I am thinking we have had MORE than enough on this topic.
No more, please. (And that is an order)
Dale
Dale Brown Greensboro, North Carolina USA http://www.classicrendezvous.com
-----Original Message-----
From: josephbstarck@yahoo.com
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Cc: oroboyz@aol.com
Sent: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 5:12 PM
Subject: Re: [CR]Ghetto semantics and the CR list.
> Marcus and Tom and everyone:
>
> I understand and appreciate your points. That does
> not mean I totally subscribe to the weight you
> attach to this incident.
>
> My view? Joe(Hughes) was being loose and "with it"
within
> the context of his description of use of tools,
> that's all. Should he have been that colloquial? I
> would posture that despite the gravity and
> seriousness of the historical reality of ghettos and
> Nazis, those terms have been watered down by popular
> usage by the passage of time and the hip, irreverant
> attitudes of the day.
Dale,
I thought of a way to bring this all home, very on-topic to CR and everybody's favorite CR marque, and I'm willing to risk a ban on it, rough as it is:
My word of the day, Jan 20th, from OED, was:
"weaponize, v. 1. trans. To adapt for use as a weapon; spec. to provide (a nuclear or other explosive device) with a mechanism for being launched and propelled toward a target."
Applied to words, "nigger" is "negroe" weaponized, because it's use is generally intended to hurt another in the same way that it was used during the Jim Crow era.
The problem with Joe Hughes's use of "geto" in the context he used it -- of ill-adjusting a headset for lack of a tool which could result in damaged threads -- was of "geto's" similarity to "rigged" hyphenated to "nigger," as in "nigger-rigged," which, unlike the term Rube Goldberg, which refers to doing something in a fanciful and unnecessarily complex way, "nigger-rigged" means too poor to do it right, but also, shoddy, stupid, and probably unsafe.
Given the choice between "geto" and "nigger-rigged" however, I'd say "geto" is a de-weaponized version of "nigger-rigged," and so, better than the worse, right?
Mark Bulgier brought up http://www.urbandictionary.com results for "geto":
"1. geto Ghetto, as spelled by someone who is actually from the ghetto. "The Geto Master was the MVP of the Geto Classic."
2. geto A word that is exclaimed when something good happens. However, it can also describe something cool. "I just got that new Mike Jones CD. It's so geto I just have to blast it in my car.""
Meaning #1 above can be taken as condescension toward another's illiteracy, or, a spelling stylized for effect, as in "geto boys," a black rap group. Meaning #2, about "good" and "cool," seems harmless, but then, apparently, there's some youths in India who feel the same about going to their "Hitler's Cafe;" this controversy is on the web; look for yourself.
On to the black rap group "geto boys," who have de-weaponized "ghetto," yet in context of their music, re-weaponize it, in the same way rappers like "Westside Connnection" flip the word-weaponry from "nigger" to "nigga(z)." Listen to it; decide for yourself.
To bring it all back home to confy CR-land, it was in everybody's favorite cycling film, "Breaking Away," that "townie" and "cutter" Dave Stoller rides a very on-topic orange Masi Gran Criterium.
The word "Cutter" is spit derogatorily from the clean mouths of the fratboys, a slur connoting the families of "townies" who are dirty, stupid, working-class stonecutters.
And after Stoller gets beaten up by the thug fratboys, and after the ensuing bowling alley fracas, RESOLUTION TO ALL THE HURT OF THE PAST FIRST BEGINS with the de-weaponizing & re-weaponizing of "Cutters" by Stoller & the gang, who proudly wear "Cutters" afixed to their jerseys: In your face, fratboy.
And yet, the de-weaponizing & re-weaponizing of the word "cutters," on the part of THE Cutters, didn't hurt anybody, on the contrary, it caused a change of heart, as dramatized after the cutters beat the fratboys in the bicycle race, wherein the leader of the losers, the blonde-haired fratboy, in the end, his frown turned upside down and he genuinely clapped for the "Cutters."
Joe Starck Madison, WI USA
note to self: enter urbandictionary definition of "breaking away," i.e., the process of wordplay change intended to de-weaponize hurtful words, or something like that
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