not gunna lie
(midwest.social)
𝗧𝗼𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 *𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑝𝑢𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑑 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛
FlippanarchyOk but they're not just cops. As shitty as cops are, they still have legal rules and procedures they must follow. ICE is a separate organization that exists outside of that. ICE is literally the president's personal militia that can do whatever he says and act with near impunity.
they still have legal rules and procedures they must follow.
wew
So, cops.
No, ICE is what cops would be if cops had fewer constraints. It might seem like cops have no constraints, but they do.
the difference at best is quantitative, not qualitative.
And no, cops show the same restraints to minorities as ICE has to white people. How many black people where executed by cops in the streets without any justice? it finally spilled to white people. you didn't want that to happen, yell at all the politicians (both parties) that allowed cops to do that shit for generations.
The difference between me spilling some syrup, and the great molasses flood is also quantitative. Ignoring that doesn't help.
are you denying that law enforcement has a long and rich history of executing minorities in the streets? as well as ignoring minorities civil rights?
When local police departments go rogue, we’ve depended on the federal government (DOJ) to rein them in.
ICE is acting so brazenly at the behest of the president, with federal supremacy backing them.
No one is denying local police have committed atrocities. Do you see why this is a larger and more difficult problem?
You are seriously downplaying all the atrocities committed by law enforcement in the past. they rarely get any repercussions, at best they get a paid vacation or fired and retired in another department.
You're not real, so I'm just going to ignore you.
my name might be funny, but if you are ignoring affected communities, then your aren't an ally, you're just a self serving lib
The level of liberalism and cop apologism is too damn high... Using terms like "thug" and "gangster" simply reinforces cop/prison culture. Like the meme says, these people are cops... And yeah it's racist too. There's really no need to attempt to "rehabilitate" racist terms when more accurate terms (eg. cop) are readily available...
- https://www.npr.org/2015/04/30/403362626/the-racially-charged-meaning-behind-the-word-thug
- https://ejusa.org/why-we-dont-say-gang/
- https://theconversation.com/thugs-is-a-race-code-word-that-fuels-anti-black-racism-100312
- Etc. Search it up.
What a braindead take.
By calling out ICE as masked thugs you're calling them exactly what they are thereby stripping them of any legitimacy they may have in people's eyes by being part of the government. As for calling them gang members, that's exactly what they are. They're members of the biggest gang - the government.
Only a racist person who believes in race would automatically think of non white people when they hear "masked thugs". Anyone who isn't racist and doesn't believe in race just pictures thugs with masks.
The counter to racism is to realise that race doesn't exist, not joining in believing in this arbitrary social construct. Once you adopt this view you stop seeing race everywhere. If you're anti-racist but you believe race exists and you see it everywhere in everything then you're part of the problem.
100%, thank you. We can not be handwringing every little thing because people like this just want to "be part of the conversation". The only good point here is that this IS just cop shit, but that's the thing, it's on a whole other level where it actually threatens the police themselves, and rhetorically that's useful for once.
Please pick and choose your battles here in 2026 instead of falling for this faux-intellectual college kid bait discourse I'm begging you. ICE are thugs. That term comes from India and refers to a class of dudes who were so hard up under British Imperialism they would just kill people in the road by sneaking up on them. The US govt us debt trapping white supremacist goons into killing for them (no I am not making excuses for them) I'd say it etymologically fits the bill. And if it doesn't okay, I get that you want to make world better and Always Say The Exact Right Thing, but these people are hurting us NOW and when they're down the fucking street taking my neighbors I need everyone to be on the same page with me and not moralize at me about my choice of words! This bullshit is fedposting whether accidentally or intentionally, it's like when CHUDs make fun of us for our best impulses and we can't argue back or else it looks like we're abandoning principles to assholes who are moving the goal posts they control around us to present us as idiots.
"Gang" I more strongly see the argument for... but they ARE that, they ARE organized criminals, and they wouldn't be the first mix-race-yet-white-supremacist-fascist-organized-criminal outfit. See also LAPD and the Proud Boys, etc etc. You cannot just retcon language into being race-based because CNN used it a certain way in the 90s when running urban crime stories. You cannot let the Neoliberal racist world order be the weather vein for what literal words you are and aren't allowed to say, because before those words were forcibly associated with racialized crime reporting THEY WERE REAL WORDS. We cannot do this to all language or we'll be talking like "Orange Man(bad) uses COP ARMY (ACAB, almost forgot heh) to distract us from the fact he grpd and unal*ved Persons of a Younger Persuasion." Please defend our language and our right to express what we're seeing in real time, do not automatically self-censor with no wider consensus based off merely seeing a post. PLEASE.
