A Mommy Blog About Raising Men, Not Boys.
RSS

Friday, June 20, 2008

Girl, That's So Ghetto

I never divide my friends into race or ethnicity.
You know some people do, you KNOW you know people who do. I'm not claiming superiority on this issue, I just never actually THINK about our "differences" much - most likely because I'm rather inattentive to things in all aspects of my life.
But I hate it when the differences, and the things you CANNOT SAY pop up.....such as..........

Baby names.

Now, black people do not have a strong hold on stupid baby names. Not by a long shot. I know plenty of people of various races who gave their kids straight up retarded names. And if a WHITE friend tells me she's going to name her baby girl Ellie Mae......I wouldn't hesitate a giggle and a Clampetts joke.

Is it rude to tell people their baby names are stupid? Yup, it is. But I heard it a lot when I was carrying all of my kids - everyone has an opinion of your baby name. So, I tend to not hesitate to say something - while stopping short of telling you that Leia Organa is right out CRUEL as a name for a boy........I might tease you a bit about it.

Unless you are black.

Why is that?

A friend recently told me she was going to name her baby the equivalent of Shanaynay.

I swear. It was that bad. Not actually Shanaynay but you get the picture.

Yes, she's black.

And I turned into this politically correct person who said "Oh that's pretty, where did you find that name?"

Because while I might be able to tell her that wearing knee high hose with short skirts is straight up ghetto and we'd both laugh......I can't touch that baby name. Not even in jest.

I think that's going to be my litmus for when race relations have truly resolved themselves.

When I can tell you your baby name is ghetto.

3 comments:

EKG said...

I knew a girl names Shanaynay. And a girl named Peaches. Does the madness ever end?
You can rest assured that at least one of your black friends will not have a child with a ghetto baby name! I don't have a ghetto bone in my dark little body!

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah said...

Yeah - you can't touch it.

(Please Hammer, don't hurt me.)

Anonymous said...

true indeed ... but true progress will be when you can tell them their baby's name sucks and there is no more ghetto

see ya monday (unless I win the lottery)... dave