42:24 explaining why the word thug, which now has to be referred to as the T-word, is indeed synonymous with the N-word, and just to make sure everyone knows that's nigger, which is said within context, is of course racist within context. But not just... I don't understand why people who are in the journalist business, in the context of reporting on a story like this, still say N-word. It boggles my mind. We know you're not trying to be racist by saying it, but is it to protect the poor souls? It boggles my mind. So here is this Columbia linguistics professor explaining why it is indeed racist. Well, I'll tell you... Wait, stop a second.
43:17 You could make the same argument as to why journalists on broadcasts or any places don't say fuck. There's a lot of reasons for it, most of them cultural. Is the word nigger foreboding by the FCC? I don't think so. I do not think it is. It's not on schedule, but it's beside the point. I don't believe there's a lot of words that people wouldn't say on the air that are not specifically on the FCC list, but I think they probably would put it on the list or they would scold you for saying it. Well, I... okay.
43:58 If you want to do if you're dissecting a word and you're talking about the word and you say fornication under consent of the king and you have a conversation about this word and you explain the etymology... That's bullcrap by the way. There's no way. Fornication under consent. Okay, minions, you may now have sex. Bullcrap. Who came up with that? I don't know. Let's forget about it. It's not important. Let's listen to why the word thug is racist because, you know, We should not be using this word anymore, John. Well, the truth is that... Stop right there. It's the truth. Science facts can't do anything. The truth is... That's a version of fact of the matter. Yeah, but he's a professor.
44:39 linguistics professor says that to them and i'd like to hear linguistics professors the fact of the matter who knows well the truth is that today is a nominally polite way of using the n-word many people suspected and they are correct when somebody talks about phones ruining a place it is almost impossible today that they are referring to somebody with blonde hair it is a Sly way. By the way, this is also such a racial comment. Black people, black Americans don't have blonde hair. Bitch, have you ever seen Housewives of Atlanta? Nicki Minaj. Please. I mean, that's just a stupid, unfactual bullshit line. But OK. You know what he means.
45:32 of saying, there go those black people ruining things again. And so anybody who wonders whether thug is becoming the new N-word doesn't need to. It most certainly is. Although if you think about it, I mean, in two of the pieces of tape that we played, we heard from an African American mayor of Baltimore and an African American president of the United States using that word. Yep. And that is because just like the N-word, we have another one of these strangely bifurcated words. Thug in the black community for about... By the way, why does he say thug but not nigger? I don't understand. Isn't it... I want to hear the rest of this because I have a thought on this. Yeah, there's a follow-up to it too, but I'll let you in. Yep, and that is because just like the n-word we have another one of these strangely bifurcated words. Thug in the black community for about the past 25 to 30 years has also meant ruffian, but
46:24 But there is a tinge of affection, a thug in black people's speech is somebody who is a ruffian but in being a ruffian is displaying a healthy sort of countercultural initiative, displaying a kind of resilience in the face of racism, etc. Of course nobody puts it that way. But that's the feeling. And so when black people say, they don't mean what white people mean and that's why i think stephanie rollins play and barack obama saying it means something different from the white housewife wherever who says it
47:02 This is bullcrap. Yeah, all they mean is the thug in the black community means he's a ruffian almost Robin Hood ruffian Robin Hood good intention, but because I'm white when I say thug I mean of course nigger okay. No here's what I'm thinking and for you take them Everything out of this you're preoccupied with that. It's it's another way of like It's another way of pushing the community around linguistically and you can't use... Thug does have a meaning. Thug means a big guy, usually means a big punk...
47:42 jerk of some sort who's got no respect for the law and no respect for you. That's the way I would... Ruffian would be the same thing, but no one's gonna say, oh, these ruffians, it's a new word for ruffian. And it does have connotations, and maybe there are racial overtones, although I can think of Mexican thugs, although they might be called Mexican thugs or black thugs, there should be black thugs and there's white thugs. They do exist, and it's nonsense to think that they don't. I think it's an attempt to turn to further generalize the notion that the blacks in the United States are hopeless. And so instead of saying, you can't use the N word, you can't say thugs, so you have to use what to describe the people doing this damage? Blacks.
48:29 Now, you've taken it to the point where you can't even, as he used bifurcate, you can't even separate blacks in general from thugs. But you can use blacks. Blacks is okay. And I'm noticing this trend. In fact, I got a couple of clips, but I want you to finish this first, which I think there's a movement afoot to like really marginalize the black community to an extreme. Well, props, big props, Thug Life. I think you nailed it. This is too narrow all... cut out any word that isn't just racial. Really racial, like... black.
49:07 That's a astute observation. Here is the last little bit of him about white people versus black people. Thug is an interesting word, and to the extent that we need to be able to hear it as more than some antique static dictionary definition, then I think that that's part of the process of healing as well. Black people saying thug is not like white people saying thug. There you go. So you're correct. Narrowed it right down to one thing. White, black. That's it. we're different. They can say it, we can't say it. Them can't say this, they can't say that. It's just furthering the... Okay, talk about your thinking. Well, I think there's a movement afoot to marginalize the blacks more than Obama's managed to do. And of course, they all have a smile on their face because Obama's the president, as he sticks the knife in. It's irony of ironies. But I got kind of triggered on
50:01 on this thinking by this Al Jazeera report on poverty in the brain. Yes. All right. Jake, what does the research tell us about that? Well, Ray, it's really I mean, when you look at the sheer number of horrors that poverty seems to inflict on children, it's hard to know where to begin. But the most sort of specific tangible version, the kind of research that we really know affects the brain, has to do with how it affects the brain, specifically the development of white and gray matter, the hippocampus, the amygdala, some of the most important parts of the brain. One study in 2013 of St. Louis area preschoolers found that living in deep poverty caused