#47: Proud ignorance of the world at large

Ghetto people really don’t get around very much.* You can tell right off when a ghetto person opens his or her mouth…and things are confidently confessed that to someone more cultured should be completely beyond comprehension. Sounding just ignernt…yep, spelled just like that, not ignorant, but ignernt.

That ghetto of the mind principle is real. Some people really have a NASCAR oval track their brain makes left turns in. They genuinely don’t see sh*t else. Whatever bullsh*t their mama or their little friends introduced to them is all they know, and they’re content with it, and actually have the nerve to dis things they’re unfamiliar with!

Take for instance some 18 year old ghetto girl. Meets a dude that uses fairly polite terminology, keeps a pretty clean diet, knows some other things he’s willing to teach her. Ghetto people tend to be threatened by worlds that are foreign to them. So she’s likely to slur him in a culturally insensitive manner and send him packing…as if how he’s living is beneath her.

This is how one hears things like Asians being all called Chinese, Latinos being all labeled Mexicans who eat beans and tacos, all Black people with “dreads” being called Jamaicans and asked if they have any weed to smoke, all Muslims being labeled terrorist A-rabs that threaten their good Christian sensibilities, and more…

And thinking that sh*t is OK to boot! Snitching is a huge ghetto crisis, but bigotry and prejudice (not brought forth by police, that is), that’s cool!

These are people whose horizons and minds you can’t expand to save your life…even if you’re buying! They’re life’s picky eaters. They have a life-tose intolerance, they just ain’t digesting much (unless it’s pork). This, but they’re also the biggest lemmings…meaning if the whole hood is on it, they’re on it. Won’t catch on to a new sound until it’s on the radio twenty times a day. Won’t watch that movie if the bootleg man ain’t got it in stock. Ways of customizing a car or wearing clothes that have existed for years ain’t cool…at least they weren’t until that baller rapper they aspire to be (with) mentions it in his song. As far as interest in international travel, the ghetto person is probably the one who speaks of Africa like it’s a country, or maybe that dude who wants to go to Brazil only because he thinks a porno shoot will break out when he leaves the airport. Foreign foods get Americanized partially due to ghetto people who need to be spoon fed stuff. This author sounds harsh, but go have a conversation with this very person and you’ll feel my pain like Clinton did while he was feeling on the booty of Monica Lewinsky.

*Having been around the block in bed, if diseases and popping out babies like rabbits is any indication, is the obvious exception.

#44: T.G.I. Friday’s–and other “bar and grills”

Yo, f*ck T.G.I. Friday’s.

No, really…f*ck T.G.I. Friday’s.

I mean, as a restaurant, Friday’s is cool, you can slide off in there and get a proper meal that’ll stick to your ribs, feel good about life with the game or some random ESPN show on in the background.

The goddamn bars they have in them, however, are complete ghetto douchebag conventions.

And since ghetto people have a bad habit of f*cking off all the dedicated bars in town, leaving the security guards of said defunct establishments needing a post to work, you end up finding both varieties of meatheads converging on the local Friday’s. Somehow Friday’s shines as this supposed place to be.

This is especially the case in ghetto suburbs. Because these are places where the dedicated bars never existed to begin with, there’s a true obnoxiousness level one finds himself steeped in the minute they walk in. It’s hard for this author to wrap his head around. How in holy hell did Friday’s just become like the sh*t to ghetto people?

Really, it’s the douchiest place in the world. It’s lit like the developers of each location went nuts buying up the local f*ckin’ Lamps Plus. Other features of the decor make you think a barber pole just threw up on its walls and tables after having too many Friday’s drinks. Crowd consists of wannabe fat cat cigar smokers, the motorcycle club delegation (often Ruff Ryders), mutant looking females in the building to test drive the hair they just got done…for Friday’s of all places. How the hell does one try to get chose up in Friday’s? Whether it’s macking or bringing a date, you can’t hear a goddamn thing in there! And it gets stupid packed too. Ghetto people pack lots of patience for Friday’s because most people with half a brain and any dignity dig in their heels, spin 180 degrees and jump it off elsewhere.

It can easily be like this at the hood Chili’s, hood Applebee’s, hood Bennigan’s, what have you…but ALL T.G.I. Friday’s spots get this way after 4pm. This author is surprised they don’t just splurge for a DJ that likes to play Baha Men and Wang Chung, charge a dub admission, and introduce bottle service so ghetto people can really feel they’re doing it big.

