Ghettonation: A Journey Into the Land of Bling and Home of the Shameless - Hardcover
From the Introduction:
ghet-to n. (Merriam-Webster dictionary) Italian, from Venetian dialect ghèto island where Jews were forced to live; literally, foundry (located on the island), from ghetàr, to cast; from Latin jactare to throw
1: a quarter of a city in which Jews were formerly required to live
2: a quarter of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure
3a: an isolated group <a geriatric ghetto> b: a situation that resembles a ghetto especially in conferring inferior status or limiting opportunity <stuck in daytime TV’s ghetto>
ghet-to adj. (twenty-first-century everyday parlance)
1a: behavior that makes you want to say “Huh?” b: actions that seem to go against basic home training and common sense
2: used to describe something with inferior status or limited opportunity. Usually used with “so.” <That’s so ghetto> ; <He’s so ghetto>
3: a quarter of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure.
4: common misusage: authentic, Black, keepin’ it real
As current and all-consuming as “ghetto” is in these days of gold teeth, weaves (blond and red), Pepsi-filled baby bottles, and babymamas, ghetto has a long history. The original ghetto was in the Jewish quarter of Venice, a Catholic city. Before it became the Jewish quarter, this area contained an iron foundry or ghèto, hence the name. These days, ghetto no longer refers to where you live, but to how you live. It is a mindset, and not limited to a class or a race. Some things are worth repeating: ghetto is not limited to a class or a race. Ghetto is found in the heart of the nation’s inner cities as well as the heart of the nation’s most cherished suburbs; among those too young to understand (we hope) and those old enough to know better; in little white houses, and all the way to the White House; in corporate corridors, Ivy League havens, and, of course, Hollywood. More devastating, ghetto is also packaged in the form of music, TV, books, and movies, and then sold around the world. Bottom line: ghetto is contagious, and no one is immune, no matter how much we like to suck our teeth and shake our heads at what we think is only happening someplace else...
From an award-winning journalist and cultural commentator comes a provocative examination of the impact of “ghetto” mores, attitudes, and lifestyles on urban communities and American culture in general.
Cora Daniels takes on one of the most explosive issues in our country today in this thoughtful critique of America’s embrace of a ghetto persona that demeans women, devalues education, celebrates the worst African American stereotypes, and contributes to the destruction of civil peace. Her investigation exposes the central role of corporate America in exploiting the idea of ghetto-ness as a hip cultural idiom, despite its disturbing ramifications, as a means of making money. She showcases Black rappers raised in privileged families who have taken on the ghetto persona and sold millions of albums, and non-Black celebrities, such as Paris Hilton, who have adopted ghetto attitudes and styles in pursuit of attention and notoriety. She explores, as well, her own relationship to the ghetto and the ways in which she is both part of and outside the Ghettonation.
Infused with humor and entertaining asides—including lists of events and people that the author nominates for the Ghetto Hall of Fame, and a short section written entirely in ghetto slang—Ghettonation is a timely and engrossing report on a controversial social phenomenon. Like Bill Cosby’s infamous, much-discussed comments about the problems within the Black community today, it is sure to trigger widespread interest and heated debate.
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About the Author:
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Cora Daniels is an award-winning journalist. Her work has been published in Fortune, the New York Times, Essence, O: The Oprah Magazine, USA Today, Heart & Soul, FSB: Fortune Small Business, and Savoy. She has also been a staff writer at Fortune and an editor at Working Mother, and she is currently a contributing writer for Essence. Daniels has served as a commentator on CNN, CNBC, BET, NPR, ABC News, and Charlie Rose. As an author Daniels has been called “dynamic,” “perceptive,” and “a powerful voice from the younger generation.” Her first book, Black Power Inc., was dubbed “thought provoking” by the Washington Post and “a must read” by Black Issues Book Review. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and daughter.
1
LIVIN’ LARGE
The thought police were at it again.
