Ghetto -- What does the word mean to you?

IlluminatingBikr

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People seem to use the word "ghetto" all the time. Sometimes it means that something is really cool. Sometimes it seems to mean a really awful and poor place.

I have looked up the dictionary's definition, but I would like to hear what the word means to you guys.

For me, the word ghetto reminds me of the Nazi concentration death camps. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif It kind of bugs me when people use the word lightly.
 

js

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Aaron,

Yeah. This word is thrown around a lot. I wouldn't want to try to define it, but I will tell a story that might shed some light on it.

I taught at an inner city Catholic Jr. High School in Syracuse NY, and the neighborhood there was such that the teachers in a sister school (in the heart of this "bad" neighborhood) would leave school as soon as possible on Friday afternoon--right after the students--because every weekend there were drive by shootings, killings, muggings, and other such violence. It is the kind of neighborhood where every year, at least, someone gets killed accidentally from a stray bullet. Someone sitting at home watching TV, or reading a book on the sofa.

"Ghetto" refered originally to those sections of a city to which Jews were restricted, and I suppose the term carried over to sections of a city where some other ethnic group lives in predominance.

But I do not think of the term in this sense. To me it means a neighborhood where poverty, crime, and gang violence are manifest and rampant; where there is little or no chance to get a "good" job, or do well enough in school to get into a college, or even more unlikely, to get a scholarship to college.

As a former teacher from a school in such an area, I can tell you I do NOT use the term lightly.

I remember doing some Christmas decorating with my class. We made a Christmas tree out of a broom stick and construction paper and streamers. It was a sorry little looking tree. I would call it a "Charlie Brown" tree. But one of my students called it a "ghetto tree". Actually, she said, "Man, is this tree ghetto, or what?" and I said, "So, you'd call this "ghetto", huh? hmmm." because I had never heard the term used in context like that before.

I actually wrote a short piece about my teaching experience there. It follows in case you are interested.

Lessons from the inner city.

I taught at an inner city Catholic school in Syracuse, NY. I taught sixth,
seventh, and eighth grade science, and to my eighth grade homeroom I also
taught Religion and English. I learned a very important truth during my
time at All Saints Jr. High, but before I talk about that I must tell you
what my students were like, and here again I will save the most important
thing for last.

My students were frightfully ignorant of all that was really important.
Their world was very narrow as was the range of human motives that they
understood. My eighth graders could not handle even simple operations with
fractions; could not find areas of basic shapes; could not write complete
sentences, match verbs and nouns or even find the verb of a sentence; could
not tell you the first thing about Christianity; did not know fundamental
Geography, History, or Science. Most importantly, they were preoccupied
with themselves and their own pleasures: all of this stuff that I was
teaching them was a game, so many hoops to be jumped through with the least
amount of effort required. They did not believe, even for a moment, that I
could teach them anything important about the world, their world. One
student, in a tone of disdain, asked me "why we need to know about
fractions?" "Well, how do you intend to make your way in the world?" I
asked him. "I'm gonna be a stockbroker," he said, as if this were the death
blow to my contention that he needed to know about fractions, "what am I
gonna do, MEASURE money?" he asked. I answered "AND HOW! If you think this
is hard you should try your hand at the stuff a stockbroker needs to know.
They deal with fractions all the time, and they need to do it in their heads
in a fraction of a second or they could lose lots of money." He didn't
believe me.

Yet it was more even than this: they rejected the very notion that
authority, any authority, had a basis in truth or justice. They resented
having to go to school, having to learn, having to do anything at all for
that matter. I was some star gazer who didn't know what it was like in
their world, in their reality. They couldn't see how any of what I was
teaching them was important. It just didn't match up with their crude and
corrupted understanding. They felt, deep down, that the world OWED them,
and that the world was withholding what was rightfully theirs. They
shouldn't have to work or struggle. It was all just a setup, a conspiracy.
For some reason they could not articulate, WE (the grownups) were trying to
ruin their fun out of spite, or at best, out of a misguided sense of what
was important.

Knowing that they didn't have the mental sophistication and concepts
necessary to follow me, I tried to simply tell them what they needed to
know, how they should feel and think about the world, what they should do in
order to put their souls in a state of order and health, but, they wouldn't
listen to me because they wouldn't trust me yet they couldn't be bothered to
expend the effort to follow me and find out for themselves. Any simple
objection was enough to convince them that I was wrong. Also they didn't
have the attention span to understand me. Some things can't be taught in
the time allotted between commercial breaks. Even for the things they
enjoyed, such as movies, they couldn't maintain their concentration. Once
after showing them a real movie, not an educational one (The Man without a
Face) I tested them over a handful of rather fundamental things. Anyone
paying attention would have been able to pass this quiz. They all failed,
except perhaps one or two people who did poorly. They did not have what
some muddleheaded educators like to call a "visual literacy." According to
any eighth grade measure they were not literate at all.

