Independent Reading Discussion: Ghetto Nation Post 2

Achievement is something that I have witnessed that can be tied to race. “By the time I was a senior, when my schedule was filled with nothing but demanding classes, I had virtually no black classmates, even though I was attending a black school. Truth is this gap between white and black achievement… was popping up in schools across the country.” (152-153) If we take percentages of classes with difficulty and races/colors I think something can be said about certain people. My honors chemistry and math class last year had a high percentage of Asian kids and every other race seemed to be a minority. Who are we to speak for these individuals and say that they don’t try but statistics show that Asian kids, assumed by me, are a bit more achieving. I don’t mean to offend anyone but don’t you think that it is safe to assume that a lot of Asians have good math skills? I don’t speak for everyone but the majority of Asians at least. Then when we start creeping into the cp level of things, race becomes indifferent. It is just about diverse and even with every race. Subject matter also matters too. I might be stereotypical with the Asians and their good math skills but it does hold true most of the time and I’m very sorry if I offend anyone. When we move on to Technical Education classes we barely even start to see any Asians. I guess you could say every the ethnicity of other peoples will more likely have more physical than mental thought. Asians becomes a minority in these classes. Daniels starts to see this in her classes in how all her black friends that used to be in her AP classes are no longer with her when she gets to the very advanced classes. She was with the white people who seemed to be performing better than the black kids in their school work. If the city or town is a diverse town, I think that this would happen in the school system also. One ethnicity would be more common in some classes more than others. Have any of you guys observed any of this?

Independent Reading Discussion: Ghetto Nation

In a way, Ashley I agree to your new perspective on the book. Daniels gives us an open view of ghetto and its many meanings and takes in our urban and not so urban society. She definitely gives us a detailed analysis of the word ghetto but she leaves it to the reader to make the statement that we should change our culture since she does not exactly state anywhere in the text that we should change. Though in her words, she obviously denounces it but at the same time she admits that she is ghetto in an ironically proud way. “It allowed me the pleasure to rant and rave at what did prove to be degrading trash in the comfort of my own bedroom while munching on a damn good samich. (I be ghetto.)” (100) At the same time she is being ghetto yet she is opposing the being ghetto by bashing on the movie Hustle and Flow. She refused to watch the movie because it portrayed a stereotype of black people and ghetto. How pimps would beat their hos. When she saw the preview, she thought “there was no way I was going to increase box office revenue by going to see such degrading trash.” (100) Her actions both point in different directions. By refusing the see the movie she points out that she opposes such items that portray ghetto as glamorous to the public eye but then by buying a bootleg copy of the movie to see how trashy the movie was at home with a “samich” in hand, she is fulfilling one of the stereotypes of what it is to be ghetto. Do you guys have any thoughts on this?

Oh yeah back to the cover. Actually, I never really took a hard look at the cover and I never realized that it was Uncle Sam all blinged up. Now that I do look at it, it does look disgraceful to me. An old man making urban hand gestures and to have the apparel of the urban and ghetto kid seems really awkward yet is oddly attractive. The thing about this cover I like the best is the quote on the bottom. “A journey into the land of bling and the home of the shameless.” (cover) This really sums up the book and is nicely worded. I like how she called our capitalistic society as “the land of the bling.” Everything in America is money. We all work hard for it and the ones with the most land on top of the rest. The glamorous people are all rich and portray this image of bling in one way or another be it nice cars to castles as homes, diamonds, and expensive apparel. Yet on the other end of it is the shameless, the ghetto people of our nation. They do embarrassing things yet feel no shame and actually boast about it proudly. For example, kids will rob candy from stores yet brag to their friends.

If I were to sell this book, I would most likely paint a picture of dilapidated projects and the proud and blinging kids that live there. Those are probably the two things most associated with ghetto. The bling and the projects, is what I think of when I think ghetto. The media with their movies and rap songs have presented those two things to be ghetto the most. This I think would grab a lot of interest with teenage kids which I would definitely recommend to. I think they would benefit most from this book. What about you other people?