Anyone reading this, please explain why the hell T.G.I. Friday’s is so f*ckin’ popular?

#40: 24/7 Alcoholism

You know how you see somebody and you just KNOW they been drekkin’? You know know how you SMELL somebody and you just know they been drekkin’?

Times ain’t that hard and it ain’t always a party. It is ghetto to be drinking, drunk, or have liquor breath if you’re not painting the town red, watching the game, doing champagne brunch, in the studio or casino, chilling with some skins, or simply meditating by self-medicating at the end a long hard day. There’s a time and a place for getting it in, and until then, gotta be about that self-control.

Something ain’t right about the cat having the alcohol dragon behind you in the checkout at the supermarket…at 9 in the frickin’ morning. Something ain’t right if you’re drinking before driving the kids to school, then having them drive you to the store to reload the clip on the way home so you don’t catch a DUI rap. Dude tryna mack up a freak at the bus stop when his eyes are dim and watery should be shot down by her. And ladies, y’all are douchebags if you’re drinking between the invite over a man’s rest and your arrival, then having the nerve to demand respect when you don’t respect yourself or him enough to come correct with the presentation.

This author sees you who was invited to hang out, got in the car immmediately fiending for a drink way too early in the day, and when the decision is made to play along, cop some drink and make lemons into the lemonade of laughs, you pass on sharing brew, wine, even Hennessy, in favor of satisfying your suspect Cisco fetish. Cisco, known to the hood faithful as crack juice! Your flipping the script and suddenly needing a drop-off immediately afterward to go babysit your friend’s child was addition by subtraction.

Matter of fact, calling these drinking situations ghetto is an insult to the term “ghetto.” Nah, it’s just flat out trifling.

And I don’t buy that one is expanding his mind when he’s doing dummy moves to begin with (the drink of choice being Thunderbird spiked with a Kool-Aid packet doesn’t help his case). That person is just bad at life. May as well smoke crill.

Author’s note: This entry coming up as #40 was purely coincidental….or not.

#31: Picking up women (mackin’)

Cell phones, business cards, little scraps of paper and pens are always kept ready–maybe even the old school little black book–for that phone number that will make a day. It’s also why the clubs let ladies in for free.

The hood is thirsty for freaks. Thirsty to turn out someone’s sister, daughter, girlfriend, wife…grandmother? Yes, ghetto people have a weak spot for women. And why not? This author agrees that the hood is crawling with cuties, in every Sentra, on every bus bench, at every swap meet, stopping at the liq store for drinks on Friday night, wherever; plenty of sexy young slimmies (and sometimes fatties!) worth taking a flier on.

This fact has caused the hood dudes (and the lesbians) to lose their minds when it comes to getting after it. A lot of these ghetto superhoes will flirt with anything that walks at any time. Hey, closed mouths don’t get fed, but it is a good idea to curb that hunger depending on situations. (Really…tryna bag the court reporter when you’re a defendant? Might be time to cut back on the Too Short just a scosche.)

Funny thing is this has another effect. Due to so many macks gassing up everything female, A) the women generally clean up nicely and stay ready for when Mr./Ms. Right walks up (though some hood girls are golddiggers, so said mack has to be careful) and B) those women will give the one she chooses props for capturing her imagination. This is more likely to happen if that dude or dudette doesn’t do the following:

[woman walks by]
“Sup, shawty! Hey, ma, you got what I need!”
[woman somehow indicates she's not interested and keeps going]
“Well, f*ck you then, B*TCH! You ugly anyway!”

Women in the hood go through experiences like these alllll the time, with all kinds of folks who lack self-control and home training and apparently can’t handle rejection very well. But why would said hunter in the example pursue her in the first place if she was ugly?

A lot of this has to do with the art of picking up women being a numbers game. (Gotta be able to back it up when you ask “But do you got mo’ hoes den me?”) Just to keep the sword sharp, a lot of heads just holler, holler, holler whenever they’re in position, even if they’re not reeeeeeally feeling the particular girl. That mud duck could be a super-ten on some lonely night…might even be worth some money! One never knows when a diamond is uncovered in the rough. Because that’s basically what picking up women is, mining. And the hood is one hungry prospector.

Hungry to f*ck that one ready girl….and likely her friends too, if they’re up for it.

#27: Thuggish-ruggish lesbians

Has it gotten to the point for you that when you run thru the ghetto and see some shorty dressed extremely baggy, you have to check their chest for taped-down tiddys?

