paper plates are ghetto.
You cannot make me love paper plates, I just won't fold. But you could never make me not love what's been demonized as ghetto and that is black culture.
Paper plates are ghetto because they serve no purpose other than convenience.
They don’t save you money because you have to keep buying them.
They are NOT aesthetically pleasing.
The only perk is one less plate to wash.
Ghetto!
Now you have to take out the trash twice a day cause you have paper plates, bowls, cups, spoons, forks, and knives. But ghetto will have you eating off the paper plate with a regular spoon, we have all done it before. Proof from the photo above I speak from experience.
You must buy the “good” ones because the cheap styrofoam plates are guaranteed to burn a hole when hot food touches them. Or those edges curl up in the microwave.
Ghetto was forced upon us, meticulously planned out to condition a culture. What is American with the ghetto? Another question would be what is black culture without ghetto?
Call me J. Cole cause this is the breakdown.
The word ghetto in my opinion was meant to be as damaging as the word nigga, but with the hard ‘er’. What I love most about black culture is no weapon formed against us will ever prosper, because we as a people will always embrace our oppression. When they tried to call us negros, we turned it into a cultural word that would end with repercussions if anyone without melanin dared to use it. Same with the word ghetto.
Fun fact, the word was never meant for us. The term originated from the Venetian Ghetto in Venice, Italy in the early 1500s. It was used to describe the part of the city where Jewish people were restricted to live, and segregated from the population. You can’t tell me that the original Jewish people were not of a darker skin complexion, but that’s another topic for another day. It wasn’t until late in the 1800s that we started to see ghettos being created as black folk migrated to urban areas. How convenient, they started burning down black towns like Tulsa, OK; one of the most familiar known in 1921, and by 1940 “black ghettos” expanded and cemented themselves in American society. Since the start of their history black people have been ghettoized, but to be clear the history we are taught is only a version of HIS-story.
Why do they hate us so much? Most scholars view the iconic social form of the ghetto as having a particular racial component, and as being defined by social isolation, residential segregation, gross inequality, consistent poverty, and crime. How could a group of people who carried this country on their backs, literally, be the focused subject of a ghetto experiment? We deserve more than what we have accepted as a culture, maybe this is why our people have a hard time recognizing our worth individually.
I’ve been talking about worth a lot this month, personally, it seems to be a journey I’ve been initiated to join. Through my experiences, I am learning things to be true about myself that I continuously tried to deny. A couple of years ago, I was conversing with my mother (we don’t have the ideal relationship - so trigger warning) and in this conversation, I was excitedly telling her my big dreams and aspirations for my thirties. She said something that got under my skin so deeply that it felt embedded into my DNA.
“Girl, you are a broke bougie!”
I don’t know why those words cut so deep like a double-edged sword. She said it with such conviction in her voice, her tone so insulting. I struggle with our relationship because as a mother myself now, I am still waiting for her to show up as my mother. There were some invaluable parts of my childhood that she takes pride in, but she feels it outweighed the bad and maybe for her it does. Before you say, ‘Jacquie give her grace she did the best she knew to do,’ I know and I have. The issue is that we’ve had uncomfortable conversations about my childhood and we both spoke openly and honestly. I thought we healed the wounds, but she is carrying a grudge instead. Her comment of me being a broke bougie was shots fired that’s why it hurt.
Truth is, for the past four years I have made myself believe she was right. I downplayed my dreams and wrote them off like they were meaningless. Settling for a life that was mediocre and average. I lost myself during those four years, and I miss that version of myself terribly. That’s what ignited my ambition to move across the country, I needed to find that happy and optimistic version of myself that was locked away that day.
I am boujie, but never broke. Even if I am low on cash my spirit is never broken. Broke is a mindset, and my mindset is rich and abundant. That is why the comment hurt me so badly because I have a clear boundary with word spells. I do not allow people to speak words over me that cast spells. Don’t call me broke, if your spirit is broken. I will not make that agreement with you. Don’t tell me I can’t do something, because I believe in miracles and a higher power that is always moving mountains for me. You understand? I am rewiring my mind and belief system so I have to denounce any words that are not in alignment with my rewired beliefs.
The government is the real thugs.
This is the effect of social isolation. Throwing us into these ghetto environments filled with fast food poison, alcohol venom, government-planted toxins (drugs), and lethal slave overseers with an itchy trigger finger. Ghettos were not a result of poverty, they were created laboratories. Black culture is the lab rat, ghettos are the lab, and the government is the scientists. Test after test, generation after generation, we can’t be broken. They suggest that people who live in the ghetto are broke but never admit to the gross inequality. News reporters lie in front of cameras spreading misinformation suggesting the mother who stole a loaf of bread and milk is a criminal, but never reporting the reason for consistent poverty.
I don’t like paper plates because they remind me of the ghetto, they prove the agenda of breaking the spirit of black culture. We like nice things, we thrive off aesthetics as a culture. Grandma’s couch with the plastic cover was a prize possession, and your little dirty behind wasn’t going to tear it up. But does that make Grandma ghetto? Why is innovation considered ghetto? Why is convenience worshipped? The microwave era is the paper plate era, convenience is designed to conveniently kill. Recently, it’s been reported that water bottles (the major brands too) contain alarming amounts of plastic. So the convenient water bottles have been slowly poisoning us, and they announce it nonchalantly. Like no big deal, it was a part of the plan.
