armchair cultural observation since 1995

A word for people you don’t know

“In that same spirit, I think people who meet and talk to me, who read this blog don’t think of me as ‘ghetto.’ But I’m not sure they’d think the same if they saw me at 8 A.M. on Lenox Ave, rocking the black hoodie and grey New Balance, on my way to the Associated. Ghetto, in its most unironic usage, is a word for people you don’t know. It’s (a) word that allows you to erase individuals and create boxes. It’s true that I was different than most of my friends–but most of my friends were different from my friends. All people, at their core, ultimately are. A man has to stand for those who intimately loved him and intimately hated him, for those whose stench he was raised amongst. They get to be human to(o).”

Ta-Nehisi Coates

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