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A lot of times "Urban" is used as a euphemism for black people, usually who live in a ghetto. That seems to limit the term "urban" down far too much, as many many other races and kinds of people live in "urban" areas.
I always thought this perspective comes from people in the American northeast or the midwest. It illustrates the fact that you hardly have any rural blacks in the northern half of the country.
I actually don't know anyone who associates Urban w/black. I think maybe really old people do or people who are kinda "socially retarded trying to be hip" Hello, its 2010.
I always thought this perspective comes from people in the American northeast or the midwest. It illustrates the fact that you hardly have any rural blacks in the northern half of the country.
Exactly...While there are some rural and small town communities with anywhere from a few to a large amount of Black folks in those regions, it is more the exxception and not the rule like it is in the South.
Didn't it start in the music/radio industry? I seem to recall that the music industry applied "Urban" to a category of music in the 80s to avoid using a term that would make non-black people perceive that they were excluded from listening to that type of music. The radio industry may have adopted it to make the stations that played urban music more appealing to advertisers, to make it seem as if a people of many ethnicities were listening to the station.
I think this is true as well. If the radio industry just said "Black" music, then I think many White listeners, even if they liked the music would have been turned off by the term. Also, said terms are used to show a particular market target group. For instance, the term used in the 20's, 30's, 40's and 50's was "Race" music. Race record - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ben Around, as a Twin Cities resident you might appreciate this: I was surprised once to find an informal group of mothers with young kids advertising themselves as being from the "inner city;" excited to see where these city residents were meeting I was a bit startled to find that they were mostly all living in Cottage Grove! (for the non-Minnesotans, Cottage Grove is a suburb, and certainly not considered "inner city" by an stretching of the imagination or definition...) I agree that "inner city" has long been used out of context. I can only guess that these moms (who did seem to be serious) were using it primarily to define themselves as different from the people living even farther out from the urban core, but in this case weren't using it to suggest crime or other problems that are often associated when people start talking about the "inner city". I suppose once you start looking at America's urban sprawl then "inner", even when from just a strictly geographic standpoint, starts to mean drastically different things to different people.
Cottage Grove? I would have been shocked at Burnsville.
I guess being from the "inner city" is hip now.
Heres something interesting. I go to a small private school in Eagan. (Suburb of Minneap) We had to sign up for places to volunteer at for a day of service. One option was helping "inner city" kids learn how to read.
"Inner city" seems to still have some connotation of struggle and poverty. The "inner city" school was a few blocks away from my house. I am I not part of the "inner city" because I and my family generally are okay financially?
I thought "white flight" got big in the 60s. I think in the 1950s the image of "urban America" was still like The Honeymooners and West Side Story. (Okay WSS was largely about Puerto Ricans, who are Hispanic, but I think a good deal of them were fairly "white" Hispanics)
I agree. White flight got big in the late 60s and going into the 70s, about the time of the race riots. When I was a kid, I remember my parents moving us out of Chicago because the neighborhood was changing. My mother would drive me and my brother to school because she didn't like what was going on. Everyone for blocks around were moving out in waves. Very interesting time. That old neighborhood of mine is now a ghetto. Unfortunate, because at one time it was a solid middle class, clean and decent place to live.
Cottage Grove? I would have been shocked at Burnsville.
I guess being from the "inner city" is hip now.
Heres something interesting. I go to a small private school in Eagan. (Suburb of Minneap) We had to sign up for places to volunteer at for a day of service. One option was helping "inner city" kids learn how to read.
"Inner city" seems to still have some connotation of struggle and poverty. The "inner city" school was a few blocks away from my house. I am I not part of the "inner city" because I and my family generally are okay financially?
That's funny. Well, not really funny, more like offensive, although I'm sure whoever thought that one up had the best of intentions. It's definitely an interesting example of the assumptions people make when using the term "inner city." (and how ironic that I, an "inner city" kid in terms of growing up in the city and going to city schools, although not if defined by family education level or poverty, tutored "at risk" suburban kids in the TC!)
My problem with the term "urban" for a synonym of black is the fact that there are a lot of blacks who are from rural areas in the south. If you look at a population map for blacks you will find that outside of the south you will only find blacks in urban centers. But in the south there is a higher concentration of blacks everywhere. Also a lot of the black cultures we consider "urban" today originated in rural areas. You can argue that historically blacks have just as much of a rural history if not more than they do an urban one.
Edit: Good post rubber factory, I just saw that. I was too lazy to find a map myself lol
I always understood that urban areas were created in part to house blacks in cities before emancipation. Many slaves who were hired out or considered "virtually free" were owned by factories or industries but they lived on their own in designated parts of the city. They soon had to share this space with Immigrants and eventually the Jewish word "ghetto" was used Jews began to immigrate here.
Urban has been a slang word for black for some time. The Urban League, for example focuses on problems and issues and acts as a community agency mostly for African Americans in cities.
However, it is misleading. many cities have low black populations (particularly out west), and there are many rural African Americans, particularly in the south. Urban is way too broad a term to use it as a code word for black, in my opinion. It's a pet peeve of mine also.
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