those children than this word ever could.
What kind of a message does committing crimes send? What kind of a message does it send when only some lives matter?
This isn't about all police officers committing crimes, but has always been about a few doing unspeakable acts. No one seems to want to talk about the 100 good cops being injured just doing their jobs, showing up for work.
Nearly 100 Officers Injured Since Monday: Baltimore Police
Nearly 100 officers have been hurt since violence broke out in the city on Monday, Baltimore Police said.
Capt. Eric Kowalczyk said Thursday afternoon that more than 40 officers required some sort of treatment at the hospital.
Protesters have been throwing bricks, bottles and other items at officers trying to contain demonstrations after the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who suffered critical injuries while he was in police custody.
But why talk about the fact that most of those officers are good and ashamed of the few bad ones giving all of them a bad reputation?
That article had "protestors" instead of thugs. Most of the people protesting should take offense with that because most of them were there to publicly show their outrage peacefully. That word should have been replaced with "thugs" or criminals.
Folks can twist and manipulate whatever they want and they seem to get all the attention of the reporters on TV yet there is so much more going on in this country not getting any attention at all.
Does Strokes know about veterans with PTSD in crisis being killed by police officers and SWAT Teams all over the country because they are not getting the help they need? These are some of their stories.
U.S. Air Force dress blue uniform, Francis “Frank” Lamantia Spivey stood with an assault rifle pushed up to his chin just after midnight Feb. 25.
Glendale police fatally shot Joe Tassinari in March 2015, Vietnam veteran.
William Dean Poole, GASTON COUNTY — A veteran was shot and killed by police Monday after he fired his weapon at them, Gaston County authorities said.
Brandon Lawrence, "as observed by officers just inside his residence holding a 23-inch machete"
Brian Babb, a 49-year-old former captain in the Oregon Army National Guard
There was only one protest.
Anthony Hill, a 27-year-old US air force veteran, was shot dead on 9 March at his apartment complex outside Atlanta.
The stories above are only a few of the reports from across the country that I found. How many more are there? Do they merit protests? Why not? They were in crisis because of PTSD and where they were sent!
They risked their lives serving this country but over and over again they didn't get the help the rest of us thought they would get.
The politicians got to say whatever they wanted over and over again yet over and over again we bury veterans. For Heaven's sake! They survived combat but couldn't survived home?
These veterans knew how to use weapons yet a tiny fraction of officers are hit by them before they fired the fatal shot. Depending on what part of the country the story ends differently a lot of the time.
Some of them are taken to get help after facing off with SWAT Teams and sometimes their bodies are put into bags. Why does this happen? It isn't about good cops vs bad ones but more about how they were trained and it is circumstance by circumstance. We may never know because it seems no one cares to find out what makes the difference.
No one care because we have to spend time on folks like Strokes trying to cause outrage over something that isn't even relevant to what happened.
