| Author | Message | ||
     Yvettep Veteran Poster Username: Yvettep Post Number: 1853 Registered: 01-2005 Rating: N/A |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/29/AR2007032902455. html?hpid=features2 Thug Life A journalist argues that the "ghetto mindset" isn't doing anybody any good. Reviewed by William Jelani Cobb Sunday, April 1, 2007; BW04 GHETTONATION A Journey Into the Land of the Bling And the Home of the Shameless By Cora Daniels Doubleday. 205 pp. $23.95 It has been almost three years since Bill Cosby's infamous "Pound Cake Speech" -- his unfiltered chastisement of poor people who, in his estimation, "are not holding their end in this deal" -- and the howls have yet to fade. Academics (myself included), pundits and barbershop prognosticators are still arguing about the validity of Cosby's tirade, over whether racism or bad habits are responsible for the conditions of poor blacks in this country. Into this century's old tangle of intraracial anxiety falls Ghettonation, Cora Daniels's exploration of all that is gauche, urban and embarrassingly public. For Daniels, "ghetto" is a condition -- an addiction, even -- that has metastasized throughout American popular culture. It is an impoverished mindset defined by conspicuous consumption and irresponsibility. Given the popularity of neo-minstrel fare such as VH1's "Flavor of Love" or the cringe-worthy spectacle of the rap group Three 6 Mafia singing "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" at last year's Oscars, it's easy to see why this phenomenon troubles her. In an era when we scarcely talk sympathetically about the conditions of poor black people, the entertainment value of their impoverished "lifestyle" has increased exponentially. Much of what we learn about "ghetto" in this book comes from man-on-the-street interviews that Daniels conducts in her Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in New York. We learn of neighborhood men who see the author's wedding band as an invitation to flirt (they prefer married women because adulterous relationships require less responsibility on their part). We meet Aisha, an 18-year-old working hard toward a nebulously defined goal of "success," Chris, a 16-year-old who frequently cuts class to play video games and has had 16 girlfriends in his young life, and Daniel Howard, a teenager who examined the violence in his Brooklyn community in an award-winning documentary. Daniels's profiles of the people she encounters and their thorny attempts to figure out the world they live in are the strongest portions of the book. When Aisha points out the pejorative sting of the G-word Daniels so liberally applies, you can almost feel the uncomfortable silence in the room. Yet even as Daniels makes worthwhile observations and displays a wry wit about a troubling subject, Ghettonation falls into one of the most common and troubling pitfalls of these discussions: lumping damaging behaviors (criminality, drug abuse) together with simply distasteful ones. That is to say, bad etiquette is not shorthand for bad character, but the singular term "ghetto" irrevocably conflates the two. (Bill Cosby, for instance, linked people who steal with those who give their children colorful names such as "Shaniqua.") Daniels wisely recognizes the responsibility we all share when two 9-year-old boys perform a mock stick-up on a crowded subway train (one that culminates in an all-too-real arrest when they exit the train). And you cannot help but lament the story of two 13-year-olds who set a fire in their housing project that takes the life of a security guard. But does this really belong to the same class of phenomena as the person who tastelessly broadcasts the intimate details of his personal life by talking too loudly on his cellphone or drives around blaring music from the studio-worthy sound system in his car? Despite Daniels's protests to the contrary, a strong thread of class condescension runs through the book. This is partly a result of her loose definition of the term "ghetto." Early on, in an attempt to steer clear of accusations of simple class bias, she reports that since "ghetto is a mind-set," it can be found anywhere and everywhere. As proof of this, she points to an ostensibly affluent white suburb where the palatial homes remain empty because the over-extended owners cannot afford to furnish them. This, we learn, is the quintessence of ghetto. But herein lies the contradiction. Why stigmatize the behavior of middle-class people by hurling a term generally associated with the bad choices made by poor black people? We would never look at a poor single parent who purchased a high-end car she could not hope to pay for, shake our heads and say, "That is so suburban." Thus Daniels's catholic use of the term serves to heighten its power as a racial slur, not diminish it. Still, it is difficult to disagree with Daniels's core thesis: that a blinkered mindset lies at the heart of many of the problems we see and associate with "ghetto." And in raising this point, she offers one insight that transcends the morass of racism-versus-personal-responsibility arguments that we are currently mired in. Whether the ghetto mentality is a product of limited opportunities or personal failings, changing one's mind is clearly the prerequisite to changing one's circumstances. ? William Jelani Cobb is an assistant professor of history at Spelman College. His books include "To The Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic." | ||
| Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 8153 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
This article was a good critique. The habit of making a distinction between ghetto behavior and mainstream manner is "as black as sweet potato pie"! To me, what makes this subject interesting is whether or not those who come across as ghetto are aware that they are doing so. Bougie blacks are perfectly capable of getting their ghetto groove on, but they can easily switch back to their middleclass mien. The bona fide ghettoite doesn't seem to have the facility to be any other way. | ||
| Steve_s Regular Poster Username: Steve_s Post Number: 244 Registered: 04-2004 Rating: N/A |
Although I haven't read this book, I think the review is almost by definition flawed because of its FUBU-ness. In other words, according to Stanley Crouch's more straightforward review in the Daily News, the book apparently describes Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Gwyneth Paltrow as "ghetto." However, the reviewer's point seems to be that simply by applying the term "ghetto" (originally an Italian term I believe used to describe walled Jewish communities in 16th century Venice) to describe white trailer-trash as well as black lower-class behavior, is using the term as what he calls a "racial slur," for which the author needs to be chastized, even though her main point seems to be about women speaking out about misogyny in hip-hop. So by water-boarding "race," the reviewer seems to be relegating it to subtext, only you're not picking up on it. Gosh, I didn't realize that the term ghetto was now cultural-nationalist protected property. http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/143134.html | ||
| Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 8161 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
I don't necessary agree that the points you make render this review "flawed", Steve. It's like the reviewer and Crouch were looking at a Rorschach ink blot test and gave 2 different slants on a subject that is controversial; just like the practice of black people calling each other "nigga\n i g g e r" inspires different reactions from different people. Or is it unusual for a word to be co-opted and given a make-over by a culture. Just as "gay" is no longer about being "merry", - and, say, "hooligan" not about an Irish surname, unless preceded by a modifier, "ghetto" now refers to the monolithic make-up of the inner city and the lifestyle associated with its black underclass residents. | ||
| Yukio AALBC .com Platinum Poster Username: Yukio Post Number: 2211 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
Steve_s, I haven't read the book either, but it seems like you are taking Croach's review as the standard, especially when you state what her book seems about. How would you know unless you were choosing which review to trust, which is, of course, you choice. But that is, indeed, different from saying that Cobb's review is "flawed." I dont think it is about a "FUBU-ness," a "cultural-nationalist protected property." If that were the case, he wouldn't have said, "it is difficult to disagree with Daniels's core thesis: that a blinkered mindset lies at the heart of many of the problems we see and associate with "ghetto." What he is saying, to my mind at least, is that although she is claiming that "'ghetto is a mind-set," that " can be found anywhere and everywhere," her convenient way of desensitizing and extract the term out of its present racial squamire only highlights teh racist implications of the term. In other words, it is not just semantics...if it was, the notion of ghetto as a mindset--not a racial slur--could then be exchanged for suburban, and then we would call people suburban "who purchased a high-end car she could not hope to pay for." But the fact is, these terms are burdened by race. This is why his choice of suburban is so appropriate! For decades now, there has been a small but ever enlarging black middle class in the suburbs, but suburbs in popular culture means the white community. So much so, that the crime committed by whites in the suburbans is also racialized. Consequently, there is less news coverage, probably even fewer arrests, shorter jail sentences... | ||
| Steve_s Regular Poster Username: Steve_s Post Number: 245 Registered: 04-2004 Rating: |
yukio, sorry to take so long to get back to you but I had looked at her Web site and blog and assumed that Crouch's review was more in the ballpark than this one. Maybe I'm wrong. Here's what I was reacting to. I've been reading - although not continuously - black musical and cultural critique since the early '60s, much of which was ideological. This is related to your earlier post, Whither the Good Book Review. BIBR often gives favorable or very favorable reviews to white-authored books about "black subjects," like Negro President by Gary Wills, An Imperfect God by Henry Wiencek, or Property by Valerie Martin. That never happened when I was a teenager, so it's appealing to a white reader, a kind of accomodation that doesn't go unnoticed. Of those three books, I've only read the Wiencek and although it's a good book, it's not without flaws. In the 1960s all of us LeRoi Jones readers were well-taught on how do dissect white interpretations of black culture and substandard black evaluations of black culture. Now in my opinion, while BIBR often gives favorable reviews to white-authored books on black subjects, it often gives the same old ideological slap-down reviews, if you will, to black-authored books that attempt to break new ground or which go against the precepts of the sixties. Cases in point: Thulani Davis's review of Lawrence Otis Graham's The Senator and the Socialite and Herb Boyd's review of Stanley Crouch's The Artificial White Man. Thulani Davis, in her review, asks why the author hadn't taken advantage of recent historical research or some such thing. That claim is refuted by the mere fact that Eric Foner of Columbia no less, gave the book a very favorable review, despite his noting some minor editing flaws. Then reviewer Davis reacts to the subject of the biography, a black senator from Mississippi by asking something like "With friends like these, who needs enemies?" Well, the senator was a flawed human being who sometimes acted on behalf of those in need, and sometimes out of self-preservation. Midway through his term, Reconstruction ended and it was too dangerous for him to even return to his home state. But that was his life and the biography describes it in detail. The Stanley Crouch book is mostly a volume of literary criticism, the outstanding piece entitled The Segregated Fiction Blues. But reviewer Boyd seems to judge the book's worthiness on some kind of race solidarity/betrayal continuum. He revels in Crouch's defense of Michael Jackson, saying something like "If Crouch continues in this vein, the race committee might consider reinstating his card" (the race card, in other words). And then he makes a comment about the title so gratuitious it's almost as if he hadn't read the book. The title essay is about a white professor of English at a university in Seattle who followed the Seattle Supersonics for a season and wrote a book entitled Black Planet. Judging by the blurbs it was well-received by black reviewers. However, the point of Crouch's essay is about how this professor of English literature becomes so enamored of then-Supersonics player Gary Payton's "trash talking," which the professor of English describes as something like "He's got game, he's got 'language.'" So in other words, Crouch is not criticizing a white English professor's interest in the novels of Ralph Ellison or Susan Straight or the music of Herbie Hancock or Keith Jarrett, by rather the kind of primitivist fascination with "trash talking" as a somehow "indigenous" form of expression. This is something I read all the time on the UK literature boards. One reader, an academic in fact, rejects the novels of Zadie Smith and Kiran Desai, while embracing the rap styling of Tupac, Nas, Young Jeezy, Jay-Z (insert favorite Christ-name here). So I don't like what I consider to be ideological review, although I confess that I might have been overreacting to the Cobb review. It's just my subjective opinion but I've recently found that book reviews by black reviewers in mainstream newspapers often seem to be the least ideological, while at the same time often more critical, but in a good way. But that raises the obvious question of why so few black reviewers for black-authored books in venues like the NY Times, and never black reviewers for white-authored books there. |