Around my way the thought police is the block party. Not the organized neighborhood celebration that makes appearances in Hollywood films attempting to depict an idealized New York. But par–tay over here, par–tay over there. The kind of unruliness that comes from alcohol and a boomin’ system that can make any block a party.
A par–tay is never that hard to find because every ghetto vehicle has a system. If only one thing works in the ride it will be the radio, souped up and customized so that it no longer resembles a car radio but should be in a club, and thus has to appropriately be called “a system.” I was tailgating a Mr. Softee truck one Friday night to remind my thirtysomething bones what it was like to go out again and shower myself in the music from its system. Welcome to my ghetto.
As the ice cream truck snaked its way through Brooklyn, Lil’ Jon’s trademark “Okaaaaaay” screamed from its speakers. You could almost see the entire block bounce. If that wasn’t enough to put the sighting in the ghetto hall of fame, the truck had been turned into a booty billboard on wheels. Literally. Instead of pictures of Good Humor choices, the enterprising driver had sold his truck sides and turned the vehicle into one of those mobile advertisements. This Mr. Softee was a moving billboard for Apple Bottoms—Nelly’s clothing line to celebrate the, uh, curves of a woman’s body.
Nelly held a Miss Apple Bottoms contest on VH1 when he launched the clothing line a few years ago. The show attracted young women from across the country eager to appear on TV butt–first so that Nelly and his entourage could rate their booties. Most of the women didn’t even get their faces on TV as the camera stayed at hip level. It gets worse. Here’s how VH1 actually described the show in its official press release:
Multiplatinum artist Nelly is not alone in his love of a woman’s curves. But few urban entrepreneurs have taken their affections to the next level quite the way St. Louis representer Cornell Haynes has. Following tightly on the heels of the runaway success of his men’s line, Vokal, Nelly wanted to capitalize on the momentum and still kick it up another notch yet with his women’s line, Applebottoms. So the idea of a Vegas blowout launch after a six–city tour culling six finalists with serious junk in their respective trunks from across the land of Oh Bootyful, for Spacious Thighs was born.
(Inside)Out: Nelly: The Search for Miss Applebottoms follows the minds and bulging eyes behind the coast–to–coast scouring for a regular girl with an irregular waist–to–ass ratio. Thousands of women came out to show him what they was working with but only one would win. VH1 followed Nelly and his Team Lunatics cohorts as they scoped every jiggle, bounce and strut that swings their way to find the new “booty” behind their new clothing line. From the Big Apple to the City of Angels and everywhere in between, from the show to the after–party to the hotel lobby, from bushels of apples to applesauce, it’s all there. VH1 gives you an all–access pass for ass. Enjoy.
Enough said.
Except if that is how they are addressing journalists, can you imagine the level of pathology and disrespect that is slung when the network interacts with the young knuckleheads they are actually trying to get to watch these shows? Nothing exists in a vacuum, either. VH1 is owned by Viacom, one of the largest media companies in the nation. The corporate giant is large enough to own MTV, BET (they made Bob Johnson a billionaire), Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and Paramount Pictures. When you digest all that they are working with, then there really cannot ever be enough said about that all–access pass for ass, can there?
So the Mr. Softee, with the system, was covered in larger–than–life pictures of arched backs and booty as it greeted kids lined up for their soft serve. (It was still an ice cream truck after all.) Par–tay.
The system is so important because music is the most effective weapon of the thought police. There is a point at which if you play music loud enough, you will not be able to do anything—including thinking—but bop your head along. The guys with the system know that threshold instinctually. It is as if allowing the block to get stirred up by its own thoughts is a danger that can’t be allowed.
