[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Why is it that only black people can use the word “nigga”?QUOTE]
And conversely, why do I feel dirty when I (a Euro-mutt/Cherokee mix) hear the word ‘ghetto’ used by another person-of-lighter-color? I’m in the South now and hear it used far more often and w/o the repercussions it would have brought in the Detroit area. There would have been no instance where I’d have used it in conversation w/o feeling like I was doing something offensive. But here, it’s tossed around w/ impunity. I find myself ducking.
Not to get serious or anything, but I also feel dirty when I hear people use that word. Sometimes people will refer to a place as “ghetto” simply because most of the residents are black, irrespective of their socioeconomic status. I don’t like this. I grew up in a predominately black, mixed-income neighborhood, but it wasn’t a “ghetto”. It wasn’t a slum either. It was just a normal neighborhood, but I know people who would raise their eyebrows if I told them I was from that area. WTF.
You’re bringing back memories of the Civil Rights Movement when I was a little b-, I mean, child. In school the nuns had us singing,
What color is God’s skin
What color is God’s skin
I said it’s black brown it’s yellow
It is red and it’s white
Every man’s the same in the good Lord’s sight
Does anyone else remember that song, or was I trippin? One of my homeroom nuns had sung with the original Up With People group, so she had all us kids doing their songs too. Ah, the artificial paradises of being a squeaky-clean but hip young Catholic in that crazy era… :smack: At least the nuns were down with Civil Rights, they were cool that way.
Ghetto was used more commonly in the 1960’s and has fallen out of favor. For me it has the connotation of a trap such as the Warsaw Ghetto. I live in Nashville and don’t hear it used much here at all. I do hear Judge Mathis, who lives in Detroit, use it in a disparaging sense, as in ghetto fabulous, when he is making a point.
It’s never bothered me, pehaps because I’m from Detroit. I lived very close to Highland Park which in those days (70’s) was a mostly white neighborhood. My neighborhood was mostly black and blue collar. The places we didnt’ go were the ghetto.
Ha! That’s what I started calling my oldest son’s wardrobe this year. He’s 14 and did his own school shopping this year. Heavy on Rap T-shirts and jean sets. Of course I had to cramp his style (or in his words “messin with his rep”) by making him take back pants that fell around his ankles.
What is (are) chitlins. Some sort of rice type dish?
What is blow hair?
Here in Canada, every person I’ve ever met has eaten Peanut butter and JAM sandwiches - it was only when I met someone from the US that I heard of Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches.
I seem to recall a “Do white people use washcloths” thread a while back. It gave me pause, because I’m a white person, and do NOT use a wash cloth. I have stacks of them and never use them (they come when you buy a set of towels).
UrbanChic told me that her intestines are on the INSIDE* of her body. Is this true for all black people? (I guess that last one was actually a question AND comment).
Chitlins are poor southern black (and sometimes white) food. They are big intestines usually sold in big buckets.
Here are some chitlin recipes along with recipes for other, less desirable, parts of the pig. Where I grew up on rural Lousiana, black people really did eat them. The grocery store I worked at in high school once ran a 10 cent special on ten pound buckets of chitlins. I thought I was going to have to quit because I couldn’t stand carrying 5 or 6 cold buckets of those things to people’s car all day long.
Pig inteestines. They’re a bitch to clean so tend to be served once or twice a year, if you ever had tripe* (cow stomach), it tastes very similar.
What is blow hair?
If I took a hot comb** to my (well I’m bald but lets pretend) hair I’d have an afro, but it tends to be unstable and easily blown around by wind, think of the rubberband man from the Office Depot commercials. If you ever saw Soul train back in teh 70’s one of the sponsers was Afro Sheen which sold Blow Out Kits to make those kinds of afros.
I use washclothes.
If you had Menudo you’ve eaten tripe.
** A metal and wooden comb that you heat up on the stove that will burn the shit out of you if you’re not careful.
Well when you describe them that way,…yeah. Actually they come frozen and compacted in 10 pound tubs. Cleaning involves, no you probably don’t want to know that, but when they’re cooking, well, not that either. But with some hot sauce corn bread and greens, delicious! I’ll put it this way, people eat a lot of gross shit as delicacies, think of them that way.
In chittlin lovers’ defense, they are also sold in pre-cleaned frozen 5 pound portions, too – at least in supermarket supercenters and your more upscale grocers with southern foods (says the man who worked in Kroger meat and seafood department.)
