1 post tagged “annoying slang”

Which popular slang expression drives you nuts?

Some people may not consider it a slang expression, but I do, especially in this context.  The term I loathe to hear as often as I do is: "ghetto."  Particularly out of the mouths of white people.  I'm sorry (or to be frank, I'm really not sorry at all), but there is no way this term escapes a white person's lips without bearing the weight of racist overtones.

I bounced this idea off of someone else recently to see if I'm just being nitpicky/persnickety/overly sensitive/[insert dismissive phrase here].  Granted, I could've cast a wider net and talked to more people about it before posting, but since this Vox QOTD came up yesterday, I figured I might as well get this off my chest and onto the chest of my inferiors.  Simpsons reference.  And no, I'm not being touchy about this, so if you're not ready for some tough love, just click on that Back icon in the upper left-hand corner of your screen.  It's about to get all racial up in this piece. 

White people.  Please, pull up a chair.  ::pats cushion::  I know I count some of you as friends, buddies, acquaintances, cronies, etc.  So I say this with as much patience as I can possibly muster.  Your use of the term "ghetto" is 99.5% of the time completely f#!ked up and offensive. 

Why, you ask.  Allow me to break it down for you.

Let's set aside the fact that most of you wouldn't know a real ghetto if it fell out of the sky and started to wiggle on your lap.  The most salient issue concerning your use of the slang term involves your egregious application to anything remotely associated with African-American (and to a lesser extent, Latino-American) culture.  Cadillac Escalades are ghetto.  Tyler Perry movies are ghetto.  Kool-aid is ghetto.  Bad credit is ghetto.  And so on, ad nauseam.

And none of these are in any way an expression of anything truly "ghetto."  This leaves me to conclude that the majority of you who enjoy throwing the term into your everyday speech so haphazardly have no clue as to what it truly refers to.  Yes, the term was borne from the strictly segregated Jewish enclaves of Eastern Europe that were little better than a concentration camp, but we all know that in the modern U.S., this connotation no longer dominates our cultural psyche.  No, instead, it's the image of the predominantly African-American neighborhoods populated with more liquor stores and 7-11s than banks, parks, and supermarkets.  It's identified as sections of any major city overrun by gang bangers, prostitutes, and corner drug dealers; the places were you rush to lock your car doors as you drive through because you're certain that if you don't, you'll be yanked from your Ford Taurus, thrown to the ground, bludgeoned within an inch of your life, and left for dead.

And guess what?  That is a ghetto.  But that is NOT North Hollywood, Van Nuys, Reseda, West Adams, Panorama City, Northridge, Inglewood, etc.  When I first moved to L.A., I slept on my uncle's couch for a month while searching for a room to rent.  I quickly found this new condo-owner in Reseda on Craigslist, and she invited me to stop by and take a look.  When I mentioned it to my uncle, he told me that a lot of people say that Reseda's the ghetto.  Well, after driving around the area for a bit, let's just say that if Reseda's a ghetto, L.A. residents need to keep their asses in California because they have severely lost perspective with the rest of America. 

Ghetto =/= working class neighborhood.  Ghettos are severely economically depressed areas often inhabited by members of a specific ethnic group.  And believe it or not, those ethnic groups can be and are Latino, White, Asian-American, Arab-American, and Native American, as often as they're Black.  Never seen an Asian-American ghetto?  I have a buddy in Houston who would be happy to point them out to you anytime you want to stop by for a visit.  Check the U.S. map for any major cities in Western Kansas known for their slaughterhouses.  They're certain to have quite a few.  Hey, they may not be American, but feel free to venture up to Vancouver.  There are plenty of CBCs* living in ghetto neighborhoods up north.

Personally, I view ghettos as areas hit extremely hard by the economy in a country where the government doesn't give a shit about anyone living there who isn't white and middle-class to help rectify the situation.  These areas deserve our help, not our disdain.  But hey, that's just my conscience talking.  Please feel free to continue the elitist wankery.  I wouldn't want you to feel any less enlightened than you've already convinced yourself that you are.

