Assorted Comments -- Slums

[Wilson Gray]

At 11:19 AM -0400 5/23/07, Doug Harris wrote:

>I've always thought of a slum as a dirty, crowded, crime-prone area.

Yes. That's my point, exactly. It's not unusual for a neighborhood to
contain or even to be a slum, regardless of the race or ethnicity of
the people who live in the neighborhood. But once "slum" is
disappeared and replaced by "ghetto," not only is Jewish history
distorted,

["Panelist: Everybody's always talking about the Jews ...!!!"

 "Moderator (interrupting): Excuse me. No one here has said anything
about the Jews."

 "Panelist: No. But you will! You will!"

 -Richard Pryor]

but it's been a very small step from "neighborhood that may contain or
even be a dirty, crowded, crime-prone area" to "dirty, crowded,
crime-prone, black neighborhood that anybody with any sense will stay
the hell out of, unless, of course, he's in real estate and is
planning to gentrify the neighborhood and flip it."

-Wilson

On 5/23/07, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Assorted Comments -- Slums
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 11:19 AM -0400 5/23/07, Doug Harris wrote:
> >I've always thought of a slum as a dirty, crowded, crime-prone area.
> >--
> >If someone doesn't do something soon to curb the climber count AND
> >the rubbish they're leaving behind, we're gonna have to add to the
> >list (of places with 'em) the slums of Kilimanjaro. And Everett,
>
> that's the mountain that's so popular with climbers who can't count past two
>
> >  and
> >all the world's other major peaks.
> >An 18-year-old (female) Californian recently became the youngest
> >person to complete climbs to the top of the highest peaks on each
> >of the seven continents. She did Kilimanjaro when she was 12.
> >
> >
> >>
> >>  Well, there are the slums of Beverly Hills, from the eponymous late
> >>  90's movie, but I imagine there's some irony involved there.
> >>  LH
> >
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All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
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                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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