Many times, they were downright nasty to each other and to me. During my
first day I confessed that I was there for them. One of them laughed out
loud at this and the rest simply sneered or were embarrassed for me. I had
shown weakness. They were spiteful, vengeful, envious, chaotic, and
undisciplined. Eros ruled them; their souls were in a complete state of
disorder. Instant gratification was the thing they chose every time over
almost anything else. They were inclined in exactly the wrong direction.
Nothing shocked them. They were jaded, cynical, and pretended to street
smarts. There was no movie rating below X that they had not tasted. No
innocence that came to their awareness that they did not gleefully spoil.

They were constantly asking "why?" but not because they wanted to know why,
but because they wanted to throw an obstacle in the way of anything that
they didn't want to do. They were conspicuously lacking in gratitude. Many
times I went out of my way for one or more of the students, but this
inspired no feelings of gratitude in them; it merely appeased them for a
time. If someone did something nice for them they soon forgot it but they
remembered forever any slight or injustice, imagined or otherwise, and they
would pay it back tenfold. At this point both people would feel wronged,
one because he had been wronged first, and the other because the retribution
was not proportionate to the offense.

These students almost without exception came from broken homes and lived in
bad neighborhoods. As chaotic and noisy as the classrooms usually were they
were probably quieter and more ordered than what was waiting for the
students at home. They were surrounded on all sides by bad example, by
vice, by licentiousness, by hate, and by violence. What was my small single
voice and example next to that?

And this school was not free. Someone cared enough about each child to send
him or her to this school. Why? Well, as bad as things were they were much
better than at the public school in the same area. At the Catholic school
"shut up" was a swear word and was punished; at the public school students
swore everyday to each other and to the teachers and there was nothing that
was done about it. At the Catholic school the biggest fights were little
more than yelling matches; at the public school children were often stabbed
or beaten by other children and police visited the school almost every day.
At the Catholic school there was a dress code and by and large the students
complied with it; at the public school the children were often in such a
state of dress that they were indistinguishable from prostitutes or gang
members.

Our school was an oasis of relative order in the midst of insanity and
violence, but oh how far it was from the glory of God.

The most important thing about these students, these children, which I left
until last, was how wonderful and precious they were. I loved those kids
especially the ones who were most disruptive and rebellious. I wanted so
much for them to understand. I wanted them to see that I was on their side
and that I cared about them. I loved to see them play and laugh and have a
good time. I wanted them to sit next to their friends, even when this
encroached upon the order of the classroom. I did separate students when I
was forced to it, but I always gave in later and let them sit in their old
spots.

As a teacher I was a failure, I'm sorry to say. As an example I was very
near a failure: I was often angry with them; I often yelled; I often lost my
composure. But I cared about my students and I always tried to do right by
them and even if they didn't show it I pray to God that they knew this.
What will happen to them, my students? I had so much to offer them but they
got so little from me. I do not blame them, but I do sorrow over them.

And what I learned from the inner city, what I vaguely suspect and more than
suspect, is that this is how we all are towards God. This is how God sees
us, in this the decadence of the modern world.

We are, all of us, in a lamentable state. We are ignorant and
undisciplined. We have no attention span--God asks us to pray one hour with
Him, and we fall asleep. God tells us what we need to know but we do not
listen; we ask "why?" in bad faith. We are surrounded by filth and vice and
we only indulge ourselves in it We reject the very notion that there could
be any Church with authority. We don't believe that the Church could have
anything to teach us. What could it tell us about OUR world, our lives?
And for those of us in the Church, which is a relative state of order in
this insane world, we are not grateful that Someone else has paid our
tuition. We do not get what we should or could from our time. We lack
gratitude. The things we think are important are not the things that are
really important. Our understandings are crude and corrupt but we pride
ourselves on our cleverness. We reject the Faith even though it is only
God's loving attempt to tell us what we need to know because He knows we are
not able to see clearly. And most importantly, God loves us beyond what we
can even imagine, and He sorrows for us. What will happen to us, His
children?

