03
Mar 09“We are all ghetto now.”
Jelani Cobb has a (not-really) new place, and as usual, he’s got some good stuff:
There was once a point when degreed and salaried black folk pointed a crooked, shame-filled finger at behaviors we deemed inappropriate and hurled the G-word at stereotypical acts in order to deflect any guilt by association. A black person lives way beyond his means? Ghetto. He engages in irresponsible consumption and lives to flash his pseudo-wealth? Ghetto.
[...]
But we’re in the middle of a recession right now because millions of middle class people bought more house than they could afford, because millions of others used home equity as a personal ATM machine to subsidize life styles they really couldn’t afford. And because the CEOs and politicians who are supposed to be the responsible voices around here spent the better part of a decade indulging their addiction to cheap Chinese goods that have artifiicially inflated the value of the dollar. Ever wonder why it is that everyone in America can afford a flat-screen and most Chinese — who are manufacturing them — can’t?This is all made possible by those hood-ass folk over at Treasury and Citi and Lehman and the good folk in China whose economy is the international equivalent of an E-Z Credit joint in the… um… ghetto.
Tagged: politics