by Robert Conn

Created on: January 31, 2009

What are luxury items, if not "ghetto" these days?

Take your child to the mall, or a jewelry store to buy him or her a graduation gift, and you'll understand exactly what I'm talking about.

I wanted to buy my daughter a nice necklace, so I took her to a popular jeweler...went straight for the gold (which has always been the most desirable throughout my life), and was told immediately; "No, daddy. Not gold, that's too ghetto."

I thought to myself, and then aloud, "This can't be true!" "Gold used to be a symbol of prosperity, hard work, accomplishment, and now...it's just plain cheap?"

My eyes were opened that day to the rest of the luxury items which have been cheapened as a result of this "gangster" image.

Again, thinking back when I was in my teens, I can remember how kids with clean white tennis shoes always came from upper-class families.

These kids were considered "preps", and you just knew that their parents were prosperous, clean, productive members of society.

Take your son to the shoe store these days, reach for a nice pair of white tennis shoes, and prepare yourself for another speech about what is and isn't "ghetto".

Would you like to save yourself the embarrassment of getting a very loud education while shopping with your child?

Here's a simple way to find out what has become nothing more than gumball machine trinkets in the eyes of mentally stable young people.

Turn your television on, and click over to any popular music video station.

It's important that you mute the sound so you can get the true visual effects of what these people are promoting.

Here's a checklist of what to look for:

* Women - Are they considered valuable, precious, or even significant?

* Expensive tennis shoes - Do children receive these from affluent parents these days, or should they do anything possible to obtain them?

* Jewelry - Is a nice herringbone necklace even glamorous anymore? Is gold even considered a precious metal, or is it some kind of toy that is used to grab people's attention?

* Sports car - Has the idea of retiring and finally being able to own a nice sports car been shattered by the appeal of these people to obtain them through drug / blood money - such as it was with the Cadillac?

* Cash - Honestly...watching these videos has given me a knot in my stomach thinking about how even cash has become so disgustingly promoted.

* Cellular phones - Gone are the days when business men and women awarded themselves the luxury of having a cellular phone. These days, they're everywhere...but even so, you'll see on these videos how having one up to your ear - even if it's not in use, is used to attract people's attention.

So, to answer the question, I whole-heartedly believe that luxury items are less desirable.

As long as our nation exalts this disgusting trend, we'll continue having nothing which defines reward for hard work, and achievement.

A Cross Pen gift set is probably the only thing that hasn't been "blinged up".

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