- Welcome to Rachet or Runway!

The game show where you decide what's trashy and what's classy.

I'm your host, Jake Jamal Johnson the third, and today, we're gonna get to the bottom of this.

People playing at home, you ready?

- What the heck?

- Alright!

10 seconds on the clock.

Rachet or runway?

- [Azie] Runway?

- [Contestant] Runway.

Rachet.

- [Azie] Definitely rachet.

- Azie, can you believe this?

- What makes a fashion trend go from low brow to high class?

How does the person wearing the style change its perception, and whose taste gets to be respected?

- Hold onto your boxer braids for this one, y'all.

(funky music) - Oh, the ghetto!

- That ghetto.

- This is the most ghetto ever.

- Oh, that is so ghetto.

- In this context, ghetto is synonymous with poor quality.

When something malfunctions, ghetto.

When a less than satisfactory substitute must be cobbled together, technically, that's resourceful, but some would call that ghetto.

- Or rachet, which is what the kids are saying these days.

- Today it has classist undertones and says, "I'm judging this person, place or thing "for their perceived economic disadvantage."

- Where did this word come from, and how has its meaning changed over time?

We gotta phone a friend for this one.

- There's no consensus, necessarily, on the origins of the term ghetto, but the one thing that is consistent across the board is that at its origins it was used to describe conditions and communities where Jews lived.

Looking at maybe 1600 Italy, right, that ghetto was a term used to describe the neighborhoods where the Jews were confined.

Nazi Germany later purposefully created ghettos.

Later, it came to then be applied to describe communities where quote unquote minorities lived, or black and brown folk, or people of African descent, or Latino.

And always used, the term has been used to distance the mainstream from quote unquote those people.

Jews weren't always considered white.

They're considered white now, and at the time when they weren't considered white, the kind of shaming and characterization that we now see being applied to black and brown people was actually applied to them.

It's about who has access to certain power to be able to even judge something else as ghetto.

- Because of its more recent meaning here in the US, people use ghetto to describe everything from behavior to food.

- Ain't nobody got time for that!

- Applied to the world of beauty, fashion, and even attitude, emerged a different term: ghetto fabulous.

- Ooh, let's play a game.

- What?

- Alright!

True or false: If you Google "Ghetto Fashion" right now, one of the top results is the Wikipedia page for "Hip Hop Fashion."

- I don't know how I feel about that, but I think it's true.

- Correct!

You'll also find these images.

- Okay, that one makes me feel some type of way.

- Same!

Next question.

True or false: During Milan Fashion Week 2016, German designer Phillip Plein named his show "Alice in GhettoLand", sending gold chains, bright prints, and sneakers down the runway.

- Now that has to be false.

GhettoLand?

That's not even clever.

- Ooh, so sorry!

It's true.

Paris Hilton walked the runway, Fat Joe and Fergie performed, and set decoration included the lawn gnome with the word pimp written on its chest.

- Like he's a gnome that takes money from prostitutes?

- It would seem that way.

- I think we need help understanding how ghetto fabulous, hip hop, race, and class all come together in the beauty world.

- This language is coded, right?

The people who put hip hop fashion and equate that with ghetto aren't people who know a distinction between hip hop and rap.

Hip hop is a code for black and poor.

Urban is another term, right?

So the language is coded, ultimately, and when you call something hip hop, it's how you get to say ghetto without being reprimanded for saying ghetto.

It's a dance.

- And it's important to also note that culture doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Context matters.

Yes, different types of people around the world cover their hair, but here in the US, a head wrap has a specific historical connotation, and you can't just choose to ignore that.

- I mean in general, how something's perceived depends on who's rocking it.

If you value thinness, leggings are the obvious clothing option for healthy, active bodies, but a marker for laziness for others.

- And take the concept of thrifting.

It went from something to be embarrassed about to a sustainable, eco-friendly lifestyle choice.

I mean, we want people to know our clothes are secondhand.

And did you see that Champion hoodies are going for like hundreds of bucks?

- [Azie] The Walmart brand?

- [Evelyn] And now all your favorite Instagram baddies rock it like, mm, Champion, Champion.

- See?

Walmart.

Anything's possible.

- Ultimately when we have these conversations about appropriation exploitation, I think what's important to recognize is that it's also not very hard lines in terms of race, right?

There are black people who shouldn't have access to certain cultural motifs, I think, because when we talk about ghetto, for example, like right now everybody wants to wear a bamboo earring, we all have gold fronts, we're rocking the chains, right?

If we say that that is a ghetto aesthetic and that it came from a particular area, do you have access to that area?

Would you even go to that area?

Or do you even think of it as that area, right?

Or do you go out of your way to avoid those people?

So for me, all of us have to check ourselves in terms of our proximity, what is the thing?

Do we want to be able to put the thing on and perform to other people that I'm fly, I'm hip, I'm up to date, or are we putting it on with the same level of bravado and resistance as the people who created it?

- Big thanks to our expert for weighing in.

If you want to keep up with their work, you'll find more info in the video description box.

- See you next week.

Bye!

- No, not yet.

We've come to the end of our show.

But first, audience question!

When was the first time you heard the word ghetto?

Extra challenge, don't troll us!

Leave your answer in the comments and hold onto your do-rags, because you might be our next contestant.

Subscribe, follow, social media, et cetera.

I'm your host, Jake Jamal Johnson the third, and this has been Ratchet or Runway!

- 21 seasons.

Binge night it is.

(funky music)