Mary is a young lady who runs a register in a ghetto supermarket. This past week, as customers of the oppressed kind were stacked up five deep at the registers with their heaping carts of carbohydrate, caffeine and sodium delivery systems—as well as a enough meat to satisfy the hunger of a Neanderthal family—a man stepped up to pay for his order with cash.

As this one, seemingly responsible and self-sufficient, citizen drew his knot roll of cash from his coat pocket, out fell a baggie of marihuana onto the register belt. Unconcerned the man began to peel off a bill and Mary scolded him.

“Sir, I do not appreciate that! You need to show some respect. I’m a recovering addict—clean for ten mutherfucking years and I don’t need you tempting me with your bullshit. I demand you respect that and put your shit away!”

Seemingly embarrassed, the man shrugged his shoulders, mumbled an apology, and placed his bag of weed back into his coat pocket, before completing the transaction.

Business then proceeded as usual. Mary’s fellow cashiers now have a new respect for their ‘somewhat rough’ coworker.

An interesting nuance of ghetto life is the high premium placed on, ‘politeness,’ and other aspects of ‘respect’. Among youths this ‘respect’ complex results in a lot of violence. But among adults one finds that ghetto people are generally more polite than suburban people for the very simple reason that habitual rudeness can easily get one shot, stabbed or stomped. This is, I think, a simple case of the old dictum of ‘an armed society being a polite society.’

As a man there are two aspects of this that makes navigating the urban social landscape preferable to the suburban:

If you hold the door open for a ghetto girl she will almost always thank you, and often with a smile, whereas her white suburban counterpart might accuse you of denying her equality, patronizing her, trying to have sex with her, etc.

When men are rude to you, then it is clearly intimidation or the preface for aggression.

Be mindful when negotiating the ghettoscape that your expressions of politeness be tinged with strength, not fear. And, when not female and not at a place of business where you enjoy the protection of an organization, make sure to eschew the profanity and aggression that marked Mary’s outburst. That tone can work if you are in the control position such as a service provider or a cop, but not when out on your own. Overall politeness works best when firm and free of aggression and profanity.