BETTER LEFT UNSAID: I'M NOT GHETTO

Recently at work, I heard a preppy white girl say, "Well I've only been called "ghetto" here and that's because at "such and such middle school" I talked to everybody including like the "ghetto kids" but I never wore like.......air force ones and whatever."

*sigh*

Just for the record, I'm not some.......sensitive, overworked, finger in yo face, loud 'O NO SHE DIDN'T', let me get up in that ass "sista" BUT I CAN BE. Nevertheless, I can behave in well composed manners and express discontent in a calm well versed fashion...but I pick and choose my battles. I chose to remain silent.

I attend a university with many white individuals who grew up in bubbles. Who...are often politically incorrect when discussing race; when defining hood and ghettos; when conversing with black folk...you can't necessarily blame them but it's hard to educate them as well. You try to tell them and you always get the BIG BUT and I'm not talking about Kim Kardashians rear end, I'm talking "yeah I hear you (not really so) BUT" and it just never ends.

Well... *Hilary* Ghetto......is not, well should not, be considered a word that conjures images of vile disgusting uneducated persons, that are incapable of day to day functioning........We "ghetto" persons are not all scum. (Ain't it funny how fast white people become exempt when discussing who is bad? Or rather, when we think of black [and Latinos] people automatically list things that are negative and the positive things we have done are overlooked? Yet when discussing white persons we think positive things while over looking the negative -ya know stuff like screwing over EVERYONE.)

It sucks really that one doesn't have to defend themselves against being called Preppy, but pull out Ghetto and it's a full blown out frontal war armoured with negativity and 300 plus years of shear ignorance.

There is much to be displeased with when discussing the ghetto. But see...that's the noun. (the part I most often defend there are many beautiful persons that live in the ghetto) And from one to be from the ghetto -one must be ghetto -which isn't necessarily true -and because that person is ghetto than that person can't be associated with anything positive. That person is then the LOUD, FINGERWAVING, NECK ROLLING, IN YO FACE, UNEDUCATED, POOR, DISRUPTIVE etc individual. Welp. Allow me to burst your bubble.

I am from the ghetto. but I bet my ACT score, is higher than yours. Give ghetto children the same resources and I bet a whole lot more of black children/latino children could contend with their white counterparts. This isn't to make this a competition -but to make one aware. One being preppy or one being ghetto ARE LIFESTYLES. It doesn't however have to define the way that one functions within society.

Blackness is valid. I should not want to shun that part of me in order to feel accepted, or to feel like I'm not dirty.

So someone called you ghetto. And?