Taking the G out of “Ghetto”

Just finished inputting grades. I can now breathe a sigh of relief. Life is normal again. At least I didn’t stress out as much as I did the first time. It feels like I’ve just sharpened a new organizational skill; I hope I can perfect it by the time the semester is over. 

Some of my students stayed after school with me to turn in late work. As they conversed casually and worked in my classroom, I watched two students in particular. Every time I see them, it looks as though I’m watching two people who are trying too hard to be cool. But for me, I take it almost as a personal insult. These two students try to act like teenagers from... How do I make you readers understand? 

Where I come from, when a person says “ghetto,” it means a variety of things, from poor to cheap to gangster culture. I went to a high school where two dead bodies were dumped on the lawn, where gangsters once ruled the streets in the 1960s, and my old high school is still trying to recover from its gangster affiliation. The police station was right down the street, and when two girls got into a fight, a chopper was called to hover over campus. Drugs were common, a track star was shot, a member from the band was raped, and a student was caught having sex in the library. I’m not saying that my high school was extremely out of control, but when a person says “ghetto,” my high school was the crème de la crème. Although I was a good student, I grew up in an environment that exposed me to violence and stereotypes. I’m not an expert on what “ghetto” culture is like, but I have a pretty good idea. 

Flash forward: I am now a teacher. I teach in a school whose culture is different from mine. Although there are gangsters in the school, they are not as big a problem as the ones from my alma mater. But when a person says “ghetto,” the high school where I teach is not even close. This school is more of a “skater” population, where students tote their skateboards; biking is also a popular sport. This high school is vastly different from my mine. When I say “ghetto,” they think it means, “Ew! Gross!” 

Where am I headed with all this? As I watched the two students after school, trying to be cool, I found it insulting that they were trying to act like they were from the ghetto, with their so-called gangster accent, calling me “dawg”—I’m a teacher (you don’t call me “dawg,” you little snots!). I don’t find it entertaining or even cool that students try to aspire to something that society finds as a menace. Not to mention, because I went to a ghetto high school, I’m sympathetic to the students who are constantly stereotyped and disadvantaged because of labels. From what I’ve seen, anyone who has been in the ghetto, it’s all about survival and trying to break from that label. The two students who were in my class today don’t know what that’s like. I found their behaviors to be mocking to another group of students. When anyone says “ghetto” around me, especially if they attend the school where I teach now, I have an urge to ask them, “Do you know what that’s even like?” I doubt they even do.