Black, Listed by Jeffrey Boakye

Author:Jeffrey Boakye [BOAKYE, JEFFREY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780349700540
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2019-04-17T16:00:00+00:00

Ghetto

I’ve spent enough time in all-white company to know that there is a certain socio-economic strand of white people who go through life collecting exotic experiences. It tends to start with gap years and years out: adventurous excursions away from home during which an individual can ‘see the world’, climb things, swim in things, and have near misses with exotic diseases. I’ve heard it described as ‘backpacking’ – an occupational hazard that comes with growing up white and middle-class.

Black comedians can make an easy joke out of this, how you won’t find a black person who gets, say, eaten by a shark because we tend not to put ourselves in situations where a shark might be able to eat us. The nugget of truth at the core of this observation is the idea that black people are conservative about the dangers we expose ourselves to. Basically, any extreme conditions that can result in severe injury or loss of life is a no-no. Mountain climbing, deep-sea diving, messing about with wild animals, anything like that need not apply. And it just so happens that the majority of these activities come with a price tag.

One way of looking at it is that Dominant White can afford to indulge in capital ‘R’ Romanticism, a tradition of exploration and soul-searching that stems back to the late eighteenth century. Meanwhile, Impoverished Black is desperately trying to combat capital ‘R’ Realism, which comes with a very different set of experiences than the Romantic ones I described earlier. Romanticism is all about finding new experiences that unlock deep personal revelations. Realism is all about navigating unavoidable experiences that keep slapping you down to earth. There was nothing Romantic about growing up in one room up until the age of four, or having bucket baths sans shower, or knowing what cereal and water tastes like, or ironing on the floor because the ironing board was broken, or not having a microwave until fourteen, and that was just at home. Beyond the nest, two bikes stolen before the age of twelve, witnessing police raids on the way into the estate, no-go zones within a mile radius of my front door, abandoned underground car parks, friends with weapons, friends stabbed, witnessing muggings, being mugged, having a pellet gun drawn on you, being asked where you’re from, et cetera, et cetera – details of life lived at the sharp end of risk.

Ghetto is not simply a description of one’s living conditions. It signifies proximity to poverty and crime. It’s a collection of undesirable experiences. It’s also a mindset, forged in conditions that can harden an individual to softer, more Romantic perspectives. When black people call other black people Ghetto, it’s an accusation of being crude and unrefined, lacking social decorum, taste and that thing we often call ‘class’. The simple point here is that a ghetto, by definition, is crude and unrefined, lacking social decorum, taste and that thing we often call ‘class’, and many black people, born or migrating into urban areas of economic deprivation, have come up in a ghettoised environment.

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