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Two young black girls wearing parkas with synthetic-fur-lined hoods pulled over their heads started barking, loudly, over and over again, not “Roof!” but “Woof!” After a few minutes two librarians escorted them down the main aisle and toward the door. The girls kept barking on the way out. When they were gone, a black man at the table with me told the black woman with him that the girls were “ghetto.” On the subway once, I saw a black woman open and eat part of a cellophane-wrapped cake or doughnut with powdered sugar on it, then wrap the bite or two that remained back in the cellophane and put it back into her winter coat pocket, and the woman with her told her that that was ghetto. Twice now I’ve heard black American girls refer to each other as “son,” as in, “Listen, son.”