"I wish I was a greaser!!!"
"I was born to be a greaser in the 60's...."
So many people who say this could never bare living in the working class or poverty and have most likely never experienced it.
While I am well aware that they most likely (hopefully) mean the friendships the "gang" has, they can easily word it differently. It pisses me off when people say this because it's clear they have no idea what it would actually be like to live in the circumstances the greasers do. I can tell you
You shouldn't WANT to be one in the first place.. it's the same way as saying:
"I wish I was poor in the minority groupppp.."
"i was born to live in povertyy".
I feel like people only glorify the "greaser" title is because of the 60's aesthetics and the "silly" parts of the movie..
I enjoy the movie and like the pop culture of the 60's.. but you can enjoy indulging in these while being aware that, not even greasers wanted to be greasers!
Also, you shouldn't even be WANTING to call yourself a "greaser" or "soc" . The entire point of the book was how the social division between socs and greasers only contributed discrimination(?), and how greasers were dehumanized and looked down simply because they grew up in poverty
Adding on, wanting to be a "greaser" is wanting to be surrounded by gang violence and assaulters, you only romantize it because of what you see in the movie. People do not care about the message, nor the point of The Outsiders.
If you're used to not worrying about how you're gonna eat, how you're gonna get money to survive, if you're gonna be jumped at any time of the day, for getting assaulted for just being yourself, or even worrying about how to get a job even if you're legally not allowed to, then you would NOT like to live how they did.
Wanting to be a "greaser" is wanting to grow up on the outside of society while everyone else else grows up on the inside of it.
I don't care that this is a stretch, GREASER IS STILL A DEROGATORY TERM AGAINST MEXICANS/GREEKS/ITALIANS. I don't really care atp because ufhhintonwhy but it shocks me that a lot of people weren't aware of this... Y'all don't wanna hear me, y'all just wanna dance😅
In The Outsiders, the greasers are portrayed as..gulp, white, just how the socs are. We don’t see a lot of minority struggles or representation other than them being in the hidden part of society and the outcasted, but I'd like to remember that them being cis, white men are part of their ehhh, out of lack of a better word, privilege
Going back to the original use of the term "greaser", remember that even white upper classmen refused to acknowledge the white greasers as white. It is literally discriminatory against the working class and the poor laborers. So if you happen to be a privileged person who "should've been born a greaser." why would YOU WANT TO use it?
Even if there were white greasers, they still grew up surrounded by poverty, violence, and overall major disadvantages. They were part of the working class, something nobody should ever experience except for some people on my list... They were simply trying to survive with the minimal support they were born into.
Not to mention that even their stereotypes included being reasoning for different forms of violence. That's yet another reason as to why the society at the time dismissed them as outcasts and those that did not meet the privilege nor standards of others who were lucky enough to grow up comfortably.
How can you call yourself a greaser without acknowledging the racist and discriminatory side of it? How can you call yourself a greaser when you grew up in the privilege?
How can you call yourself a greaser when you don’t take your time to even investigate about the subculture and its history? The greaser subculture was made by and for the working class, those who struggled with economic stability, those who faced discrimination just for their ethnic backgrounds, those who faced discrimination for a life they didn’t choose to have. You will never understand the struggles they had to go through.
IN SUMMARY: you wouldn't want to be a greaser, so stop saying you do. You don't want to be refered to as a racist term, you don't want to find a job underaged just so you can get paid minimum wage and spend it all on a week of food, you don't want to be constantly looking over your back in fear of getting jumped by people who think you're not human simply because of your wealth.
Greasers aren't a fictional thing in The Outsiders, billions of people live in it, bunches of people are lucky enough to get out of it, and it's something that most people who claim to "be a greaser" will hopefully never have to experience and never understand
