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Two charged with Burlington mosque vandalism
By adamg on Mon, 11/02/2015 - 3:23pm
Burlington Police report arresting a pair of Burlington teenagers on charges they vandalized the Islamic Center of Burlington sometime late Saturday or early Sunday.
Cameron Cappella (l.) and Derrik Demone, both 18, were arrested today on charges of malicious destruction of property worth more than $250 and tagging property - by allegedly spray painting "USA" several times on the mosque's walls and by throwing eggs at them.
"We were able to quickly close this shameful case involving a hate crime in our community," Police Chief Michael Kent said in a statement. "This behavior is not tolerated in town and the suspects will be held responsible for their actions."
The two are scheduled for arraignment in Woburn District Court.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
Look at the bright side, boys
When you get out of jail you'll have a great resume for hosting for a syndicated FM or Cable TV "News" program.
they will not go to jail at
they will not go to jail at all.
Minor or no criminal history
then no they won't. There are far worse criminals roaming the streets, again, assuming they have only minor or no criminal history.
Dumbasses have some community service to do
Perhaps as much as I-93 blockaders.
Oh, good, they're 18
I was going to lay off, but since they're adults, hey, look, garden variety Massachusetts white trash.
Boy, rampant underemployment really sucks, huh? Now what are we going to do about that?
Should they be immediately executed?
That was one of your other gems from a while back.
Damon and Affleck
These guys look like the real world version of Damon and Affleck in Good Will Hunting.
I hope the U.S. veterans who
I hope the U.S. veterans who worship at this mosque get to have a nice little chat about citizenship and responsibility to these young chaps...
The jugeared one has some pro
The jugeared one has some pro-Trump and anti-Carson and anti-Clinton crap sprinkled in around his hip-hop and wrestling-related junk on his Twitter timeline, so now you can jump to some conclusions without needing Swirly Logic.
These guys are a couple of
These guys are a couple of idiots. They are old enough to know places of worship should be off limits.
Having said that, the glee on this subject from posters here is a bit over the top. I assume it's because they are a couple of white kids from Burlington.
I have the feeling if they weren't white, weren't from Burlington, the tone would be different.
I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
Equal opportunity offender
If you are white, I will rip you on UH. If you are black, I will rip you on UH. If you are rich, I will rip you on UH. If you are poor, I will rip you on UH. If you're a public employee, I will rip you on UH. If you're a private citizen, I will rip you on UH.
OK, I'll bite
What kinds of places aren't off limits to bigoted vandalism? I'm asking for a friend.
who said anything about
who said anything about anywhere being "off limits"?
My impression is the delight many posters have that these kids are white kids from Burlington. Anything else you read into this is on you - not me.
I just did a double-take
You did!
To quote: "They are old enough to know places of worship should be off limits."
Uhh... you did?
Oh FFS!
Oh FFS!
I love reading U Hub but there are times when people are really out for a "gotcha" moment and this is it.
Of course it is unacceptable to desecrate anyones property or anyone! That shouldn't have to be said, but I guess it does here lest I be accused of condoning these two idiots.
I obviously didn't make myself clear, but to me places of worship hold a special meaning and respect - no matter what the faith. And to breach that respect is a slap in the fact to an entire congregation.
My God aldos; did you get your "gotcha" moment? Well, give yourself a pat on the back! You deserve it\
again; ffs
What if it was a satanic temple?
You did say, "No matter what the faith."
if they weren't white, weren
and instead were muslims who desecrated a church, they would be charged with terrorism. Instead, conservatives like you think oh they are just dumb kids, they made a mistake.
"Instead, conservatives like
"Instead, conservatives like you think oh they are just dumb kids, they made a mistake."
You know me? I said that? Where?
I'm really curious where you read that I said any of these things. And, you even know my political affiliation? Really?
get over yourself.
Your consistent right-wing political outlook...
... is manifest. In a state where many Democrats were once more right-wing than many Republicans, your "affiliation" is harder to guess.
ha, still waiting for anon to
ha, still waiting for anon to point out where I said any of those things. Luckily I'm not holding my breath.
Pretty sure you're wrong
18 year olds, regardless of ethnicity or social status, have no business vandalizing anything, let alone a house of worship. It's an adult misdemeanor, and they'll need to make restitution.
