[logicchains]

>Thug is historically a racist dog whistle

Really? I'm a native English speaker, albeit not American, and I've never heard thug implied to have racist connotations. The original word comes from a Hindi word for criminal, which was also used for a violent cult: "Devotees of the goddess Kali, the Thugs waylaid and strangled their victims, usually travellers, in a ritually prescribed manner. They were suppressed by the British in the 1830s."

>I had trouble caring though, because the only places that happened in are the ones where soldier cops got insanely abusive with peaceful protesters.

How does the police being abusive make it okay for the rioters to burn down random buildings?

[edmundsauto]

> How does the police being abusive make it okay for the rioters to burn down random buildings?

It doesn't absolve any responsibility, but if you take a step back - the police behavior was the indirect and sometimes direct cause of the other symptom.

[osobear]

Well said.

[mensetmanusman]

Dog whistle is a useful term, because it gives someone the power to redefine what has been said to mean anything that you would like.

E.g. on NPR you hear talking heads speak about “staunch conservatives” like Bill Barr. This term is now a dog whistle on the left that means ‘white nationalist’

[komali2]

[flagged]

[mensetmanusman]

It was tongue in cheek to the fact that words change meaning.

The non-GTP-3 agent above was surprised to learn that the word ‘Thug’ now means something else. It’s like the rug was pulled out from under them.