Did you respond to the wrong person? I fail to see how any of what you said could be directed at me.
do not automatically self-censor
grpd and unal*ved
lmao pretty sure you can say raped and killed here
I was replying to you but then I went on a whole extended soap box that wasn't all the way directed at you, apologies.The self-censorship is my point.
Haha yeah, I was a bit confused but all good!
Also it's not like there's not plenty of history of white gangs (also Irish, Italian, and Russian) and masked thugs in modern American history. If you think these terms are just for Latinos and blacks maybe stop watching Fox News for a second and read a fucking book.
ACAB?
i think you're taking the wrong point. I understood it as ice just being cops, and this is a cop problem , not just one specially evil group.
at least that was my reading.
ngl there is racist connotations in the way people label ICE as "masked thugs" or "gang members".
What other meaning does this have? Especially when the OP goes on to call "masked thugs" and "gang members" racialized terms of criminality.
ICE also aren't just cops, they're an escalation past that and calling them just cops is minimising it in my opinion. One of the things stopping there being even more people out protesting or fighting back is that many people see them as just law enforcement acting within their remit.
many people see them as just law enforcement acting within their remit.
<literally the other night
Yeah? I didn't say that I thought that or that it was correct.
… but you can look both in crossposted 🧵s and live reactions to this outside threadiverse for a wider concensus
OK. I'm not talking about many people here. I'm talking many people in general, in the population.
I’m saying those heads are turning, realizing the problem, if too late.
It is true that "thug" is being used as a racist dog whistle. denying that is just wilful ignore. Although policing language is annoying, especially when meanings change so quickly. That's the euphemism treadmill in action.
and no, they are just acting like cops have always acted. the only difference is that it is now more visible and they treat white people like cops treated minorities.
mass deportations started with Obama, and continued with Trump and Biden. Biden didn't even stop the controversial family separation. And we have to be vigilant that the next Democrat cunt might just normalize all of this rather than making substantial changes and reparations with only some symbolic changes.
if you fail to acknowledge that, then you aren't asking to end this tyranny and violence, you're just asking for it to go back when it only affected minorities and you had the privilege to ignore it. and yes, if that's your attitude you are undeniably as racist as ICE agents, just afraid to acknowledge it. you shouldn't get to pat yourself in the back and call yourself an ally.
It is true that “thug” is being used as a racist dog whistle.
My point is exactly the opposite. Whether or not someone is a thug has nothing to do with the colour of their skin.
mass deportations started with Obama, and continued with Trump and Biden. Biden didn’t even stop the controversial family separation. And we have to be vigilant that the next Democrat cunt might just normalize all of this rather than making substantial changes and reparations with only some symbolic changes.
I agree. All governments = cunts. Trump + Maga = turbo cunts+++.
if you fail to acknowledge that, then you aren’t asking to end this tyranny and violence, you’re just asking for it to go back when it only affected minorities and you had the privilege to ignore it. and yes, if that’s your attitude you are undeniably as racist as ICE agents, just afraid to acknowledge it. you shouldn’t get to pat yourself in the back and call yourself an ally.
How you could read my original comment and think I might be racist is just mind-blowing. As for my supposed "privilege", I wasn't born in the USA and I don't live in the USA so...
that's why I started with an "If", I'm dealing with so many white saviours here that I now feel I need to prerespond to the conplaints.
the issue isn't just how you see the word, but how it is seen. I might argue that the R word is harmless and I don't see it as insensitive, but ignoring how everyone else sees it and using it will make me an asshole. Euphemism treadmill is real and Fox news has been using "thug" it as a racist euphemism. so here we are.
Why would it be racist to use the terms "thugs" and "gangs" to refer to white people? If anything, we should keep using them this way - decouple those terms from racial connotations.
This reminds me of that Simple Sabotage Field Manual the CIA declassified. It containes things like:
Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
... to interfere with organizations and production.
