Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is apologizing for some comments that got her in hot water earlier this week.
On Monday, shortly after riots began erupting across the city, Rawlings-Blake condemned the mostly schooled-aged participants at a press conference, referring to them as “thugs.”
“It is very clear that there’s a difference between what we saw last week between the peaceful protests and the thugs, who only want to incite violence and destroy our city,” she said. “I’m a life-long resident of Baltimore. Too many generations have spent their lives building up this city to have it destroyed by thugs, who, in a very senseless way, are trying to tear down what so many have fought for.”
After facing multiple critics, who said that her use of the word “thug” was simply a replacement for the n-word, the mayor took to Twitter this afternoon to issue an apology.
“I wanted to clarify my comments on ‘thugs,'” she tweeted. “When you speak out of frustration and anger, one can say things in a way that you don’t mean.”