Ghetto Fabulous is the New Way to Party

KIMBERLY ONG

Co-Opinions Editor

Here on the West Coast, we don’t come across too many opportunities to call out racism. Diversified by an enormous influx of immigrants and thoroughly mixed by politically correct accommodations, California—Southern California in particular— seems to be the least likely place in the nation for ethnic discrimination to occur.

So it often seems, when the situation arises, that anyone crying out “Racism!” from the rooftops is merely crying wolf. What reason would there be for it when literally anyone could be your neighbor?

But, when a blatantly racist event occurs, it’s obvious that people must do something. Words, whether spoken or written, no longer suffice.

And indeed, regardless of whether or not they help, people brought their fighting words when rallying against the “Compton Cookout” organized by students at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). The event, allegedly set up by a campus fraternity, Phi Kappa Alpha, was supposed to “celebrate” Black History Month. The cookout’s theme “commemorated” their African-American peers, 2 percent of whom make up UCSD’s student population.

The “Compton Cookout” Facebook event page encouraged men to dress in oversized clothing and women to embody a “ghetto chick’s … ‘respectable’ qualities.” The event organizers described the so called “ghetto chicks” as loud women with “short, nappy hair” or “cheap [weaves]… in bad colors.” They expected the girls to communicate via a limited, invented or profanity-littered vocabulary among other various “noises.”

It’s clear that there was no way this event could have ever been conducted in “honor” of Black History Month. Despite beingadvertised as such, the blatant insensitivity is hard to overlook. And, although the “Compton Cookout” was so obviously inconsiderate, the most frightening fact of the entire situation was that the event’s Facebook page attracted at least 200 confirmed guests before it was shut down.

And of those 200-some confirmed guests, it’s quite possible that some of our very own Alhambra High School alumni opted to participate. Twelve of last year’s graduating class added themselves to UCSD’s overwhelming Asian population—reported at 50 percent. Perhaps it’s existence of this largely homogenous populace that resulted in this racial insensitivity. However, nothing excuses this alarming lack of tact.

But, it would be too much to say that these were hateful acts. It would be too much to state that the students of UCSD had some sort of anti-Black agenda or that they truly wanted to make a mockery of Black History Month. It’s likely that the organizers were just the quintessential young college students—drunk and stupid.

So perhaps, it is not so much racism that continues to percolate in our diverse nation, but rather, ignorance. An ignorant inability to empathize. And that, combined with the “humorous” stereotypes portrayed in movies and television shows, can only spawn more “Compton Cookouts.”

To say that stereotypes are entirely wrong would be … well, wrong. Stereotypes exist for a reason—in some cases they are even true. But that isn’t to say that they’re strictly positive or negative. Stereotypes can add flavor, and sometimes humor, to a situation. If done tastefully.

However, when chuckling at some bespectacled Asian woman swerving across the road or at some Midwest hick rocking on his front porch with a shotgun in his lap, the individual needs to keep some things in mind. One, not every single person of that race is going to embody media-encouraged stereotypes. And two, even those who do personify these characteristics have more to offer  than just being “ghetto,” “submissive,” “loud” or “drunk.”

So we all have no choice but to find the line between funny and offensive. Whether it’s a painful process of trial and error or something we pick up from our diverse neighborhoods, it’s everything we can do to keep from being either extreme: politically correct or outright racist.