If they have no prior juvie record, they'll likely be picking up trash beside the highway for the next couple of years of weekends, which is just fine with me. And, I suspect, they may be sentenced to having to attend services at the mosque periodically (that's what I'd do, but no, I'm not a judge).
Not likely
If people have successfully challenged court-ordered attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous (and other orders to attend church), I doubt that a judge could require Mosque attendance, no matter how fitting or valuable that might be.
Maybe not...
...But a judge can order them to do cleanup and light building repairs (painting, raking leaves, etc). The mosque is located in a low area near the and backs up to the Great Meadow (a swamp of several hundred acres which contains the Town's main well field and the WRKO radio towers), and its parking lot floods periodically and apparently requires regular maintenance, so I'm sure they can find a lot for these kids to do there that isn't theologically related.
Right.
Because no one on Uhub has ever made negative comments about young black law breakers.
No one has ever called that person a thug.
No one has ever questioned that person's parents and their parenting skills.
Nope. No one plays into stereotypes at all here. All they ever do is just celebrate when the criminal is white.
This has bothered me for a while
How is thug a racist stereotype in any context except perhaps referring to someone from India?
Thugs were members of an organization of professional violent criminals. If someone gets convicted of assault or murder in connection with gangs or organized crime, 'thug' seems like a totally valid descriptor.
Language changes
"Gay" no longer means what it did in the Flintstones jingle, either.
For better or worse, "thug" has become the new way for white people to say the N word without having to feel bad about it. That's why I stopped using it in headlines and why I simply delete most anonymous posts that use it.
It would be a shame to let racists co-opt the word
It's a good word, it's nice and short and sounds like a fist hitting something. And there really isn't a good alternative. I have a hard time coming up with anything else. Does anyone have any ideas? Brute and bully just don't do it for me.
Plus, unlike the N word, a lot of people use it and have no idea other people use it as a racially disparaging word. I wouldn't say it's a lost cause word.
And I do understand if in context it can be construed as racially insensitive then there is no reason to allow it in a post
Kidding, right?
Sure there is. There are many. Hoodlum, criminal, vandal, thief, criminal, gangster, so on and so forth. There are many better choices, "thug" is tainted, the co-option happened a long time ago, and you're not going to liberate the term while racists use it to refer to "black people doing things we disapprove of".
Evolution of a word
I too had little idea of the new, racial connotation of "thug" until relatively recently, by reading things here oh UHub, as well as some other media outlets. I still thought of a "thug" as a Whitey Bulger type, for example. Though I now see that the media accepted it as a racial epithet quite some time ago, it still seems to be in transition with the general public, many of who may not be up on the changing meanings of words. Its too bad that the meaning has changed as such, because it was such a good word to describe the types it was previously used to describe.
Literally not kidding
Many people don’t realize this word was supposedly co-opted a long time ago. My mother for one. Not everyone reads what racists write. And as for the meaning having changed, change is something that happens naturally, it’s not prescriptive. People don’t get to declare it. That link is an opinion piece, and a stretch at that.
There are plenty of examples of race neutral usage of “thug.” That’s because it’s a good, descriptive word that fits many situations. It is still used widely to mean what it has meant for many years. And it is rightly used very widely right now in many public forums when describing police brutality.
You might want to write a letter to PRI and let them know that word does’t mean what they think it means.
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-03-12/students-myanmar-document-governme...
One reason it’s silly to ban a word, is because almost any word can be used in the same context for the same meaning. What if racists started calling all black people vandals?
As for alternatives, none of them have the same ring to them as “thug” and they are mostly more specific. I kind of like hoodlum, or just hood. My dad used to tell me about hoods with their greased back hair that came to his small town from the nearby city in the fifties. But can’t “hoodlum” be just as racist when used in certain contexts?
After thinking about it, I really like “goon.” It implies “for hire,” but can’t we say that most thugs are for hire? the thugs in the above PRI article are for hire. Brutal cops are for hire (especially when the department doesn't train them properly) . So I might just start using "goon" every once in a while, at least until the language police write me a ticket. This has been very productive.
Logical, but no
Racism is not logical, and as long as I continue to see the word used the way white racists use it, then I will just have to ask you to use your creativity and come up with other ways to describe criminals.
For the record...
I have probably never used it on a post here, and it I did it would have been to describe someone with a government paycheck.
