Black is the New Ghetto

My darker skin people are the ones that I adore, even though black seems to be the new ghetto it's our responsibility to show that we are so more.

From birth to about to the ending of high school I've never experienced myself as being looked at as ghetto. As a black male growing up with the Gary, In and North Omaha influenced I always reserved the term "ghetto" for those people who were addicted to dope, and hard alcohol, or those loose women that my grandmother would warn me about. It really wasn't until the ending of high school, early college when I realized what some outsiders defined it as.

I've never been the type to shy away from congregating with those from different backgrounds or ethnicities than mine. I always felt being around those of opposing cultures and viewpoints of your own allow you to grow and develop more mature intellectual viewpoints. Of course that comes with its downsides. Like in any relationship once people get a little comfortable with you they start to let out more of their views to you, or expose their true selves. You start to get those remarks such as, "you're not like most black people," or "you're so well spoken and don't come off as ghetto." It makes you wonder.

What are black people suppose to act, talk, and look like? Who made these rules, and governed them to society? Why is anything that is perceived as different, or less than the caucasoid norm deemed ghetto? How are these epistemological ideologies changed, is it a matter of economical class, or is it a race thing? People have been mentally conditioned to believe anything that black American culture makes popular or is known for is bad. Has this ideal of black being bad manifested itself deeper into our own people today?

Ask yourself have you slaved many overtimes hours at an average job just to afford what entertainers advertise through music and television just to make people believe that you're in a class that doesn't reflect your tax bracket? Have you purchased latest hi-techs phones just so you can stunt on those with pre-paid phones, droids, or blackberry's? Do you try to push foreign cars, with local lower tier car lots income? Has your life become a charade to avoid being categorize as those "other niggas?" Their is nothing wrong with achieving economical elevation, but are you showing that we are more than being ghetto, or are you just joining the discriminating group of some who look down on those ghetto blacks?