Everyone knows "urban" means "black," ita. Sheesh.
Here in PR, oatmeal is everywhere - you can even get it at McDonalds. It's usually a bit sweeter than I like but it's very convenient - especially when your two-year-old loves it.
A former coworker spent some time at a language school in Guatemala (?) last year, and her host family kept offering her Quaker, and she had no idea... until they showed her the actual container. Because of course they were pronouncing Quaker en espanol -- more like quah-care.
Urban as code for black goes back a while - Network television demographers, IIRC, may have originated it.
[Aside from the Simpsons, context long forgotten:
Lenny: "Pick me, I'm Lenny!
Carl: "Pick me, I'm the urban Lenny!"]
I don't know why it irks me more when black people use racial euphemisms than when white people do. But why the fuck do they have to do it?
Then again I have a general beef with descriptions of identity that leave the language with fewer words or fewer ways to be specific.
And that's before you get politically correct.
Porridge is pretty big in Jamaica, or was--we certainly didn't have much cereal growing up. For the kids it was oatmeal or cream of wheat. My father liked cornmeal best, and our dogs were fed leftovers tossed into hot cornmeal porridge every night.
Mmmm, now I want cornmeal mush.
mmm I love hot breakfast cereals of all varieties.
I had catfish and mashed potatoes for lunch and I am starving still. WTF?
Mmmm, now I want cornmeal mush.
Oh, god, mush. I have no idea how my Grandma did it, but I cannot recreate it.
I don't know why it irks me more when black people use racial euphemisms than when white people do. But why the fuck do they have to do it?
I am always overhearing conversations on the bus, and black people are always asking people, "Oh is (this person you are talking about) white or black?" whearas the white people are all like "Um, is she, you know 'urban'?..."
Big Brother is watching us: [link]
Catfish! I haven't had that in forever. Maybe since New Orleans.
Lunch today will be pizza leftovers, as long as my stomach complies.
At the juvenile hall, which is mostly black and Latina/o, they ask for "urban books," which they mean to be about blacks/Latina/os/gangs/inner-city.
I had an early lunch of pizza leftovers. Lunch twinsies!
