DSDeviance: Misuse of the Word "Ghetto"

Classic

I'm back from vacation and ready to rant. Prepare for some DSDeviance

In case you all didn't know, It's a running idea amongst many black people that once white people start using a word/dressing a certain way, it's played out. Though this is a place where I give my opinion on things, I'm not going to tell you what I think about that. I am, however, going to say that if this is true, it's not limited to white people.

In my opinion, when a word begins to be used by people that can't use it properly and have no intention to, the word is played out.

I'll be focusing on the word "Ghetto", a word misused by people of every color. Almost every time I hear this word used, I'm enraged beyond belief. If someone were to say, "James had got stole on cuz he was finna give Billy a kiss cuz he though Billy was gay, too." I know a bunch of people that would say, "Why are you talking so ghetto?"

In case you didn't know, Ebonics are not inherently ghetto. I know plenty of educated people that let a "we was..." or "i'm finna..." slip more than once in a while and I'm perfectly fine with that. And I also know a couple of legitimately "ghetto" people that have a lot of kids just so they'll get more welfare checks at the end of the month. "Ghetto" is not using a particular dialect of English, Ghetto is not knowing that you are not speaking proper English and telling people that do, "Nigga, you talk funny."

And then we get to fashion. Ecko, Avirex, Rocawear, Coogi, etc., are not Ghetto. If you live in the hood, you wouldn't be able to afford these things unless you sold drugs. I'm just dumbfounded by the amount of people that tell me I dress ghetto just because I have on an XXL T-shirt instead of a medium or large and sag my pants a bit.

This might be kind of hard to grasp for some of you, so I'll show you pictures.


Not Ghetto


Borderline (Only If Bought From a Beauty Supply Store)


Ghetto (If you can't pay for food and you're rocking the matching outfit for these)

Any thoughts?