***

Okay, so let's set aside that reality for a moment.  I know how uncomfortable it makes some of you.  The most important fact I want to make clear with this slang term is this: Ghetto =/= anything that isn't middle-class Anglo-American approved.  It is when this usage creeps into polite conversation it conjures racist overtones.  I had a particularly interesting weekend where I found myself in a number of conversations with people I either didn't know or only knew as an acquaintance.  And in 3 of these conversations, I heard a white person use the term "ghetto" in a derogatory and/or slanderous manner.  I'll only address 2 of those instances here because I'm still deconstructing the third.

The first semi-pleasant conversation came to a brief halt while I was speaking to a young, white, Jewish male at my favorite coffee stand in NoHo.  We'll call him Ben.  Ben and I were talking about, among other things, the lack of clubs in the NoHo area.  I said that I'm kinda glad there aren't that many because the last thing I want to see is NoHo turned into a wannabe-Silverlake/Los Feliz.  Goodness knows they're trying to do just that.  ::shudder::  But then I asked young Ben:

Me: What ever happened to the Bank Heist around the corner?  That club that was open for a minute.
Ben: I heard it attracted the wrong kind of crowd.
Me (bracing myself): What do you mean? 
Ben: I heard that a lot of ghetto people started showing up.
Me (mentally counting to 10): That's odd.  This doesn't seem the kind of area that would attract a crowd like that.
Ben: I know, but maybe it's because there's so few good clubs in the Valley.

Did I stop and correct Ben about the number of clubs in the Valley, particularly how there are considerably more than he thinks?  No.  Did I stop and tell him that there's plenty of places that truly ghetto folks would love to hang and it isn't anywhere near the NoHo Arts District?  No.  Did I explain to Ben that my interpretation of the slang term was clearly different from his because no one who would ever describe themselves as ghetto would be caught dead at the Bank Heist?  No.

Why?  One: I'm a coward. And I try to avoid conflicts, especially face-to-face ones.  Two: I'm too nice.  Believe it or not, my contrary nature is often offset by my desire to not hurt people's feelings, even when they need to put their egos aside and be schooled on their possibly unintentional asshat behavior.  Three: Educating privileged white folks about their racism is a full time job foist upon people of color (POC) that tires us to the point of exhaustion on a daily basis.  We have to pick and choose our battles every time we engage anyone who is not a member of our own ethnic community.  And the higher POC move up the social ladder, the more often we are saddled with the imposition of #3.

Listen.  I sincerely doubt the folks partying at the Bank Heist were ghetto at all.  He or his friends or [insert white hipster/yuppie/jackass] probably walked into the club, saw that the white folks chilling there did not significantly outnumber the POC -- it seems that anything less than 8 to 1 causes alarm -- and labeled the venue as GHETTO.  I'd wager good money that this person or persons didn't observe any ghetto behavior, slang, style, etc.  And here's the tricky part: "ghetto" is ALL about behavior.  It's the only way you can label anyone as such.  If you would label both Lil Kim and Ashanti as ghetto, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.  If you think both Jay-Z and Kanye West grew up in similarly ghetto nieghborhoods, you don't know what the hell it is.  If your white male neighbor blasts music at 2 am on a late Saturday night and you label him "an asshole," but when your black male neighbor on the other side blasts music at 2 am on a late Saturday night and you label him as "ghetto," you not only don't know what you're talking about, you're a racist dipshit who needs to check him/herself.

No, I won't sit here and delineate everything that deserves to be labeled "ghetto" and "not ghetto" because I haven't the time and Marlon and Shawn Wayans already did that.  But let me say this, when POC, particularly African-Americans label someone as ghetto, it is by and large a reference to that person's behavior.  I like to call it, "Now, you know your Mama raised you better than that" behavior.  It's roughly the same POV that most white folks have of, dare I say it, rednecks, shitkickers, good ole boys, and poor white trash.  (And no, those groups are not the same thing.)  It's a term used to refer to people who are thought to have no class.  Please note, I didn't say lower class or low class, I said no class.  Toby Keith is as redneck as the day is long, but Toby Keith is richer than anyone reading this blog right now.  Jay-Z was born and raised in New York's Marcy Projects, but Jay-Z can buy and sell everything you own fifty times over.  Your income does not determine whether or not you're ghetto, your behavior does.

And I'm not sure if white people who use the term with abandon to describe anything related to working class people and African-Americans know this.  I once heard Amy Sedaris refer to using a teaspoon to curl your eyelashes as "kinda ghetto."  What?  Seriously?  Okay, I adore Amy, but someone needed to hip check her on that one.  Again, working class is not the same as abject poverty, and having the common sense not to blow money on an unnecessary beauty device when you have a reasonable, convenient alternative is not ghetto.  I'll take frugal or cheap, but not ghetto.

