Without a Net

by Michelle Tea

  GHETTO FABULOUS

  TINA FAKHRID-DEEN

  BUYING A HOUSE IN THE ’HOOD WAS A SOCIOPOLITICAL DECISION FOR ME and my husband. I didn’t want us to be the type of Black folks who get a little money and flee to the suburbs, away from our people. I live in Chicago. I was born on the west side of one of the most segregated cities in the nation, in the Jane Addams projects, a place commonly referred to as “the ghetto.” It was a few miles west of downtown and close to everything imaginable—a prime location.

  My family was poor, but resilient. We were no strangers to food stamps, roaches, and hallways that smelled of urine. We often had to eat those black-and-white-labeled generic brands and drink powdered milk, which I despised. I learned early on that sugar on a slice of bread or mixed with a glass of water made a tasty afternoon snack when peanut butter and jelly or Kool-Aid were unavailable.

  I am proud of my roots and my complex identity, so it makes me sick when I hear people speak negatively about the ghetto, the place that I called home for many years. It is common to hear white and Black middle-class teens, in a skewed attempt to embrace hip-hop culture, say offensive things like, “Oh, my God, he is acting so ghetto,” or, “Look at my big ghetto booty.” Although the word “ghetto” refers to a section of the city densely populated by a certain minority group and was formerly where all Jewish people were dumped in some Eastern European countries (and later in Chicago and other big, American cities as well), the term is used quite differently now.

  To those on the outside looking in, the term “ghetto” is now synonymous with being Black, dirty, attitudinal, ignorant, lazy, uneducated, and dangerous; it has taken on the same connotations that the term “nigger” historically has had. However different, they are both politically loaded terms used to denigrate poor Blacks, but to acknowledge that would be politically incorrect. “Ghetto” is the new code word for “low-income Black person.” Whites won’t acknowledge it because it feels too close to being racist, and middle-class Blacks won’t acknowledge it because in their hearts, they know that using the word is a sad attempt to distance themselves from the lower class, to assimilate and be accepted by mainstream culture. It would be a public admission that poor Blacks are reduced to frightening caricatures, misunderstood by the majority of American society, still overtly oppressed.

  I am ghetto. I love hip-hop, Ice Cube, and the Geto Boys. I have a big butt and snap my neck back and forth when I’m cussing someone out. I look good in cornrows and wild afros. I can do the “booty” dances with the best of them and I still say “ain’t” to get my point across. I also have good parents, who always encouraged me to be the best and to speak my mind. As a result, I have a master’s degree in education. No, my mama is not on welfare and yes, my father was present while I was growing up. I’ve never committed a crime, unless you count the time I stole a piece of bubble gum from 7-Eleven and returned it two minutes later out of guilt. I have a beautiful husband, not a “baby daddy.” I’ve traveled to at least six different countries, studied abroad, and wear “ethnic” thrift-store dresses to work. I plan to teach our child Spanish and sign language. My ghetto identity is more than the latest booty-shake video, it is my foundation, and it reverberates through every facet of me—textured and rich. And no, I am not the exception.

  My old neighborhood was ghetto. The scent of month-old chicken grease filled most homes, and stained blinds hung in the place of flowery curtains. There were scattered winos on the sidewalks, glass shards on the playground instead of wood chips, rampant petty crime, graffiti on the walls, and boarded-up windows on some apartments. There were also community centers where we could go and play board games and get juice and a “choke” sandwich (so damn dry you could choke eating them) until our parents got home. Hard-working parents worked several jobs to make ends meet and to provide a good, loving home for their families.

  In school, we had spelling bees and learned Spanish in kindergarten. Caring adults with knowing eyes watched over us if our parents weren’t around. We all knew one another’s names and who to call when a child got out of line in the street. We were a community. My friends were ghetto. We did ghetto things, like drinking buttermilk with cookies and mixing Kool-Aid with sugar, giggling at the sour-sweet taste in our red-stained mouths. We played double dutch with a long extension cord while singing “take a peach, take a plum.” Each time the jump rope hit one of us in the face, we had bitter fistfights, wind-milling with our eyes closed, hoping to make contact. At Halloween, we got yelled at or whipped for throwing eggs, not because it was childish and rude, but because we were screwing with the food supply. Some of us grew up to be construction workers, accountants, and teachers, while others became gang affiliates, hood rats, and drug dealers. Some moved out of the projects; some remain to this day. Some went off to college; others went off to prison. Regardless, we all shared the same history, cried the same tears, and mirrored the same struggle—withstanding poverty.

  My family moved away from the projects when I was about six. We lived in the suburbs and then down South for a brief stint, but moved back to an urban area on the North Side of Chicago marked by many of the same characteristics as my former ghetto. Basically, we were still poor and struggling to survive. Upon returning to Chicago from college, I searched the city for housing. I drove back to my old neighborhood and, to my chagrin, found most of it had been torn down—shiny new town homes with skater boys stood in its place. It was now called “University Village,” because a local university had bought up most of the property. Even the hospital where many of my friends and I were born had disappeared without a trace. It was almost as if we had never existed. It made my blood boil that all of those poor people had been displaced, and I wondered where they had gone. I blamed middle-class America and greedy developers. I accused the mayor and his cronies of turning a blind eye to what was happening in poor communities like mine.

