Weatherman who slandered police violence victims as ‘thugs’ says he had ‘no idea’ comment was racist

[Igel]

19. It's changed in one subgroup in the US.

Unfortunately, for many that one subgroup gets to define words--it's either that, or the rest of the population gets called "racist" and accused of offending feelings.

And it's hard to see outside of that group if you're in it. McWhorter, a linguist, did precisely this mistake. He's black and confidently said that any use of "thug" that wasn't racist was obsolete, that at best a few old people might still use it that way. Sadly, a large portion of American society and most English speakers in the rest of the world don't use it that way. It's a "dog whistle," and if somebody says "thug" about a black kid that does something violent and wrong the first assumption is that it applies first and foremost to the kid's blackness. If that same person uses the word "thug" for 99 white kids, it's just not noticed, it's not perceived, so "all the information" says it's racist, because what people say about kids who don't interest us isn't interesting.

It works the same for police charged. Recently one poster in a thread asked when police would finally be charged for shooting an African-American. Took 5 seconds to google and come up with two examples from the previous two weeks, and those were just the first two links from the search. He hadn't noticed it because it suited him not to notice police being reprimanded, and since he didn't know about such charges being filed he felt confident that none had been. It's a vicious circle.