I was a thug. My gang used to knock over old Mr. Harry's outhouse every Halloween. The next day we would go and help put it upright. I was a thug. I was also an alter boy on Sundays which made me a holy thug. In my day, any person who destroyed property was a thug. No soul was spared from the pulpit to the front porch. If one was caught all hell broke loose. You were a marked man!
I ask our young folks to let the words "thug" and "thief" remain in our vocabulary ("The problem with 'thugs,'" April 30). A person who destroys another's property is a thug. They must be separated from the larger family, just like a black sheep. It was not fair that the prodigal son got more attention than the kid who stayed home and worked the fields.
The thugs captured on video did not look like they were starving for lack of food. The smiles upon their faces were a bit too festive to show desperation. The shoes on their feet were cool. And the young lady whom we saw from the copter, loading her white car with arms full of clothing from the mall did not have a receipt.
As a white person, I have the right to call the white "element" thugs, thieves, red necks and stupid. I am free to have disdain for them because they are a distraction. I want the same freedom to size up the black element.
And then I can honor my black neighbor, an entrepreneur, for getting folks jobs. The black technician at Johns Hopkins Hospital helping me through my eye surgery. And, God rest him: Hoppy, my golf instructor.
And please, everyone, let us applaud the Baltimoreans who came out the very next day and cleaned the streets. The folks that stood between the police and protesters. And the clergy who were effective in their comments.
Hey, Baltimore, if we pull this off, we could become a model for mistakes and corrections, affordable housing and toilets that flush. Yes, we can!
John Holter, Baltimore