>especially in this event, just doesn't sit right with me.
>
>these motherfuckers are products of academia, can they not
>find a
> more eloquent way to express themselves? it's mighty
>coincidental
>that they all use the same term. makes me cringe.

See http://www.npr.org/2015/04/30/403362626/the-racially-charged-meaning-behind-the-word-thug

I'm not a fan at all of McWhorter. I am old enough to remember
when Pac did one of several of the most asinine things in his
short lived career by defining for himself and his "Thug Life"
"movement" (which I feel many people who were thugs and
non-thugs alike misinterpreted) that to say one was a thug was
to not be the dictionary term for it (i.e. rapist, murderer,
etc.) and I feel like Hip Hop via its many artists that claim
to be inspired by 'Pac has done the true meaning of the term a
disservice as it has allowed people to bastardize the term.

I've argued many times w/my relatives that people forget that the term was reserved for followers of an Indian cult whose devotees worshipped Kali and brought the bodies of those they
murdered to her and I often wonder how in the Hell did thug
become anything other than its true meaning? I also remember when I was a kid/adolescent that in popular culture at the time "thug" had little to nothing to do with aggressive behavior in Black men and boys (or by extension, women, but we have just as many racist/sexist stereotypes about us: Jezebel, hoe, bitch, the asexual Mammy, gold digger, freak, dyke, etc.) but to have people say it is code for the
word nigger is reaching a bit as that is a word that can't be
substituted.