  I wanted to live in a place where all socioeconomic backgrounds were represented, no one above the other. I finally decided to move back to the North Side, for the diversity in ethnicities, cultures, and economic status. The local fruit market sold everything from kimchi and plantains to yucca and collard greens. Elote carts rolled down the street with hot ears of corn as often as ice cream trucks. Blue-collar and white-collar workers rode the el train together each morning. There were little coffee shops on several corners, adorned near the entrances by the occasional evening prostitute or homeless man. In my building lived a Jamaican drug dealer who often threw wild parties with the scent of cheeba oozing under the door; an alcoholic white man and his six-foot grocery cart–toting girlfriend, who fought like Ali and Frazier in a title bout; a spiritual Black vegetarian who swore that a cat’s purr meant that it was going to attack her; a wiry ballerina who rented out her place every other month; some Eastern Europeans who spoke little English and managed the building; me and my mathematician husband; and an interracial couple who just seemed shady.

  Slowly, many of the buildings in our area were converted to condos, the asking prices beyond ridiculous. The poor were being forced to move out, just like in my old neighborhood. They left a few Section Eight homes intact, for nostalgia’s sake. Although gentrification came rapidly to our neighborhood, we weren’t directly impacted until my mother (who lived down the street from us) was forced to move out of her tiny one-bedroom apartment when her rent jumped from $475 to $1,250 a month. Then our building changed hands, and the new owner threatened to almost double the rent for our modest one-bedroom. We all needed to move, and fast. My mother purchased her first home on the far South Side. Loving the diversity of the North Side, my husband and I tried to find another local property to purchase, but the price hikes were happening everywhere. We considered the suburbs, but quickly came back to reality. Why buy into the reverse white flight and allow upper-class whites to move back into the comforts and convenience of the city while we got stuck out in the boondocks, disconnected from everything we knew? So we did the most intelligent thing we co
uld think of, we invested in Bronzeville, a historic South Side community.

  DURING THE GREAT MIGRATION OF THE EARLY 1900S, MANY Blacks emigrated from the South in hopes of landing industrial jobs in Chicago. Bronzeville was one of the only areas of the city that southern Blacks were allowed to live in. It is legendary for its sizzling-hot blues scene and notorious 47th St., a strip of juke joints, jazz cafes, restaurants, and hotels. This is where famous Black artists such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald came to perform and stay when they had a gig in town. For years after its heyday, Bronzeville had been a poverty-stricken area filled with crime, despair, and little development. This was now one of the hot spots in the city to move to, because of its accessibility to downtown and the lakefront, and its affordable housing.

  In a matter of days, we found a beautiful three-bedroom condo with a monthly mortgage in the same price bracket as our old apartment’s rent increase. Set right on the main boulevard—named after a well-known Black civil rights leader—we could see all types of Black people walking up and down the street. This was the first time that I had been back in an all-Black area since my days in the ghetto and the South. It was exciting and wonderful, although I did miss the ethnic diversity of the North Side. There was a new Black-owned poetry cafe and a bank, and the alderwoman’s office was less than a block away. It was rumored that a comedy club, performing arts theater, art gallery, and bookstore were in development on the next corner. Across the street, a sign boasted a new town-home development starting at $350,000. My husband and I thought that our neighbors were fabulous and incredibly nice. We had two lesbian pastors across the hall, three outgoing drug dealers, otherwise known as “pharmaceutical representatives,” two PhD’s, an ex-cop, a lawyer, and several high-powered businesswomen. We were all so close that it was like living in the dorms again.

  I soon realized that I had somehow crossed over and was officially middle class. It was confusing, because I wasn’t like the bourgeois Blacks who knew nothing about hard times and mocked the accursed lot of poor folks. I was different. I cared about civil rights for everyone. I didn’t turn my nose up at the thought of eating pig feet or chitlins. I didn’t fear that my property value would go down because poor folks lived next door. And I didn’t refer to all less fortunate people, especially the expressive or thuggish-looking ones, as “ghetto.” Then my whole reality changed. Within a week of our moving in to our new building there were two attempted robberies. I was four months pregnant and actually heard them kicking in my neighbor’s door. A few weeks later, someone’s car was broken into; then more robbery attempts in the coming months. I began to fear coming home late in the evening. As a pregnant woman in her third trimester, I was truly defenseless. My mind began betraying me. I questioned whether this neighborhood was good enough—safe enough—for me and my family. I feared the possibility of my child picking up broken crack vials in the neighborhood park during our afternoon strolls. I thought about sending our daughter to the substandard neighborhood schools. I thought about someone actually getting into our home, violating us and everything we’ve worked so hard for. I thought about moving—moving far away from crime, far away from my present reality, and even farther away from the ghetto we now lived in. It no longer felt like home—it felt like prison. It felt dangerous. It felt unforgiving. I felt like I was being punished for leaving the ’hood and coming back with a pot to piss in. I saw jealous eyes ogle me as I entered our six-foot gate, making sure it slammed behind me. I became resentful, fighting rage. I felt like a traitor.