As an aesthetics girlie, I thrive off creating little pockets of experiences in the most mundane activities. My wife and I romanticize learning pottery so we can make our own unique coffee cups, bowls, and dinner plates. Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something special about your homemade pancakes with your signature blueberry sauce (family classic) but enjoying them off a nice plate. I look at the experience like property value, to have not only a go-to homemade pancake recipe but a blueberry sauce recipe too at the age of 33 is a flex, but to serve those thick fluffy pancakes on a paper plate with the silver spoon brings the property value down. For me, it’s giving gentrification.
Our culture once took pride in the nice things, I remember growing up there were the ‘good’ plates and the everyday plates, but never paper plates. That was new and when they were brought into the house they were used with a broken mindset. Forced to save my plate if I planned on eating again, or washing plastic forks and red SOLO cups. Not in my house we won’t ever purchase paper plates, I’ve even considered purchasing ‘happy birthday’ plates for birthdays with red velvet pancakes with candles on top! I can’t subscribe to the projected ghetto shit, but I will stand proudly for all the cultural ghetto-ness!
I got approved y’all…we finally going HOME!
Thank you for reading this piece, and if you want to explore more about how we as a culture can free ourselves from the forced conditioning I think my book will interest you. My passion for my entire life has been exploring the depth of black culture, specifically the street and hip-hop side of black culture. There is a chokehold that it has on me like Yvette and Jody from Baby Boy. I love our culture, but I also understand how toxic and abusive our culture has conditioned our generations into. I believe there was an agenda and we, Black Americans, were the focused subject. Our downfall specifically. It’s worked to a certain extend but people are waking up to the patterns of the agenda, we are questions motives. We are becoming a threat to their security of supremacy. The last four years I have dedicated my focused work to studying the connection between our cultural conditions and the societial patterns of an agenda.
This work has been done through self-discovery coaching sessions with black men and women from all the world. I still can’t believe I’ve had clients in Africa, UK, and Canada! As I learned and discovered things about myself and found ways to incorporate them into my sessions I noticed we collectively would shift into new timelines. Our experiences in reality were different, better. As if we were experiencing a greener side after all. This curiousity sent me on a personal quest, in spirituality known as the rite of passage. Which is how I have landed in California nine months later transplanting the roots to the seeds I planted. My book is my first source of research thoughtfully written out with story times of my life experiences to make the reflections relatable for our culture.
I have 86 exclusive author-signed copies available for purchase. Here is a bit of transparency, the road to secure a home in California has been a 4 month long journey of Airbnb stays and sleeping on an air mattress in my father-in-laws office.
As I write finish this piece I am full of gratitude to pay my deposit and sign my lease for our new home. Although the numbers are initimidating I have faith that things will work out because they always have up to this point. The 86 copies I have left will provide the safety nest I desire to not only move into our new home but purchase beds and the essentials we need. When I manifested this move, I spoke into the Universe that I would be able to move into our home with more than enough and that’s what I have faith that I can expect. I deserve more than the struggle trend of only having enough for the move in cost.
I asked the Universe what do I need to do to get keys to my new home next week, and who do I need to become to align with the version of me that gets keys next week. The answer way clear, show up! May proved to me that when I show up for myself, community will show up for me too. And this community cultivated has shown up for me in numbers! I’d lie if I said the numbers don’t excite me, but the numbers don’t determine when or how I show up. With more people reading, I’m now led to show up in the most vulnerable way by saying I need help! I don’t want you to give me twenty dollars, no that doesn’t feel fulfilling. I am asking for you to support a project that I followed my intuition to create, because I want to inspire you to do the same so we can support you in the same way.
In a society that is turning into, give me your money, marketing my book just feels wrong honesty. I romanticize the idea of me setting at a local coffee shop with my books stacked on the table neatly with a sign that reads ‘Marketing is weird now, and I don’t want to be weird. But I wrote a book that I really want to share with the world. So I decided to meet the reader where you are, if you want to talk about my book I’d love that!’ I don’t want to be weird on here either, but if I was to show up authentically this is how I would do it. Being honest about my situation, and rather than asking for a hand out I have something of value to sale. Not only that, but every person that supports me from my Substack community by purchasing my book I am gifting a paid subscription.
Why?
Because the paid subscription is discussions about the book. I really want to have open and honest conversations with the culture about the traps we are conditioned to live by. This book is a passion project, a true resource to support my missionary work. It’s no need to travel to another country to do this work when I can start right here where the culture needs the support.
Thank you to and for your purchases, you both have spoken so much life into me boosting my confidence to show up and share my book with community! Be on the lookout for your gifted subscriptions in your inbox!
To purchase your copy and join the discussions, the link to order is here: https://www.jacquieverbal.com/preorder-book
If you are not able to purchase at this time, but want to support engaging with this post is fulfilling enough! A simple like, comment, and share is like a standing ovation for me showing up again!
Love,
Jacquie
Article Resources:
https://time.com/5684505/ghetto-word-history/
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-milestones
https://fastercapital.com/content/Ghetto-to-Gentrification--The-Ongoing-Battle-for-Urban-Spaces.html
Congratulations on being accepted and moving into your new home! As soon and I have some extra coins I'll be purchasing your book, so happy for you!!!
I've only used paper plates during Thanksgiving.