And is there a fine line between “keepin it real” and rudness?
Here is the “official” definition. Keepin it Real means that a black person conforms to stereotypical black behavior like wearing hooded sweat shirts, doing badly in school, and committing crime.
Hasn’t the meaning kind of extended to “refusal to put on airs, declining to be fake for a perceived advantage”? A subtle difference in connotation, to be sure, and perhaps one more used when white speakers employ the idiom.
From the third definition at the Urban dictionary link above:
:rolleyes:
Not anymore, bud.
Surely white America wears hooded sweatshirts…?
Just the wannabes, apparently.
Chris Rock did a bit about about “brothers keepin’ it real” or, as he referred to it, “keepin’ it real stupid”.
Well, thank God we have Bart Simpson to keep us up to date.
In practice I’ve found it to mean, “I have the right to say anything, no matter how tactless, as long as it is true as perceived by me.” I’ve seen this behavior in equal number of white and black and asian kids; I’d say it’s more likely to be seen in people of an age group than a racial/cultural group. YMMV.
I wear a hooded sweatshirt but to be fair I bought it in Detroit.
“Keepin’ it real” around here (Oakland) means just what bordelond says, and just what you’d think: being real in the sense of or being true to yourself.
Chris Rock’s bit *jokes *on the kids for thinking that “real” entails stupid, unambitious, and so on. It’s like when the old “Dragnet” cops would scold hippies for being “cool”, as in cold to each other (sorry, no cite for “Dragnet”).
urbandictionary.com is fun, but you have to keep in mind that the definitions are mainly put forth as editorial or in humor, often by folks who have no idea what they’re talking about. Some of those definitions run from paranoid to bizarre to straight-up wrong. It’s the kind of dictionary that’s only useful if you know what the word means already.
What happened to you, Portia? You used to be cool.
Please check your email, Bryan.
I stand by my relentless Simpsons riffing.