One of the methods of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad got little attention amid the revelations of the pyramids of naked prisoners, hooded detainees, simulated sex acts, and The Leash; it was “exposure to loud music.” Really. Comb through military reports and you’ll find that it wasn’t the first time this tactic had been used. Loud music was also a favorite form of torture used at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. At Abu Ghraib, Iraqi prisoner Khraisan al–Abally testified that while he was bound and blindfolded, he was also kicked, forced to stare at a strobe light, and blasted with “very loud rubbish music.” “I thought I was going to lose my mind,” said al–Abally, a burly thirty–nine–year–old man whose wrists were still scarred from plastic cuffs more than a month after his release. (1)
So I was at home trying not to lose my mind when the par–tay outside began. Even my bones were vibrating to Fat Joe’s “Lean Back” (the album version with every explicit lyric intact, of course). My husband bobbed past me on his way to the kitchen. Our minds tried to resist even as our heads still bounced, in unison. As I struggled to write, to read the paper, to make my “to–do lists” even, I started thinking about the meaning of ghetto.
The easiest thing to believe is that ghetto is a class. That makes it easy for us to distance ourselves, talk about those people and them. Because no matter how low on the economic totem pole we actually are, ghetto is those folks underneath us.
But ghetto is not a class but a mind–set. And that is the problem. Not every have–not is ghetto and not all the haves are ghetto–free. Ghetto is a mind–set that we all have to fight to get out of.
Because ghetto is a state of mind, it is hard to define but easy to recognize. A good friend of mine is in a mixed marriage. Their differences have nothing to do with her southern African American roots and his Caribbean ancestry. Nor do they stem from the fact that he was raised in Europe and she in the States. Instead she complains to me all the time that she is in a mixed marriage because in her mind her husband is ghetto and she’s, well, not. Without explanation I just accept that she is probably right.
At its heart, though, ghetto is thinking short–term instead of long–term. Today is the most important because tomorrow doesn’t matter.
During my travels I didn’t want to discover that this was true. I failed. “Sometime it feels like I got to get mine right now or it ain’t gonna be get,” said Eric, (*) sitting on the stoop outside his Brooklyn home a few blocks from mine. It is the middle of the day and the sixteen–year–old should be in school. His face looks tired and much older than it is. I broke eye contact to try to hide my surprise when he told me his age. He is constantly rhyming under his breath, grooving to a beat that only he hears. There is no telling how long Eric will continue to sit on his stoop: I suspect it ain’t gonna be get, then.
Not everyone I talked to on the corners expressed such hopelessness. But enough did. The shrinks and self–esteem repairmen will tell you that sometimes if you hear something enough it doesn’t really matter anymore if it isn’t true. It becomes truth. And Madison Avenue has certainly put its cash behind the tomorrow–doesn’t–matter message.
In 2005 Reebok came up with a flashy ad campaign dubbed “I am what I am.” With apparently no memory of Popeye, the hard–to–miss billboards instead displayed stunning portraits of celebrities and athletes spouting irreverent one–line comments that tried to express more who these people are than what they are selling. My favorite of the series showcased Mark Zupan, a tattooed quadriplegic athlete who was the center of the documentary Murderball about the rough sport of wheelchair rugby. Zupan is shown in a custom–made wheelchair that looked dark and dangerous and bad–ass, his billboard quote reading: “I play wheelchair rugby. What’s the worst that can happen—I break my neck? Again?” Sure, the I–can–do–anything spirit was uplifting. But I liked the dark humor. I saw the billboard only once—when I went to the Reebok Web site. The “I am what I am” billboard that I saw most often around my way featured 50 Cent with his stale, trying to be badass frown. His quote, displayed against a police fingerprint sheet, read: “Where I’m from there is no Plan B. So take advantage of today because tomorrow is not promised.” Of course, how could we forget?
The truth about thinking short–term is that it has consequences. The first time I met Sanjay, a teenager from Bed–Stuy, I thought his name was Mohamed. That is what the high school sophomore, whose parents had emigrated from India, is called around my ghetto. Immediately, Sanjay didn’t seem to fit in, and it wasn’t that he was a minority in a predominantly Black neighborhood. At first I thought that maybe he was just the class nerd—bearing demarcations that my grown–up eyes couldn’t see anymore. True, Sanjay is completely out–of–date...
LIVIN’ LARGE
The thought police were at it again.
