It's time to retire 'ghetto thug' in sports circles to describe every black athlete that gets in the slightest bit of trouble.
Let's dissect the use of thug. Thug is defined as (according to dictionary.com):
A cruel or vicious ruffian, robber, or murderer.
Very few of the many athletes that have been called thugs fit the definition above. Further, all of the athletes that are labeled thug are black. Coincidence?
The major conflict between sports and their fans, in football and basketball, is that the fan base majority is white but the player base majority is black. The black athletes that successfully manage this line are the players that do not strike at the base fear of the 'angry black man'. David Robinson, Tim Duncan, and Michael Jordan come to mind.
See, the black athlete is in an interesting position. His entire life he's been a black male. Not to feed into stereotypes but chances are he lived a hip hop culture (which is not necessarily a gangsta shoot em up world). Now he is placed in the public eye and the public eye is often anti-hip hop. But this is another post for another time.
The main focus is that we as fans need to realize that often thug is an inaccurate description used to imply not only undesired behavior but also ethnicity or race. Perhaps you're thinking I'm throwing out the race card here but please consider this: when a white player rushes the mound in a baseball game, said player is not called a thug. Hockey players fight nightly yet thug is never used as a character description. Or even better, Kyle Turley throws his helmut and generally acts cruel and vicious during a game.....and thug is never in the reports.
On the other hand, Mike Vick throws a middle finger (not condoning his action) and he becomes a thug. Oddly enough, there are no notable situations before this middle finger which would lead to being called thug. In fact, Mike Vick gets called a thug because of his brother's antics. Let's scope this out a bit further....Woody Harrelson's father spent the last years of his life in jail for murder, in fact Charles Harrelson was a freelance hitman. Now using the same logic that makes Mike Vick a thug, how should we refer to Woody given his actual violent outburst?
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