It was one of those "what did you just say to me?" moments. "Let's not get ghetto," she repeated. Then, adding fuel to the fire, she said, "Be normal."
On this week's episode of The Real World: Hollywood, an argument ensued between roommates Kimberly and Brianna about having guests over to the house. Kimberly, who had brought the maximum amount of friends allowed, said, "Let's not get ghetto," to Brianna after she asked if two of Kimberly's friends could leave so others could enter the house.
I would like to tell you that what she said has little to do with her being white and Brianna being black, but in reality, it has everything to do with it.
Historically, "ghetto" was not what people perceive it as today. "Ghetto" was a term mostly used and associated with Jewish tenements in Europe until the mid-1940s, when the term entered American culture and acquired a negative undertone -- used in large when referring to blacks. Today, thanks to popular culture (with the bulk of hip-hop to blame), the average person would equate "ghetto" or "acting ghetto" with black people or blackness.
So, when Kimberly told Brianna to not "get ghetto," she was really telling her not to act black. It's like calling a black person the N-word without saying it. "Ghetto" has become the new code word to stigmatize blacks.
Referring to unacceptable behaviors as "ghetto" ties that behavior to the actual ghetto -- popularly assumed to be impoverished inner-city neighborhoods -- which only serves to mischaracterize the majority of people that reside there.
Ghettos definitely do not have a monopoly on intolerable behavior, nor do suburbs have a monopoly on sophistication, good manners and civility. As a result, the everyday usage of the word further perpetuates what I like to call "the ghetto mystique" -- the idea that the only people residing in these certain neighborhoods are downtrodden, quarrelsome and of color.
Surprise, surprise, but ghettos do not always contain deteriorating projects, nor are all of their residents poverty-stricken. For many blacks, the ghetto is home -- often a place representing authentic blackness (though the question of what is authentic blackness is another conversation altogether).
Despite it not being as prevalent today, ghettos once played host to thriving black businesses and superior black schools. The socio-cultural patterns of the time truly reflected the black experience on a myriad of levels and in manifold ways. Today, black culture is largely viewed through a single and narrow lens, but this was not true in the past.
Poets and authors like Claude McKay, Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen often depicted the beauty and complexity of black life in the ghetto.
Another question comes into play when you look at Kimberly's use of the phrase, "Be normal." What is normal? This then becomes a question of relativity. What is one person's normal is not necessarily another's.
Conversely, there are definitely terms like "hillbilly", "cracker", and "poor white trash" that whites use intra-racially. But in contrast, these still only apply to individuals, not to a mass populace. Nothing about the aforementioned terms makes a blanket generalization about white people, while the identities of the ghetto and blacks has become integrally one and the same.
Still, I would ask you to check out the show for yourself and draw your own conclusions. I am not here to offer a solution, nor am I saying all white people act like this. It was an isolated incident that MTV aired, surely to increase ratings.
Even so, the episode illustrated that ignorance only breeds ignorance and that racial constructs still serve to hurt our society. Maybe the world is a little more real than you thought.
