It is the living language that enables humans to communicate about our respective experiences of a common world with one another. It is with language that we share tales of joy, sorrow, humor and ecstasy. Languages consist of, but are not reducible to, a vast collection of words that each carry with them their own sense, referents and etymology. Language is living, which means that it is ever changing. Especially in the example of contemporary slang, words become multivocal, with meanings evolving and changing from context to context. Despite the dynamic, seducible quality of language, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that words carry with them their own history of meaning and context that cannot always be severed or divorced from contemporary language. Although a speaker may be ignorant of a word’s prior referent, this ignorance does not always prevent the historical meaning that the word brings to the present from being conveyed. In other words, in reference to language, the more things change, the more they may stay the same. An example of such usage that singes my ears with each mentioning is the modern use of the word “ghetto.””That car is so ‘ghetto.'” “He is so ‘ghetto fabulous.'” “Look at those ‘ghetto’ kids over there.” These are all phrases that I hear on a daily basis on and off of Loyola’s campus. But what do they really mean? What does it mean to be “ghetto?” The American Heritage Dictionary defines “ghetto” as a noun meaning, “A section of a city occupied by a minority group who live there especially because of social, economic, or legal pressure.” Such a group is typically not only under social, economic or legal pressure but is also oppressed in this same context. The contemporary connotation of “ghetto” is as an adjective that refers to a characteristic that refers back to a ghetto and/or its inhabitants. And while the more popular historical denotation of “ghetto” is tied to those of Semitic ancestry, the modern discursive connotation is (almost) invariably associated with peoples of African American heritage.When I hear the word “ghetto” used, it is customarily used in a derogatory sense to refer to something of poor quality, to someone of unsophisticated, depraved behavior, or a manner of doing something that resembles the way an impoverished person would carry out the same task. It carries with it a very negative tone that is buried beneath a facetious façade, and what is seemingly lost or, at the very least, repressed, is that this word is used to characterize and refer back to an impoverished, repressed people. Use of this word in this fashion serves to mock the historical, as well as the present daily struggles that African Americans have endured since the years of bondage. I believe that those who use this word can use it in a humorous way or in a way that does not make them ill at ease because they have the luxury of not being bound to the referent reality. On the other hand, when I hear impoverished African Americans use the same word in the same sense I hear a people attempting to define themselves by the experience of poverty because it is the only thing that is left for them to have. Education, social mobility and degree of human dignity have been removed in a capitalistic system that needs to perpetuate a sustainable labor force. The only positive use of this word “ghetto” is in the phrase “ghetto fabulous” which still makes reference to a subclass of extemporary fashion; it is a sub-culture’s way of looking good, but is offensive (yet oddly intriguing) to the eyes of the dominant culture.In short, what I perceive in the modern day usage of the word ghetto is a form of meta-racism; it is a means to mock and devalue poor African Americans and their culture indirectly, but effectively nonetheless. While this may not be the intention of those who use this word, I believe that the social context and the social reference fail to be divorced in discourse and serve to reinforce a social hierarchy and oppression that has been present for more than 400 years. This is what I hear people saying when they describe something as being “ghetto”. In the words of Anthony Pollard, “I can only tell it as I see it; nothing more, nothing less.”

Fred Johnson is a psychology junior.