Thursday, April 30, 2015
Thugs? Let's Be Real Here
Over the past couple of days, riots have broke out in Baltimore due to the arrest and death of Freddie Gray. While in custody, Gray was found to have serious spinal cord injury. This sparked the riots happening in Baltimore, including the burning of the local CVS. As these protests occurred, a new term was used to describe the rioters: thugs. The protestors were called thugs by Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the mayor of Baltimore, and President Barack Obama. I have never heard such an unfitting word used to describe those who have been mistreated and want to take back their safety as equal citizens of America. Perhaps there have been incidents that spiraled out of hand, including the burning of the CVS, but for the most part the protests are predominantly peaceful. But to call all citizens who seek justice for their city is marginalizing. Let's call them what they truly are: protestors. This is related to the George Orwell essay: Politics and the English Language. Orwell argues against the use of euphemisms, because they do not accurately describe what we hope to say. We do this in order to sway the vision of those who hear us. For example, he uses the sentence, "Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry." He says this can be rephrased as "transfer of population." This is no different from changing the literal term of "protestors" to "thugs". As this word is used by people such as Barack Obama and Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, they hope to lead us into believing that these acts of seeking justice were merely criminal behavior acts, and that there are not issues of police brutality.
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I completely agree with you Izzy. The use of the word thug is a completely inaccurate euphemism for what is really occurring in Baltimore. The protestors are not thugs, they are merely protestors. If you look up the word thug in the dictionary you receive the definition, "a cruel or vicious ruffian, robber, or murderer." If anything this applies more to the police force than it does to those protesting. They are the murderers, the cruel people, the thugs. Many of the protesters are peaceful and only want peace. Those who call them thugs are merely trying to draw public fire away from what is actually happening. The mayor uses the word thug because she doesn't want people to feel that her people force is cruel and wrong. The president uses it because he doesn't want there to be a negative view on the police in his country. Both instead point fingers at the protestors an call them thugs to avoid all this. It is an incredibly inaccurate statement, but one that has great power. Hopefully the majority of our population is able to recognize tis and we can put an end to all this nonsense. great blog by the way.
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