Around my way the thought police is the block party. Not the organized neighborhood celebration that makes appearances in Hollywood films attempting to depict an idealized New York. But par–tay over here, par–tay over there. The kind of unruliness that comes from alcohol and a boomin’ system that can make any block a party.
A par–tay is never that hard to find because every ghetto vehicle has a system. If only one thing works in the ride it will be the radio, souped up and customized so that it no longer resembles a car radio but should be in a club, and thus has to appropriately be called “a system.” I was tailgating a Mr. Softee truck one Friday night to remind my thirtysomething bones what it was like to go out again and shower myself in the music from its system. Welcome to my ghetto.
As the ice cream truck snaked its way through Brooklyn, Lil’ Jon’s trademark “Okaaaaaay” screamed from its speakers. You could almost see the entire block bounce. If that wasn’t enough to put the sighting in the ghetto hall of fame, the truck had been turned into a booty billboard on wheels. Literally. Instead of pictures of Good Humor choices, the enterprising driver had sold his truck sides and turned the vehicle into one of those mobile advertisements. This Mr. Softee was a moving billboard for Apple Bottoms—Nelly’s clothing line to celebrate the, uh, curves of a woman’s body.
Nelly held a Miss Apple Bottoms contest on VH1 when he launched the clothing line a few years ago. The show attracted young women from across the country eager to appear on TV butt–first so that Nelly and his entourage could rate their booties. Most of the women didn’t even get their faces on TV as the camera stayed at hip level. It gets worse. Here’s how VH1 actually described the show in its official press release:
Multiplatinum artist Nelly is not alone in his love of a woman’s curves. But few urban entrepreneurs have taken their affections to the next level quite the way St. Louis representer Cornell Haynes has. Following tightly on the heels of the runaway success of his men’s line, Vokal, Nelly wanted to capitalize on the momentum and still kick it up another notch yet with his women’s line, Applebottoms. So the idea of a Vegas blowout launch after a six–city tour culling six finalists with serious junk in their respective trunks from across the land of Oh Bootyful, for Spacious Thighs was born.
(Inside)Out: Nelly: The Search for Miss Applebottoms follows the minds and bulging eyes behind the coast–to–coast scouring for a regular girl with an irregular waist–to–ass ratio. Thousands of women came out to show him what they was working with but only one would win. VH1 followed Nelly and his Team Lunatics cohorts as they scoped every jiggle, bounce and strut that swings their way to find the new “booty” behind their new clothing line. From the Big Apple to the City of Angels and everywhere in between, from the show to the after–party to the hotel lobby, from bushels of apples to applesauce, it’s all there. VH1 gives you an all–access pass for ass. Enjoy.
Enough said.
Except if that is how they are addressing journalists, can you imagine the level of pathology and disrespect that is slung when the network interacts with the young knuckleheads they are actually trying to get to watch these shows? Nothing exists in a vacuum, either. VH1 is owned by Viacom, one of the largest media companies in the nation. The corporate giant is large enough to own MTV, BET (they made Bob Johnson a billionaire), Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and Paramount Pictures. When you digest all that they are working with, then there really cannot ever be enough said about that all–access pass for ass, can there?
So the Mr. Softee, with the system, was covered in larger–than–life pictures of arched backs and booty as it greeted kids lined up for their soft serve. (It was still an ice cream truck after all.) Par–tay.
The system is so important because music is the most effective weapon of the thought police. There is a point at which if you play music loud enough, you will not be able to do anything—including thinking—but bop your head along. The guys with the system know that threshold instinctually. It is as if allowing the block to get stirred up by its own thoughts is a danger that can’t be allowed.