OK, for a minute there, I wondered if I was the only one.

Call ‘em what you will, butches, studs, all that bomb sh*t, and call SGPL and its current author what you will, mean, ignant, whatever, but we’re gonna keep it funky here for a moment and go in: the hood and lesbians go hand in hand. Trust, it’s no coincidence that Snoop Pearson was a fan favorite on The Wire.

These are the girls who were reaching for the Tonka trucks instead of the Barbies at Toys R Us. Quite tomboyish up to middle school, they usually go full-bore and come out around tenth grade. Once that happens, it’s a party, y’all…

They dress baggier and saggier than dudes, they get crustier smoker lips than dudes, they style their hair in cornrows and “dreads” more often than dudes (as well as straight women), and they’re getting in all the hood activities ghetto dudes are known for. Even competing with straight males for the available pool of single ghetto women (see future post). Anything guys do big, the thuggish-ruggish lesbians are doin’ it bigger, count on it.

Many are harmless girls who just wanna have fun, but make no mistake either, some are quite hardened, nasty characters, though they may look like little boys who throw on their older brother’s clothes that they’re not big enough for yet. Real talk, you couldn’t possibly imagine these girls having periods (do they?).

Anyways, unlike any other place, for some reason, whether it’s always been this way or the rise to power was recent, the hood seems to be a lesbian factory. Your local ghetto yields a much higher proportion of open lesbians than anywhere else, and especially butches and studs. The WNBA needs to get its fans (and players) from somewhere, eh? It’s no surprise a lot of female rappers emerge from this farm system either.

Seriously, the ghetto is damn near Girls Town as the Yang to the Boys Town Yin. It’s an amusement park for lesbians where big rainbow lollipops are available for free.

Even funner (and incidentally, funnier) is this fact: as homophobic as ghetto males are, lesbians are often ironically enough one or more of the gang right along with ‘em, with the street cred the guys provide. New meaning to the term ride-or-die chick. One in no danger of becoming anyone’s baby mama.

Hey, somebody was bound to say it.

#15: Prom

Prom is an event that high school students all over America spend enormous amounts of time, money, and energy for a few hours of fun. This dance is usually held at the end of the year to celebrate the transition into adulthood where young teenagers dance the night away. Traditionally young men wear a nice black-tie tux while the ladies grace the dance floor with lovely ball gowns. Prom is usually a night to remember especially the after parties where people lose their virginity or have their first taste of alcohol.

However, ghetto people have a unique spin on Prom especially when it comes to the fashion. No words can truly express the flamboyant prom fashions young ghetto people sport during prom. Prom being held at ghetto schools will have lots of color, intricate hairstyles, designer patterns, and the females will expose lots of skin. Prom is a time where ghetto people show out and try to outdo each other.

Without further adieu, I present to you Ghetto Prom 2008…

#12: Being Part Cherokee by Guest Author Leosha

When a ghetto person starts dating, there is one pivotal question that will make or break their chances of finding a suitor: What you mixed with? The answer to this life altering inquiry is important to both ghetto males and females. If Marquiana emerges from the pool looking like a black flame engulfed her head, or Le’Quan cannot get curls without a box of texturizer and some Soul Glo, the relationship will go downhill. This plagues ghetto people because they do not want their kids to look like extras from Roots.  (Or Celie from The Color Purple.)

That terrifying scenario is the principal reason why ghetto people love to announce to the world that they are part Cherokee.* Even if he or she has no knowledge of their genealogy, or is simply lying, claiming that their great great grandfather was Cherokee will make them appear more datable and exotic. Ghetto people love to feel exotic. Because many people have not even seen an actual Native American before, it is the most easy race to use. The perks are infinite. Suitors will flock and potential baby’s mothers/fathers can rest assured that their future children will probably be cute with “good hair.” Even the least attractive ghetto person can come at least 2 points closer to being a 10, if they say they are part Cherokee.

Another perk that comes along with mixedness? Once the entire hood has been informed, a part Cherokee ghetto person can partake in exclusive activities such as wearing a jet black, bone straight, waist length weave, or adopting a screen name like PokAho69 or mochaHontas10. These actions are only acceptable when a ghetto person says they are part Cherokee.

