The language police came out in full force today, expressing outrage that President Barack Obama employed an accurate word — "thugs" — to describe many of those involved in Baltimore's three days of rioting.
The PR flaks at a leftist media group went to a spokesperson for a Latino "organizing" group. He attacked Obama, not for using the word, but for having the temerity to apply it a "handful" (Obama's word) of rioters instead of to the police — "President Obama Should Call Freddie Gray’s Murderers Thugs, Not Protesters." The Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, has dutifully fallen into line, not only protecting Obama by ignoring his use of the word, but also by giving prominence to Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's pathetic apology for having previously used it.
Here is what Obama said during a press conference following his meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He criticized the press for actually covering what was happening:
... the violence that happened yesterday distracted from the fact that you had seen multiple days of peaceful protests that were focused on entirely legitimate concerns of these communities in Baltimore, led by clergy and community leaders. And they were constructive and they were thoughtful, and frankly, didn’t get that much attention. And one burning building will be looped on television over and over and over again, and the thousands of demonstrators who did it the right way I think have been lost in the discussion.
The overwhelming majority of the community in Baltimore I think have handled this appropriately, expressing real concern and outrage over the possibility that our laws were not applied evenly in the case of Mr. Gray, and that accountability needs to exist. And I think we have to give them credit. My understanding is, is you’ve got some of the same organizers now going back into these communities to try to clean up in the aftermath of a handful of criminals and thugs who tore up the place. What they were doing, what those community leaders and clergy and others were doing, that is a statement. That’s the kind of organizing that needs to take place if we’re going to tackle this problem. And they deserve credit for it, and we should be lifting them up.
Here is the AP's thug-free writeup on Obama's statement:
There isn't a chance in Hades that the wire service would ignore a Republican or conservative president's use of the word.
Here is the wire service's coverage of Rawlings-Blake's sniveling and completely uncalled-for mea culpa:
It's bad enough that Rawlings-Blake feels badly about using a perfectly appropriate word which commonly means "a tough and violent man, especially a criminal." But to say that her city has no thugs, and that the problem is only "kids" who are "acting out," is delusional. Did I miss the news that all of the gangs in Baltimore have disbanded in the past 48 hours?
It's disappointing but utterly unsurprising that the press is more interested in policing the words used to describe Baltimore's rioting than in completely and accurately describing what has happened. It's also ironic, given that rap music has glorified "thug life" for over 20 years.
For example, there is no evidence in searches at the AP's main national site or at its "Big Story" site that the wire service has reported that Tuesday's rioting was largely inspired by social media communications which organized an after-school "purge," imitating the movie of the same name. That's a very fundamental item for anyone who really wants to understand what happened. It's omissions like that which make it reasonable to believe that the national establishment press doesn't want its readers, listeners and viewers outside of Baltimore to know what happened.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