One of the methods of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad got little attention amid the revelations of the pyramids of naked prisoners, hooded detainees, simulated sex acts, and The Leash; it was “exposure to loud music.” Really. Comb through military reports and you’ll find that it wasn’t the first time this tactic had been used. Loud music was also a favorite form of torture used at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. At Abu Ghraib, Iraqi prisoner Khraisan al–Abally testified that while he was bound and blindfolded, he was also kicked, forced to stare at a strobe light, and blasted with “very loud rubbish music.” “I thought I was going to lose my mind,” said al–Abally, a burly thirty–nine–year–old man whose wrists were still scarred from plastic cuffs more than a month after his release. (1)
So I was at home trying not to lose my mind when the par–tay outside began. Even my bones were vibrating to Fat Joe’s “Lean Back” (the album version with every explicit lyric intact, of course). My husband bobbed past me on his way to the kitchen. Our minds tried to resist even as our heads still bounced, in unison. As I struggled to write, to read the paper, to make my “to–do lists” even, I started thinking about the meaning of ghetto.
The easiest thing to believe is that ghetto is a class. That makes it easy for us to distance ourselves, talk about those people and them. Because no matter how low on the economic totem pole we actually are, ghetto is those folks underneath us.
But ghetto is not a class but a mind–set. And that is the problem. Not every have–not is ghetto and not all the haves are ghetto–free. Ghetto is a mind–set that we all have to fight to get out of.
Because ghetto is a state of mind, it is hard to define but easy to recognize. A good friend of mine is in a mixed marriage. Their differences have nothing to do with her southern African American roots and his Caribbean ancestry. Nor do they stem from the fact that he was raised in Europe and she in the States. Instead she complains to me all the time that she is in a mixed marriage because in her mind her husband is ghetto and she’s, well, not. Without explanation I just accept that she is probably right.
At its heart, though, ghetto is thinking short–term instead of long–term. Today is the most important because tomorrow doesn’t matter.
During my travels I didn’t want to discover that this was true. I failed. “Sometime it feels like I got to get mine right now or it ain’t gonna be get,” said Eric, (*) sitting on the stoop outside his Brooklyn home a few blocks from mine. It is the middle of the day and the sixteen–year–old should be in school. His face looks tired and much older than it is. I broke eye contact to try to hide my surprise when he told me his age. He is constantly rhyming under his breath, grooving to a beat that only he hears. There is no telling how long Eric will continue to sit on his stoop: I suspect it ain’t gonna be get, then.
Not everyone I talked to on the corners expressed such hopelessness. But enough did. The shrinks and self–esteem repairmen will tell you that sometimes if you hear something enough it doesn’t really matter anymore if it isn’t true. It becomes truth. And Madison Avenue has certainly put its cash behind the tomorrow–doesn’t–matter message.
In 2005 Reebok came up with a flashy ad campaign dubbed “I am what I am.” With apparently no memory of Popeye, the hard–to–miss billboards instead displayed stunning portraits of celebrities and athletes spouting irreverent one–line comments that tried to express more who these people are than what they are selling. My favorite of the series showcased Mark Zupan, a tattooed quadriplegic athlete who was the center of the documentary Murderball about the rough sport of wheelchair rugby. Zupan is shown in a custom–made wheelchair that looked dark and dangerous and bad–ass, his billboard quote reading: “I play wheelchair rugby. What’s the worst that can happen—I break my neck? Again?” Sure, the I–can–do–anything spirit was uplifting. But I liked the dark humor. I saw the billboard only once—when I went to the Reebok Web site. The “I am what I am” billboard that I saw most often around my way featured 50 Cent with his stale, trying to be badass frown. His quote, displayed against a police fingerprint sheet, read: “Where I’m from there is no Plan B. So take advantage of today because tomorrow is not promised.” Of course, how could we forget?
The truth about thinking short–term is that it has consequences. The first time I met Sanjay, a teenager from Bed–Stuy, I thought his name was Mohamed. That is what the high school sophomore, whose parents had emigrated from India, is called around my ghetto. Immediately, Sanjay didn’t seem to fit in, and it wasn’t that he was a minority in a predominantly Black neighborhood. At first I thought that maybe he was just the class nerd—bearing demarcations that my grown–up eyes couldn’t see anymore. True, Sanjay is completely out–of–date...
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- PublisherDoubleday
- Publication date2007
- ISBN 10 0385516436
- ISBN 13 9780385516433
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages224
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