And as I said, I like the word "goon"
Along with banning the word thug
I think we should remove that horrible Huckleberry Finn book from all the local public libraries and book stores, due to offensive language and insensitive portrayals.
I mean, why not, right?
Nice trolling
Next ...
Not really
That was some pretty weak trolling.
Perhaps even sillier
Even sillier is claiming that a word has been "banned". Go ahead, say it. You won't go to jail. You're free to use whatever words you want, but that freedom has a price. If you sit in a public space having a loud conversation with someone and dropping f-bombs every other word, people are going to think you're trash. If you use the word "thug" to apply to a black person, some people will think you're racist or clueless or both. This is called "consequences", and it is not the same thing as the word being "banned". Freedom to use a word does not mean control over the opinions others have of you because you used it.
Agreed!
Agreed! And I don't think I would ever use that word to describe a black person.
Here's my problem
Gay meant homosexual when I was born, but thug somehow changed its meaning in the past 5 years (definitely when people started calling Richard Sherman a thug for no good reason 2 years ago.)
"Thug" will always be a race neutral term to me, as it should be. For example, these 2 kids are thugs.
Trust me, if I want to disparage black people, there are terms and phrases I could use, like "urban youth."
Can't wait to see all the
Can't wait to see all the people who don't like language changing work their way back to paleolithic grunting. Personally, I think it sounds like they're already well on their way.
The "change" makes no sense
Why is it considered a racial pejorative when for most people it is not?
Yes, language changes, but I don't accept the word literal to mean figurative, and I won't accept thug to mean black person when there are plenty of thugs that aren't black, like the recently arrested Teamster officials.
If you're going to hang your
If you're going to hang your hat of fighting the tides, have at it.
There is a difference between language changing naturally
And language changing because people say it has changed. It's too soon to say if "thug" has actually changed. Far too many people are still not aware of the "change" and many people still use it as it has been used for generations. Maybe to a subset of racists they enjoy using it as a racially charged word. But that does not describe the population at large. This fad could end just as fast as it started.
I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon or fight it. But it is interesting to talk about.
Welp ....
My decision was based on the hundreds of would-be comments people have tried to post here over the past couple of years about Black Lives Matter and violent crimes in Roxbury, Mattapan and Dorchester. Maybe it's just the local racists who have adopted it, but based on how their comments often echo those seen on articles about similar issues in other parts of the country, I doubt it.
You are dealing with context
Again, when I refer to Teamsters who shake down cooking shows as thugs, there is no racist subtext. As I have to admit, referring to Richard Sherman as a thug when he was being boorish, yeah, that's racism. (For the record, I have now heard enough comments by Sherman that I will not refer to him as boorish in general, but his postgame comments after the NFC Championships in 2014 were definitely boorish.)
The "Teamsters" shouldn't be
The "Teamsters" shouldn't be allowed to use that term anymore. When was the last time they drove teams of horses?
Thanks
An example of changing language. Horse trucks became motorized trucks. But yes, at one point horse drivers probably complained, but the thugs with the union probably beat them up.
I agree that you are right in not approving posts
If you are being inundated, and the context or subtext is clear, then why allow these posts?
Exactly
If there is some kind of democracy in language (literally witness the word literally) I will keep on voting on the word bring race neutral. That said, I think I lost the war on "ethnicky" or however it is spelled.
white kids from Burlington
Who else would be likely to do this? Chinese kids from Quincy? Brazilians from Somerville? Latinos from Eastie? I don't think so.
Probably, but not necessarily exclusively..
Burlington has a very large South Asian population (per the 2010 census, approximately 20% of the town is non-white; not that that's a huge amount, but other than Lexington, it handily beats its three other adjoining towns and one city in this category), with sizable immigrant populations from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is conceivable (but honestly not very likely) that something like this could be a result of old wounds sown in old conflicts in South Asia.
These men, yes men, not boys
These men, yes men, not boys should have the book thrown at them. 18 is old enough to know better and ti be held fully accountable for you actions. Unfortunately they will most likely get off with some probation and limited fines/community service hours.
Anyone who makes excuses for criminals because of their race or economic status is part of the problem. I am not a religious person myself, but I respect people's right to worship their preferred invisible man in the sky the way they see fit. Actual terrorists are problem that can't be ignored, but leave the regular Muslims alone most are decent people.