***

The second instance where the slang term "ghetto" made me bristle as it spewed from the mouth of a white person occurred on Sunday.  Briefly, during a friendly conversation, I was asked which dance classes I'm currently taking during the week.  I replied one Hip Hop class on Saturday and 2 Jazz classes on Wednesday.  This somehow prompted the question of whether I ever have to do a move or step often referred to as poppin' (not to be confused with the breakdance move) in my Hip Hop class.  I said yes, if the number calls for it.  Then, in a moment of confusion that I'm still trying to decipher, I hear in a derogatory tone that that move is "ghetto."

Pause.  Scratch head.

Um, wasn't Hip Hop borne from the streets of New York ghettos in the late 1970s?  Wasn't Hip Hop used as a way for people raised in the slums and ghettos of New York and New Jersey to express themselves about their environment?  Isn't it continually used all over the world as a means to communicate the same frustrated and passionate experiences shared by those who live or lived in similar environments?  Thus my confusion.  Why is a dance form created by those who live in the ghetto, set to music created by those who were raised in the ghetto (some of them, not all obviously), somehow derided for being "ghetto."  That's like saying, "I can't stand the Polka.  It's just so Slavic."

Then, in the next breath, the same person expressed an appreciation for Krumping.  ::long sigh::  Why do white people who seem cool always have to harsh your squee with such ass-backward-ness? 

Did I tell him that the poppin' move is one of the first steps you learn in Clown Hip Hop and Krumping?  No.  Did I ask him how he could have contempt for a "ghetto" dance move, but appreciate Krumping, another dance form created in the ghettos of South Central Los Angeles?  No.  So what did I do?  I mentioned that I was interested in Krumping as well, but I felt that I better start off on something a little more generic.  I also pointed out that Miss Prissy from the Rize documentary teaches classes at my dance studio in NoHo on Thursday and Sundays.  Then the subject was changed.

See my previous mentions of cowardice, kindness, and battle strategy.

Yes, poppin' is a ghetto move.  And when executed well, it can light up a Hip Hop routine.  It can also be worked seamlessly into a Jazz, African, Tap, Afro-Fusion, Burlesque, and Latin Ballroom performance.  It's not inherently bad or vulgar.  I understand the incessant appearance in booty shakin' rap videos may lead you to believe otherwise, but again, I think that interpretation carries the same racist overtones reminiscent of a time when Rock 'n Roll was called "jungle music" and Jazz music was banned from radio programs because it led to the "corruption of youth."

If you've never seen poppin' done right, check out this dude on YouTube.  I don't know many women who can move that well, even at DR's dance studio.

ETA: Damn.  Sugar Britches removed his video from YouTube.  For anyone who didn't get to see it, he was really something else.  Oh well.  I'll leave the video code embedded just in case he decides to make a comeback.  In its place, I'll use this example from one of the gazillion contest entries for the "Pop, Lock and Drop It" online video competition that Huey ran a year ago.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, consider yourself blessed. 

Anyway, here's one of the better entries.  This sister really put her thing down.  I'm going to play the envy card and say it's the sneakers on the carpet floor that helped her out.  In an alternate universe, I'm just as good.  Anyway, for a proper example of poppin' (or booty poppin', as it is sometimes called in its unabbreviated form), pay close attention to the vid between the 13-15 second mark.

So take that move and watch it go from poppin to krumping to poppin around the 44 second mark in this vid:

Again, I'm just a little confused how you can find the first vid dance unseemly, but the second vid dance makes you want to take lessons.

In the end, I know I can't stop anybody from saying anything they want to say.  But by the same token, no one should be allowed to silence my protest as I'm subjected to ignorance and prejudice.  I think what it boils down to is this: Are these people bringing enough positives to offset the negatives?  In other words, do I really want to have a relationship with someone who maligns my culture, while in the same breath claims to be my friend.  My 31 years of experience tells me the answer will be "no."  I have to put up with family and work colleagues who let their bigotry show when you least expect it, but I shouldn't have to put up with friends who do the same.  In that area of life, you have more of a choice.

I guess we'll see what comes of it.

* Canadian-Born Chinese