Uncle Sam is featured on the cover of the book Ghettonation by journalist Cora Daniels. He is complete with red do-rag under white top hat, a blinged-out American flag gold chain, and iced-out rings on his peace sign fingers. Or are they A-town down? Either way, an intact sense of humor graces the front cover, while the back, which gives the original definition of ghetto (as the noun it was: a Jewish quarter of a city) along with the most recent usage (and misusage: “authentic, Black, keepin’ it real”) as an adjective, suggests that the book is complete with lessons and laughs.
Ghettonation: A Journey into the Land of Bling and the Home of the Shameless examines the impact of all things ghetto. That would be persona, language, thought, and action; though Daniels is not just pointing fingers or making fun. The book is a social commentary that at times reads like memoir. Daniels exposes her own relationship to ghetto, so as not to demean the culture holding to the word so as to admit that we are in over our heads. More than saturated in ghetto, we are (so) ghetto—Ghettonation.
From noun to adjective, she takes the six-letter word further by classifying it as a mind-set. With this, she gives ghetto a new authority; no longer just a description, ghetto becomes an umbrella. And under it, too many things are trying to stay dry, too many folk are trying to keep so fresh and so clean, living for only today because tomorrow may be worse.
But before the commentary can weigh too heavily on the reader, Daniels inserts a “That’s so ghetto. . .” page where she pulls from the mind-set itself, giving examples like driving a luxury car but renting an apartment or drinking Kool-aid from a mayonnaise jar. She doesn’t skirt around any subject, not from Lil Jon and his middle-class upbringing to gold teeth, candy-colored weaves, and names, oh the names. Her support is convincing. And funny.
Daniels discusses Gwyneth Paltrow naming her daughter Apple, as if that’s any different than naming a child Alize, Diamond, or Lexus. She successfully snatches “who be ghetto” from every rung of every ladder—social, economic, and racial. Her rail on Paltrow continues in light of her claim that hip-hop has “become American culture.” Example: Paltow, the “ghetto mama” herself, says that Apple loves hip-hop, especially Jay-Z. In fact, Apple rocks her head to The Black Album and really loves “99 Problems” (as in “I got 99 problems and a bitch ain’t one”). Ghetto.
At its core, Ghettonation is a journey into the land of Black—its culture, people, music—and how the capitalization on Black (or ghetto) is further damaging the people that make it up. Because of this, Daniels’ attempt to keep all of America aboard her Ghettonation journey fails. The mind-set is supported almost entirely by examples from Black America. All-America just gets caught up in the hype. And so the book looks at America’s obsession with urban culture, which is often taken as Black culture, which is often looked at as poverty-stricken, thuggish, and dangerous.
Daniels discusses education, success, relationships, and violence in this Black community. But at times her memoir-like prose distracts from the voices she finds to tell this new, too-proud nation’s stories, like that of 19-year-old Daniel, an aspiring filmmaker. During the filming of his documentary Bullets, a gun was drawn on him, trigger pulled. The gun wasn’t loaded, but instead of delving into him and his story, allowing him to explain his understanding of success—measured by the number of days he can live, not dollars or degrees—the author mulled through her own experience of worlds colliding (college with the hood). She let the reader down as well as uncomfortably full with unanswered questions about this kid.
Though Daniels speaks objectively about ghetto, no solution besides taking responsibility is given. But, as a black woman, newly aware of my own ghetto (I’ve been known to drop the n-bomb with little regard for what forward-moving steps I blow-up in the process), I have a suggestion: These books, written in our youths’ language, with their words and about their lives, need to be in their classrooms, each idea being unraveled and action understood. Suggestion is the start of solution (a blank suggestions-for-solutions page should’ve ended the book, not a fill-in-your-own-“that’s so ghetto” page). And an educated mind can never be imprisoned.
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