When I think this way and when I remember how bad I was to my teachers and
my parents (God bless them) all I can think is that it is not too late;
there is still time to have Faith and trust. God loves me, and because of
that He wills not my pleasure and ease, but my struggle and deliverance. He
wants me to trust Him and to follow Him. With His help and the help of His
Church I can. May God so help me and may God bless us all and help us to
develope the virtues of humility and gratitude.

-Jim Sexton
 

Badbeams3

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To me...it means an area of run down properties. No one wants to live there...so the rents are low and homes are sold cheap. Lower income folks who don`t want to work much can afford them. They buy old cars that barly run and when they stop running, stick them in the yard and let them rust. Their yards are full of clutter as they don`t have the money or desire to haul them to the dump. Kids roam the street unsupervised, join gangs and look for trouble. Drugs abound.

Women have lots of babies by as many differant men as possible (just incase one of the fathers makes it out of the getto and holds a job they can collect some sweet child support), but don`t marry so they can collect lots of gov and state assistance. Men just live off the women who live off the babies. Babies/children are the gettos main source of income.

You can give them jobs...but they will only work a little and undependably as jobs interfir with there boozing, drugging and baby making, And god forbid...if they earn to much they will loose their benfits...their free ride.

Cities don`t like them much, but never seem to know what to do about them. If you close one down you have to relocate the people...you can move them all into a brand new nieghbor hood and in less than a year it will just be another getto, but with newer paint.

Ken
 

LitFuse

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Thanks for sharing that Jim, even if it did get a bit "preachy" at the end. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I really feel sorry for the kids of today, they are asked to grow up way to soon. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif It's a shame that there are so many people that are happy to sell a child's innocence for a dollar, and that there are so many parents who are indifferent.

Peter
 

js

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LitFuse,

Yeah, sorry about the preachy bit at the end. I wrote it a couple years ago. I was going to edit that last bit out, but then I thought I'd just leave it as I initially wrote it. I don't mean to offend or exclude anyone, and my views have changed somewhat since I wrote it, for that matter. Anyway, I hope it wasn't too presumptuous of me to post it. Just seemed on topic, I guess.
 

js

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[ QUOTE ]
Badbeams said:
To me...it means an area of run down properties. No one wants to live there...so the rents are low and homes are sold cheap. Lower income folks who don`t want to work much can afford them. They buy old cars that barly run and when they stop running, stick them in the yard and let them rust. Their yards are full of clutter as they don`t have the money or desire to haul them to the dump. Kids roam the street unsupervised, join gangs and look for trouble. Drugs abound.

Women have lots of babies by as many differant men as possible (just incase one of the fathers makes it out of the getto and holds a job they can collect some sweet child support), but don`t marry so they can collect lots of gov and state assistance. Men just live off the women who live off the babies. Babies/children are the gettos main source of income.

You can give them jobs...but they will only work a little and undependably as jobs interfir with there boozing, drugging and baby making, And god forbid...if they earn to much they will loose their benfits...their free ride.

Cities don`t like them much, but never seem to know what to do about them. If you close one down you have to relocate the people...you can move them all into a brand new nieghbor hood and in less than a year it will just be another getto, but with newer paint.

Ken

[/ QUOTE ]

Ken,

While I admit that there is some truth in this, I have to say that it is on the whole a rather rash and insensitve generalization of a complex and thorny problem.

Yes, it is true that some of what you say goes on, but it is also true that there are some good people in the middle of a bad situation trying to do their best. I saw this first hand. I saw parents who cared enough about their children to want them in my school rather than at the public school. Parents who somehow scraped together the tuition, instead of sending their kids to public school for free. Parents who wanted their children to have a work ethic, and to be moral, upstanding citizens. Most of them weren't even Catholic! They just knew that our school was a much better place than the public school down the street. They were doing all they could against the pervasive bad influences all around them.

I'm sorry but the memory of these people belies your pat and insensitive summary of the situation.

Have you ever known anyone living in such a neighborhood? I mean, more than just knowing of them?
 

Badbeams3

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Yes to ever rule...its not in ever case true.

But this is why they still exist. When the women hit an age... say....32...they change their program...suddenly they are interested in education for their selected kids...the ones who are the eldest...the ones who show the greatest promise of doing good with education...the ones who they will need to support them after the child dependant monies dry up...untill they are eligable for S-security.

Insensitive...yea...your right. It`s my tax dollars and yours that they snip.

You and I have the concept that you don`t make kids unless you can afford them. They believe you make as many as you can to have an income off you and me. And yes thats a overveiw...but thats the concept that keeps gettos alive.

