Are the Baltimore rioters thugs?

Should the Baltimore rioters be called thugs?

It’s a harder question than it might seem on its face because of the racial dynamics that have been applied to the word.

In January, when Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman was repeatedly called a thug after his animated comments following the NFC Championship Games, he said the word contains a racially-coded message.

“It’s the accepted way of calling somebody the N-word nowadays,’’ Sherman said.

Deadspin’s Greg Howard backed Sherman, saying that the term is rarely applied to white athletes.

What’s happening in Baltimore isn’t sports, though. It’s real life violence.

President Barack Obama and Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake both called the rioters thugs this week, although Rawlings-Blake walked backher comments after criticisms.

“I wanted to say something that was on my heart … we don’t have thugs in Baltimore. Sometimes my little anger interpreter gets the best of me,’’ she said Tuesday, pointing to her head. “We have a lot of kids that are acting out, a lot of people in our community that are acting out.’’

But CNN anchor Erin Burnett suggested Tuesday in an interview with Baltimore city councilman Carl Stokes that thug is exactly the right word.

“They know it’s wrong to steal and burn down a CVS and an old person’s home,’’ she said. “I mean, come on.’’

But Stokes said the word was dehumanizing.

“No, of course it’s not the right word to call our children thugs,’’ Stokes said. “These are children who have been set aside, marginalized, who have not been engaged by us. We don’t have to call them thugs.’’

He also said the word thug is similar to the N-word. Burnett said she would call her child a thug if he behaved like the rioters.

But would that make her an exception among white parents?

Cord Jefferson used a satirical piece at Gawker after the 2013 riots in Huntington Beach, Calif., to show how rarely phrases like “thuggish white youth’’ are used when whites go wild.

Polticians, including Obama, may use the word thug to seem tough on crime. But two pieces in The Atlantic this week argue that focusing on the lawless and reckless nature of the rioters, while calling for nonviolence, ignores the history of police abuse in Baltimore.

Conor Friedersdorf cited a string of police brutality cases over the past few years, and Ta-Nehisi Coates turned the debate away from the rioters and onto the police and government.

Neither writer referred to the officers as thugs.