CNN is now running an article exploring this question. I've heard a few hear bring up "thug" as a racist term. However, it's been used as a descriptor for ISIS and Al-qaeda as well as armed militants in Russia and other areas. I just don't see it yet although the word seems to be getting more and more polarizing especially after comments by Baltimore Mayor and Obama. http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/29/us/baltimore-riots-thug-n-word/index.html
We had a discussion of this recently on some thread. I think it is a good term for any violent criminal and most people use it without any racial connotation, but MASTERMIND thinks it is a racial epithet. If black leaders are using the word, I don't think it rises to a racist term. What else are we going to call violent criminal troublemakers? Chillrens?
Somone needs to print a dictionary of words that are ok for white people to use. With the way things are going with every other word hurting someones feelings it shouldn't take much ink to print.
I agree with Red here, if the shoe fits...i have never thought it to be indicative of any particular race.
I had a friend who moved to Mississippi and he was house hunting (white guy) the real estate agent showing him houses started telling him about certain areas he didn't want to live because they are now filled with "democrats". He was referring to African Americans.
I'm sure that some people might see it as a racial term. I do not, as I have not heard it used just for people of color; however, others might think differently. I also would hate for there to be another rather innocuous word out there that becomes taboo because it seems racist. (n-word, however, was never innocuous, as it most certainly pertained negatively to one race.)
My case in point is Tyrann Mathieu. Had he been a white guy would he have been labeled a thug? Also heard Jordan Jefferson referred to as a thug, but not the white linebacker that was arrested with him.