If you were to pass a law that...you had to give kids up for adoption after...mmm...three years of gov support...gettos would not exist. My opinion anyway.

Ken
 

Lux Luthor

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[ QUOTE ]
js said:...My eighth graders could not handle even simple operations with
fractions; could not find areas of basic shapes; could not write complete
sentences, match verbs and nouns or even find the verb of a sentence; could
not tell you the first thing about Christianity; did not know fundamental
Geography, History, or Science. Most importantly, they were preoccupied
with themselves and their own pleasures: all of this stuff that I was
teaching them was a game, so many hoops to be jumped through with the least
amount of effort required. They did not believe, even for a moment, that I
could teach them anything important about the world, their world....

[/ QUOTE ]

I had a somewhat similar experience a few years ago. I taught at an inner city (ghetto if you will) community college. I had two students who could not read or write english, and they were not foreigners. Many of the students weren't that much more capable.

I remember one question in particular that I gave on the first test:

"Draw the relative positions of the Earth, Sun, and Moon during a solar eclipse."

At the time, I thought it was a gift. But most of the class got it wrong, and a couple couldn't answer it at all because (as I said) they couldn't read.

It was all very frustrating to me. I still don't understand how people can get high school diplomas, yet seem to know almost nothing, and seem to want to keep it that way too.

I thought about that movie called "Teachers" with Nick Nolte that came out when I was in high school. In it, one student sued the school because he graduated, but couldn't read. I thought it was a joke at the time - just Hollywood drama. Surely, you can't get a high school diploma and not know how to read, I thought. Only later in life did I realize just how much this actually does occur, and just how helpless you can feel as a teacher when this gets dumped in your lap.
 

Badbeams3

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[ QUOTE ]
glock_nor_cal said:
Its the place i call home for the next 30 days

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, one should not stay long...it`s easy for it to become a trap.
 

Badbeams3

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[ QUOTE ]
Lux Luthor said:
[ QUOTE ]
js said:...My eighth graders could not handle even simple operations with
fractions; could not find areas of basic shapes; could not write complete
sentences, match verbs and nouns or even find the verb of a sentence; could
not tell you the first thing about Christianity; did not know fundamental
Geography, History, or Science. Most importantly, they were preoccupied
with themselves and their own pleasures: all of this stuff that I was
teaching them was a game, so many hoops to be jumped through with the least
amount of effort required. They did not believe, even for a moment, that I
could teach them anything important about the world, their world....

[/ QUOTE ]

I had a somewhat similar experience a few years ago. I taught at an inner city (ghetto if you will) community college. I had two students who could not read or write english, and they were not foreigners. Many of the students weren't that much more capable.

I remember one question in particular that I gave on the first test:

"Draw the relative positions of the Earth, Sun, and Moon during a solar eclipse."

At the time, I thought it was a gift. But most of the class got it wrong, and a couple couldn't answer it at all because (as I said) they couldn't read.

It was all very frustrating to me. I still don't understand how people can get high school diplomas, yet seem to know almost nothing, and seem to want to keep it that way too.

I thought about that movie called "Teachers" with Nick Nolte that came out when I was in high school. In it, one student sued the school because he graduated, but couldn't read. I thought it was a joke at the time - just Hollywood drama. Surely, you can't get a high school diploma and not know how to read, I thought. Only later in life did I realize just how much this actually does occur, and just how helpless you can feel as a teacher when this gets dumped in your lap.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see it as the father and mothers fault. They simply should not be parents...and thier not.
 

Joe Talmadge

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A word's definition is its use. Maybe an oversimplification, but a fine starting rule to follow. Whether you old guys /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif like it or not, among the definitions of "ghetto", a new one has emerged, and no amount of angst will stamp it out. It's a casual, offhand adjective describing something that would be typical of the inner city, in a negative way. The above example of "that tree is ghetto" is spot-on as to how the generation Y and below are using the term, and as long as hip hop is cool, I wager that won't go away.

Joe
 

PlayboyJoeShmoe

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I'm afraid I use the word lightly when I speak of "Ghetto" modding stuff.

I use it to explain using cardboard rather than rubber tubing or plastic pipe to put narrower batteries in a light.

I use it to explain the M*g C/D reflector Sport Taped to a Minim*g with a Madmax in it.

In the book "Unintended Consequences" the Warsaw Ghetto is talked about. It was a TERRIBLE example of Man's inhumanity to Man.

I'll try to refrain in the future!
 
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