From the Miami Local 10 tv news:
Miami city leaders are apologizing for a news release that invited summer campers to a ''Ghetto Style Talent Show'' and ''Watermelon Eating Contest.''
The release said that children participating in the summer camp who "know the meaning of ghetto style" would have a chance to "prove just how ghetto they are.''
Members of the black community expressed outrage at the wording of the invitation to the talent show. The show will be part of the grand finale picnic for the city's summer camp program to be held Friday at Hadley Park.
After being criticized by residents of the nearby Model City neighborhood and community leaders, Miami Parks Director Ernest Burkeen, who is black, released a formal apology and announced the renaming of the talent show.
The show will now be called the "Funky Talent Show," according to Burkeen's written statement. The watermelon contest will still be part of the event.
File my objections under fish-in-a-barrel, but MLK have mercy, what is wrong with Ernest Burkeen and the entire professional staff around him that such a thing as this gets done? What in the world could he be thinking?
I object here, of course, purely on grounds of stupidity. There's nothing wrong with eating watermelon. Mmm, cold watermelon on a hot summer day. Plus, people are way too nutsy with carefully nurtured hypersensitivity about racial stuff to be offended by something that is not even perjorative, like eating watermelon- which by rights would be considered health food.
But promoting their summer camp activities as "ghetto" is kind of unavoidably at least a little bit perjorative, then combining it with the watermelon- which is obviously going to make that much worse. If you left out the "ghetto" tie, maybe the watermelon would be fine. But both things put together- how did they think people would react?
Article comments
1 - Temple Stark
I'm literally scared now. Not only do I agree with your take but I EXACTLY agree. Stoopid rulez.
2 - Al Barger
In my best Jon-Lovitz-as-Satan voice: Yes, Temple. Follow me. Become my willing servant!
3 - Kris
While I will wholeheartedly agree with you in terms of it being a little downright hurting, I have to say you definitely have to question what the world is coming to. With the plethora of resources for contests that the summer camp could've chosen...why on God's Green Earth would they choose something as stereotypical as a "Ghetto Contest". As if being black isn't an issue all by itself. I think that black people, at times, bite off more than they can chew. It's like we demand respect but yet in the same breath ask to be deemed "ghetto". Is that not contradictory? Furthermore, I will strongly argue that being ghetto is a culture that so many individuals choose, and even further it is not something that should be emulated. While conversing with other individuals on the subject, one pointed out that it could've easily been an oversight. Typically, oversights occur when there is simply a misunderstanding...That can also go along with the saying "Say what you mean and mean what you say" (i.e. if you din't intend for it to be a ghetto contest, then don't label it as such). In essence, I am appalled not because I'm an african-american but moreso because I'm an intelligent individual. I will even go on to suggest that instead of challenging children to be as ghetto as they can, why not challenge them to be something more (i.e. an individual who makes it out of the ghetto). I will continue to pray for the future of our children! Thanks for reading! And by the way...the word is "pejorative".
4 - billy
amazing. whats next the jewish community will have a potato latke eating contest? although i would say political correctness is run amok here, and the idea of worshipping the ghetto concept overall is a destructive thing.
5 - RJ
Yep. Real stupid.
Any intelligent person would have realized that there would be protests about such a thing.