girlfiend

ig·no·rant \Ig”no*rant\ adj.

1. Lacking education or knowledge. 2. Showing or arising from a lack of education or knowledge: an ignorant mistake. 3. Unaware or uninformed.

Anonymous left a comment on my blog reading:

It must suck to be so ignorant and to drive a corolla.

I had two questions. One, what’s wrong with driving a Corolla? I know it’s not stylish or hip. In fact, it’s a hideous color and it’s almost ten years old. But in the years I’ve had it, not once has it had any mechanical problems whatsoever. I’ve only ever taken it to the shop for inspections and oil changes. And really, I’m a teacher. I’m not made of money. I’d rather have a matronly and reliable vehicle than some stylish, piece of shit Jetta that’s bound to fall apart. (I apologize to all Jetta enthusiasts, but every Jetta owner I know thinks their car is a good-looking piece of shit. Especially the ones from ‘94 and ‘95. One friend’s engine went after less than a year. )

But more importantly, here’s my second question: why would this commenter think that I’m ignorant? Is it because I’m writing honestly about driving through the Philadelphia ghetto? Does Anonymous feel that this post somehow implies that I’m racist or bigoted? If so, let me put it this way. Nigga, please. Ghetto is ghetto. I don’t care if you’re black, white, Puerto Rican, Cambodian, Chinese, Dominican, Portuguese, Irish, Polish, or Nigerian. Ghetto mentality is just that: Ghetto.

A little while ago, Boyfiend and I were on the corner of Broad and Girard. We were discussing the tragedy of beautiful North Broad Street must have been before it turned into a slum, when our mouths simultaneously dropped open. In front of our eyes, a grown man in the ghetto chucked an enormous, empty supersize drink cup towards a trashcan. He missed. The astonishing part was that this man actually picked up his discarded cup and placed it in the proper receptacle. We had never seen this happen before, especially on a corner that is known for the empty fast food wrappers and potato chip bags piled in the gutter.

Clearly anonymous does not live in the city. One can differentiate the ghetto from your typical blue collar or working class neighborhood in a variety of ways. In the ghetto, residents don’t care enough to pick up the trash in front of their homes. Only in the ghetto will you find children who eat a bag hot fries and a barrel of blue “fruit” drink for breakfast. Only in the ghetto do parents give their kids 50 cents a day for a bag of chips, but can’t cough up $3.00 to pay for a field trip to the museum. You will only find adults who cannot afford to pay their electric bill, but insist upon driving an Escalade in the ghetto. Where else but the ghetto will you find someone who drives a 1988 Cutlass Sierra with spinners? If you’re on a city block where half of the houses are either boarded up or burnt out, but the cars on the block all sell for more than $30,000, you know you’re in the ghetto. And where else will you hear a parent yell from the stoop, “Get out the goddamn street before I shove my foot up your ass,” to a five year old?

I was pleased to see that someone else knows where I’m coming from. I’ll leave you with a comment from Bentley G .

Damn straight anonymous, driving a Corolla must suck, but really anonymous, nothing sucks more than having to drive through the ghetto. Like, you might say that living in the ghetto sucks more, but it doesn’t. I live in the ghetto. I know. Most my neighbors use their access cards to buy chips, soda and candy at the corner store to feed their kids. They’re not bad people, they just don’t do such a great job of teaching and feeding their children. The kids in my neighborhood play tag, basketball, and wrestle one another in the street. There’s a baseball field around the corner and they play kickball in the street. It don’t make any sense. When a car drives down my street, the kids get all pissed and take one step out of the way so the car has to slow way down so it doesn’t run them over. But yo girlfiend, your problem is you drive a Corolla. If you drove an Escalade you couldn’t afford you’d get much more respek.

Bentley G.