Why the word 'ghetto'?

For as long as we've been Black, we've known the word to ghetto to have a negative connotation attached to it. As progressive as we have become, these old words and their meanings can certainly trigger a nerve. The ghetto has been interpreted to mean rude, crass, ignorant, uneducated, etc - and especially because it has been attached to the Black experience, makes you wonder why I, as a business owner would use the word to brand.

Well, I'll tell you why. The fact is, is that ghetto wasn't initially meant to objectify - people. 

According to Wiki, the term ghettos has been commonly used for some time, but ghettos were around long before the term was coined. Urban areas in the U.S. can often be classified as "black" or "white", with the inhabitants primarily belonging to a homogenous racial grouping.

Which led to further segregated conditions in the mostly Midwestern and North Eastern States. Consider television shows like Good Times or songs like, "The Ghetto" (Donny Hathaway song), by Donny Hathaway. Both of these draw a narrative of the black experience that exemplifies a condition of living, not a state of mind. Good Times characters James and Florida Evans sure weren't raising any ghetto kids, it just so happened that they lived there. 

This brings me to the point of this blog post and why I considered the word Ghetteaux to exemplify a brand that has the complete opposite of any negative embodiment of the term. I am using and completing a trademark for the word Ghetteaux = pronounced, just like Ghetto. There is no heavy 'eaux on the end.  As I was thinking of names for the brand, I knew exactly what I wanted to sell and  who I wanted to sell it to. I wanted to sell high end, luxury lifestyle items and textiles to people, like me. Black people have enjoyed a certain agility to switch codes in the presence of current company. We can be chameleons. Even if we like to employ some of the most challenging of the stereotypes - you name it - bumping hip-hop, trap or RnB from luxury cars while working as branch managers, in corporate corner offices, or owning our own companies - we do that. We'll always be black doing it, and we'll speak in AAVE (African American Vernacular English It is considered by academics to be a specific way of speaking within the larger categorization of African American English (AAE), or Black English.). The traits of Black Americans have been genetically passed down in the form of nature and nurture. But this essay isn't about that. 

Essentially, I wanted to have something to offer our people, who still like to have nice things within their homes, and for use in their lifestyles. Even if I cannot single handedly  change the entire etymology of the word or its phrasing, I want my customers to know when they purchase Ghetteaux Brands, there is only pride in our ethnicity and our deep desire to be black and still enjoy and embrace the luxury we deserve. We are reclaiming the aesthetics that have been demonizing, weaponized against us, and we are no longer filtering through a negative lens.