  I had become that middle-class asshole who moves in and pushes aside the poor residents, who are rightfully angry. They wanted the good life too.

  I had become that middle-class asshole who moves in and pushes aside the poor residents, who are rightfully angry. They wanted the good life too. They wanted big-screen TVs and Jacuzzis like us. They wanted to feel important and respected, as we did. They also craved quality community resources for their families. No matter how I tried to frame it, I had become one of the powerful pawns in this gentrification game, with the poorest of Bronzeville being knocked clear off the board. Like magic, with our middle-class presence, the schools would begin to get better, more commercial development would find its way to the area, and politicians and policemen would make special visits to our condo association meetings to hear our concerns. We would complain about the crime and beg for the removal of it, of “them.” My sensitivity for the wretched poor would wear thin. Ill feelings would grow between us and “them” until someone gave in and moved on. There could be no coexistence between the classes. We misunderstood and distrusted each other too much. There could be no community here.

  Not until we stop to realize that we’re all in this together. Not until I use my newfound middle-class power to advocate for the right to decent and affordable living for my new neighbors, here in Bronzeville. Not until I help them to advocate for themselves. Not until I realize that some of these residents don’t want or need our middle-class handouts because they were doing just fine before we got here. Not until I understand that many of these families are just like mine was back in the day, working hard and trying to keep food on the table. Not until I treat them as equals. Not until I stop being scared and open my mouth to say “hello” to the skeptical faces that eye me daily. Not until I recognize that the ones trying to rob us are just lost souls with no hope or heart left (that doesn’t mean I won’t keep calling the cops). Not until I get the resentment out of my heart.

  The ghetto is a community filled with ups and downs, struggles and survivors and people sticking around hoping that things will get better. Being ghetto is so much more than a new catchphrase or a hip-hop song; it’s an identity, a reflection of our economy, and a way of life. Just as hip-hop will be in my blood and spirit forever, so will the ghetto. I will transcend the box that us ghetto folks have been put into and create a new space. I will make people think before using the term “ghetto” to refer to any person, place, or thing. I will fight for the right to be ghetto, even when my back’s against the wall, being violated by those I’m trying to stand up for. That’s keeping it real—real ghetto. As a people, when one of us suffers, we all suffer. In my heart, I know that we ain’t a true community until we take an honest look at one another and begin to embrace every part of our intricately woven culture. Black folks must get a handle on the crabs-in-a-barrel syndrome, and learn to stand strong, together.

  GETTING OUT

  FRANCES VARIAN

  FEAR TASTES LIKE METAL ON THE BACK OF MY TONGUE. IT SITS HEAVY ON my rib cage, making it difficult to breathe. A thousand small pinches beneath my skin. One hundred bells ringing in my skull at the same time. Fear is my sun and I orbit around it.

  The only way to get money is to work for it and there are only two kinds of work: smart or hard.

  And everyone I was born to orbits in the solar system of the punch-clock. There was never a time when my face wasn’t turned toward something greater than myself. Fear and poverty breed shame. Exhaustion and disappointment make everything taste bitter. The tired body cannot convince the racing mind to sleep. The sun will rise. Then we will work. These are things you know instinctively. Without money bad things will happen to you and you won’t be able to stop them. The only way to get money is to work for it and there are only two kinds of work: smart or hard. You enter the world, pull for air, and wait for payday.

  I don’t want to write about class. To write about class is to pull a carefully placed bandage from a wound and poke at it. What are my choices? I can romance you with stories of working-class pride and sacrifice. I can tug at your heartstrings with tales of desperation and injustice. I can show you my scars. I can try to describe the rage. I can tell you what it feels like to be the daughter of a janitor. I can tell you what it feels like to be a graduate of Vassar College. I can tell you how to simulate a blowjob over the phone for strangers. But after I am done telling you all of these necessary things I still won’t have any money. And I will sti
ll be afraid. So what are my choices?

  Here’s how my Roman Catholic Polish family likes to play a game I call Wheel of Getting the Fuck Out of Here. It’s a game that most working-class people play on some level. First, everyone has a really screwed-up childhood with abusive, alcoholic parents. Then everyone finds their own partners and makes babies. (In the Polish Catholic version, the babies must come after a proper Catholic wedding.) The most important thing to know about Wheel of Getting the Fuck Out of Here is that you, the Player, will never get the fuck out of here. The only one who can possibly get out is that baby you just made. Your job is to move the Game Piece (baby) around the board so that she is able to “work smart.” If she works smart, she will make money. When she has money, she will not be so afraid. In order to move the Game Piece you must work so hard you cannot remember your middle name. You must spin the wheel to see if your dead dreams can be reincarnated in your child. And most important, you must teach your baby the importance of getting out. You must hold yourself up to her time and time again as inspiration to flee.

  I am a wayward Game Piece, maybe a design flaw. In this particular game the Players (my parents) did most everything correctly. They worked and sacrificed and buried their dreams. They did everything they possibly could to make sure they won this game. They had no idea that the object of their struggles would grow up to reject it just as she was on the verge of getting the fuck out. If they craved a life easier lived, they would not experience it through me.