But it certainly can't hurt to add more info, like calling them "masked government thugs", for example, if you'd like.
Pointing out nonsense like this with this in mind is important, keep up the good work.
I call them Pedo led white supremacist paramilitary gangs. could add more, but it gets a bit long to type on my phone
What's the racist aspect of it..?
"thug" is kind of the new n word.
Well clearly not in every use. "Jackbooted thugs" is a well established and has no race connotations. And using it that way suits the situation a lot better than whatever use is associated with black people
God, how much I fucking hate the euphemism treadmill
I can get behind the term "masked thugs", just as the Einsatzgruppen were thugs. The correct term might be paramilitary secret police, which puts them in that sweet spot where they basically don't have to answer to anyone...Like the Gestapo. The cure for those kinds of people is at the end of a rope.
Yeah, they're thugs. If people lack the imagination to realize thugs can can be white that sounds like a them problem to me.
Honestly, this reads almost as "they're not thugs, they are white so it's just policing as usual and that makes it alright". I'm assuming the post is trying to say cops are bad, but if the white authoritarian racist would agree 100% with your statement maybe consider reformulating.
Also, ICE isn't exclusively white people
Also a bunch of ICE are not white people so it makes even less sense.
Of course thugs can be white, but the term is used almost exclusively for black people.
Sorry, but I'll have to disagree with you on that. The term is frequently used around the UK when referring to violent people of any background, but the context in which I hear it the most is football hooligans or EDL. I wouldn't be surprised if those adding a racial bias to the word are from the US. Europe is generally not as preoccupied with race.
That's your bias. I had no issue imagining white thugs. In fact there are so little black people where I live that I wouldn't associate them as thugs. Poor? Sure, that's social conditioning, but thugs no.
Calling ICE thugs is appropriate, albeit maybe too light. They are the KKK trash. That sounds more appropriate than Gestapo.
Because it's constantly used by Fox News?
It's an old word and people have different connotations. I personally associate it with union busters and railroad bulls.
ysk that Einsatzgruppe is just the German word for "task force". What you're referring to only makes sense when you specify you mean one of the SS.
The "Einsatzgruppen" were a gaggle of former or current cops, aging reservists and some volunteers who were sent in after the Wehrmacht had taken a territory.
Their job was to shoot Jews and Partisans. While "Einsatzgruppe" is the German word for Task Force, talking about the "Einsatzgruppen" always refers to these groups in the Third Reich.
the "n" at the end is regular German plural btw. don't fall for this farce
Kollege, ich weiß nicht, was du mir damit sagen willst. Ich hab sowohl im Englischen als auch im Deutschen den Plural verwendet.
Wenn jemand im Englischen von "Einsatzgruppen" spricht, dann meint er nicht das Konzept von "Task Force" in einem deutschen Kontext. Es geht dabei, vor allem wenn wir schon über das Dritte Reich reden, um die "Einsatzgruppen des SD".
it's literally in the German dictionary. the firebrigades have Einsatzgruppen here too, for example.
some probably nazi professor getting a German boner when he doesn't translate the title of units properly, doesn't change reality.
// edit
Example: https://www.feuerwehr.hamburg/die-spezialeinsatzgruppen-871244
It was an euphemism for the guys who went around shooting jews.
You might be right, in which case "just cop shit" may be rather damning. Regardless, what does associating cops with criminality have to do with racism?
Well, you see, if you're a violent black you're a "thug" or "gang member", if you're a violent white you're a "cop", and if you disagree with this analysis you're apparently racist.
Its a good take
It is sad that white shitlibs in here are allergic to being called put.
Fuck em. fuck em all, they are just fascist enablers and just sad that white poor are no longer part of the imperial ingroup.
minorities suffering under this shit for generations have been warning that it is a matter of time before the police state designed to target minorities will include them. they are now reaping what they sowed.
It's intentional. /c/thepoliceproblem@lemmy.world & progressivepolitics@lemmy.world do so in order to keep their counter-state propaganda in check. They are right now promoting a self-stated deradicalizer, in hopes to genocide all their opponents.
Plenty of electoralists in threadiverse still. I call them out whenever I can. They downvote and astro-downvote the hell out of me all the time.