Although many people really do have a tenth of Cherokee in their blood**, ghetto people will go to great lengths to assert their mixedness. These include, but are not limited to: claiming the texture of their permed/texturized hair is natural, using profuse amounts of ProStyle to achieve the “wet & wavy” look, breaking out childhood photographs and exclaiming “See how long my hair was?”, and the most popular, “My hair fell out because I swam a lot/cut it/got braids.”

Do not assume that only black ghetto people participate in this phenomenon. Numerous other ethnic groups jump onto the bandwagon to appear more exotic as well. In every ghetto, at least 75% of all non-black ghetto people will list five responses i.e. Puerto Rican, Creole, Danish, Namibian, and Martian, to prove their mixedness to potential suitors. If you would like to befriend a ghetto person, start by asking what they are mixed with. They will shine with glee because they love to tell people that they are mixed with any and everything; however, claiming to be part Cherokee is by far the most popular.***

 
*Can be interchanged with any other Native American group
**The Cherokee tribe owned African slaves, just as Europeans did.
***Puerto Rican comes in at a close second

#8: Shacking up and Getting Knocked up

Ghetto people love shacking up and getting knocked up. Why bother to get married when it’s much easier to hook up with Da’Quaylin or Jamarcus and produce Lil’ Ray-Ray? Marriage is a concept that is not very familiar to younger generations of ghetto people. Older folks respect the value of marriage and recognize that having a solid union contributes to uplifting communities, stabilizing of families, and better economic conditions in most cases.

 

Younger generations of ghetto folks have chosen to shack up and produce children out of wedlock out of ignorance and immaturity. This is called the baby momma/daddy syndrome.  Unfortunately there are a large percentage of single parent households within the Black community where oftentimes the woman is left to raise the child(ren) while the father is nowhere to be found. If the father is involved, in most cases he is not married to the mother. Sadly, there are cases where there are women with multiple children with different baby daddies. Shacking up is no longer a social taboo because many people are opting out of marriage. Everyday we see couples in the media and individuals of higher socio-economic levels shacking up with their mates. However they do not suffer the same economic consequences as ghetto people do.

 

Regardless of what the rest of society is doing, ghetto people fail to realize that there are social benefits to being married. Marriage is a union recognized by the law and affords those couples many rights and privileges not available to the rest of the population. In the event that one of the spouses passes away, the other person is entitled to a various benefits such as Social Security, Pension, etc. If there is a death and no will, the property and other assets automatically go to the spouse. In the event that a marriage is dissolved, the law takes several factors into consideration to determine if one of the spouses must continue to support the other, i.e. alimony, child support, medical expenses, and the division of property.

 

Let’s compare the situation with 50 cent baby momma and Heather Mills , the ex wife of the Beatle Paul McCartney. 50 cent baby momma was getting 25k per month in child support which is more than enough to sustain a luxurious lifestyle for herself and provide for the child. 50 cent was never married to this woman so he has no legal obligation except for the care of his child. When 50 cent received approximately 400 million dollars when Vitamin Water was brought out by Coca Cola, his baby momma showed her ugly gold digger ways and wanted an upwards of 50k per month in child support. 50 cent took his baby momma to court and the child support payments were reduced to 6k per month. Talk about irony. The latest news is that now 50 cent baby momma is being evicted from the home that was purchased by 50 cent. There is more to the dynamics of this story but stay with me.

 

Now let’s talk about Heather Mills for a moment. She was with the ex-Beatles legend Paul McCartney who has a net worth of approximately 1.2-1.6 billion dollars. Paul McCartney earned all of this wealth prior to marrying Heather Mills which logically means she would not be entitled to any of that money. However Paul was in love and he married the one-legged wonder without a prenuptial agreement. Fast forward three years later and Heather Mills receive a divorce settlement of 50 million dollars, property, and child support.

 

If Heather Mills was a baby momma would she have received such a large settlement for getting knocked up? Would the courts haven taken into consideration the lifestyle she had grown accustomed to by being married to Paul McCartney? Unfortunately for 50 cent baby momma, once her son turns 18 years old, the child support payments will stop. No court will take into consideration her wants or needs for a particular lifestyle like Heather Mills. Many a ghetto woman like 50 cent baby momma are only seen as breeders, females who got knocked up with no real commitment and procreating without a purpose.

 

While many Educated Black People legitimize their long term relationships with marriage, ghetto people continue to shack up and get knocked up with little regard to the socio-economic consequences for their decisions. While 50 cent baby momma is trying to figure out her next steps, Heather Mills has the luxury of deciding how she wants to spend her wine budget.