One of my signs of the apocalypse.

[raybear]

Last night after discussions of the possiblity of being a house boy and on my way to pick up Damon so we could hang out before he leaves town for two weeks, I passed a greasy diner quasi-Sonic's/Checkers type restaurant that had a sign out front with the following announcement:

TRY OUR NEW GHETTO FRIES

I nearly had an aneurysm and crashed the car. The use of that word will be the death of me, I swear. What the fck does that sign even mean? And why, oh why, do people use that word in such flippant privileged stupid white ways?

P.S. I was not even driving through a "ghetto".

Comments

[katemosey.livejournal.com]

At the very least, your "ghetto" diatribes get people talking.
I like that. A few weeks ago, the Boy and I had a few friends over. One is a black man living in L.A. and teaching middle school. Anyway, We were talking about something and somehow the issue of race came up (i think it had to do with a David Cross skit, but I'm not sure).
One of our friends piped up and said, "Why does anyone care about this? Like we're going to change anything talking about this in the suburbs."

The statement peeved me on many levels, not the least of which was that she prefers not to EVER talk about anything convtroversial because she's got too many issues to list ... needless to say, her misguided statement irritated me, because when people do talk about such things, people think and when people think, things and attitudes are more likely to change.

So, although I have mixed feelings about the word, "ghetto" thank you for putting it out there none the less. I always get a lot out of people's opinions on the subject.
And for the love the love of holy relics and anal sex, what the HELL are "ghetto fries?"
You must solve this mystery for those of us not living in the greater Chicago area raybear!

[raybear.livejournal.com]

I have some mixed opinions myself regarding the word, especially since I love language and development and recreation of meanings. I am fascinated by slang and think it has important value in communication as well as reflecting social culture.

Which is probably WHY I'm obsessed with (white) people using the word, because I think it reveals hidden concepts in our brain. People throw the word around liberally, thinking it's okay because the face-value of the word doesn't have anything to do with race. But our cultural associations DO, therefore the term is loaded. It's unintentionally revealing of people's experiences and perceptions and assumptions, I think.