ghetto.

words.

for your consideration...

"Topshop's use of the term "ghetto" is meant to be neither descriptive nor interrogative. The retailer used it for the same reason that most people who have never lived in one do — because they think it's a cute and edgy thing to say. Same reason the friends I made in college called the supermarket near my childhood home "so ghetto" with wrinkled noses. Same reason my white friends in L.A. seem to relish calling the police helicopters that fly overhead at night "ghetto birds." Same reason people loved calling nameplate necklaces and gold chains "ghetto fabulous" 10 years ago — although now we've moved on to "ratchet," a term that's slightly more coded and thus gives its user even more insider cred.

There really isn't any good reason to name a shoe "ghetto" or to use it as a throwaway adjective at all. This is not about being PC or on a linguistic high horse. This is about the fact that ghettos are real places, right now and in every city, where generations of people are stuck in institutionalized poverty. Ghettos are a serious human rights problem, not a cutesy dismissive descriptor for anything vaguely "urban." So, you know, can we just...not?"

REFINERY29: So...Why Is Topshop Calling This A "Ghetto" Shoe?