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

[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.