What makes a thugh? Is it behavior......or color?

Jack boots: As they say, the shoes boots make the man.

I was reading in the Huffington post that: This morning, the women on ABC's The View decided to delve into the contextual power of the word thug. First, some background: It all started when hip-hop artist Chris Brown appeared on Good Morning America, on the same network. One of the show's hosts Robin Roberts, in interviewing Brown, kept focusing on Brown's assault of her then girlfriend Rhianna. Brown, obviously uncomfortable, managed to sidestep the issue for the most part. Ms. Roberts, however, kept going back to the assault charge. Finally, Brown told her flat out the he was there to talk about his album and not anything that happened two years ago. Afterwards,  Brown finally got to perform his song.

Skip ahead a couple of hours to the View. The ladies started the show talking about how after his  appearance on GMA, Brown had blown his cool and reportedly broken a window.  This is where the thug thing comes in. Joy Behar mentioned something to the effect that Brown just proved he's still a thug or something like that. View member Sherri Shepherd,  who happens to be black, was somewhat perturbed that another bad boy, Charlie sheen, had never been called a thug. She pointed out that despite having ransacked a hotel room, Sheen was never labeled a thug. She wondered out loud, why Cris Brown would be called a thug without hesitation. At that point, Whoopee (not related to the cushion) addressed the 900 lb elephant in the room and said something like "What she means is that using the word thug only for certain people is racist".

I got to say she's got a point. I don't remember Charlie Sheen being called a thug at all during this last month. Also, Obama has been referred by some in the extreme right as a thug. It's funny how Bush managed to somehow escape the thug label throughout his eight years in office. However, in full disclosure, I do recall the phrase jackbooted thugs used many a time to refer to neo-nazis and the like. Does this mean that whites are only thugs if they are wearing jack boots?