"Ghetto Girls Rock" T-Shirts Hit the Market as First Lady Michelle Obama and Family Vacation on Martha's Vineyard

Now that First Lady Michelle Obama and her family are vacationing on Martha's Vineyard, the whole dust-up about Mrs. Obama being a "ghetto girl" who wasn't fit for this exclusive community is back on the front burner. New York magazine published the article, written by veteran journalist Touré, titled "Black and White on Martha's Vineyard." In this tribute to the affluent Black community called Oak Bluffs in the popular New England vacation spot, Touré quoted an anonymous member (a coward is more like it) of Black high society in Martha's Vineyard saying, "[Michelle Obama] is basically a ghetto girl. Now comes an article written by Belva Davis in the San Francisco Chronicle that mentions a new t-shirt that touts being a "ghetto girl."

My friend Abigail McGrath sent me this graphic of a t-shirt she expects to sell a ton of over the next week. Frankly, I didn't know what to make of it. From her press release:

The very idea of confusing "ghetto" with negativity rather than historical disenfranchisement is wrong and offensive, says Vineyard resident Abigail McGrath: " Folks are confusing cash with class."

Only on the most poorly informed television networks and fictionalized TV series is "ghetto" equated with gum-chewing, finger-snapping air heads and gun-toting thugs.

So Ms. McGrath has designed a T-shirt bearing the slogan "Ghetto Girls Rock!!!," listing on it the names of 48 famous women who came from "the ghetto" and made the world a better place. Women such as Mother Theresa, Mother Hale, and Fannie Lou Hamer grace the shirt with dignity and aplomb. Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Personally I believe that the term "ghetto girl" has negative connotations and it is nothing to celebrate. I scarcely think that Mother Theresa, Mother Hale, Fannie Lou Hamer, Golda Meir, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Bella Azbug, Anita Hill, Sonia Sotomayor and all the other women mentioned, would consider themselves "ghetto girls." Though the intent of the t-shirt is to show others that there are many great women of modest means who have accomplished a great deal in life, it can also be perceived as another ploy to sell t-shirts and make money. We must strive to dispel such negative stereotypes, not embrace them for monetary gain. Michelle Obama deserves the same level of respect afforded to all our first ladies -- Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Bush, Roslyn Carter, to name a few.

Photo credit:  "Ghetto Girls" t-shirt design, by Abigail McGrath (San Francisco Chronicle)