Can someone fill us in on what ghetto is, I am hearing this term all the time now, usually to describe urban people who are disadvantaged and listen to hip hop music and call each other Baby mamas and Baby daddys etc.
Its a silly term and lost its meaning, a ghetto was originally a part of a town in Renaissance Italy where outsiders mostly Jews lived and were limited to being in, yet now it seems to involve people with names like Shaniqua who squeal a lot, have cheap ass hair extensions and 10 kids by the time they are 25. Its basically become a racist term of abuse now.

Seriously what does "Ghetto" mean to you

Christmas, lashings of cream and feeling a bt sick...oh wait, that's Gateux

historical jewish ghetto - a precursor to:

american black/economically poor area, a.k.a. ghetto

Ghetto was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. A ghetto is now described as a "portion of a city in which members of a minority group live; especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure."

The term came into widespread use in Ghettos in occupied Europe 1939-1944 where the Jews were required to live prior to their transportation to concentration and death camps.

The definition of "ghetto" still has a similar meaning, but the broader range of social situations, such as any poverty-stricken urban area.

A ghetto is formed in three ways:
As ports of illegal entry for racial minorities, and immigrant racial minorities.
When the majority uses compulsion (typically violence, hostility, or legal barriers) to force minorities into particular areas.
When economic conditions make it difficult for minority members to live in non-minority areas.

imo, it is a retro and dehumanizing term which has been detrimentally embraced by many blacks and urban dwellers to (ignorantly) romanticize the term.
also, to accept and embrace this term in modern day america as a brand name for the downtroddened poor black citizens of these areas is nugatory at best.

1.Word Origin & History: ghetto
1611, from It. ghetto "part of a city to which Jews are restricted,"
2. Origin:
1605–15; the name of an island near Venice where Jews were forced to reside in the 16th century known as Ghetto Nuovo:
http://venice.jc-r.net/campi/ghetto.htm note: From gothic housing to a isolated jewish quarter
[Edited 5/6/10 4:16am]

Huggiebear said:

So, how has it lost its meaning? Like a lot of English words, that meaning has maybe been altered. But you make clear the links between the original use and the current use, very well in your post.

It used to be a cool term.

Me and my girlfriends used to refer to each other as "ghetto fabulous". Now, people made it so damn redundant.

"Ghetto" has become the code word that people use for cover to excuse their pending ridicule of (usually poor) black people, much the same way "redneck" or "poor white trash" have become code words that people use for the same purpose of ridiculing poor white people.

I'm not a fan of the words or practice, regardless of hues involved -- especially because, at the root of it, you find the ancient practice of marginalizing people who have less money. But, I'm always super-serious before I've had my morning coffee.

'Round these parts, it just means urban poor people who usually have tacky style (not race specific). Much like "hick" means country poor who have tacky style (not race specific).

Huggiebear said:

The meanings of words always change over time, that's just the nature of words and part of what makes language so interesting (and IMO makes maths so dull)

When my friends and I say ghetto we refer to some of the things you mentioned but also a lot of positive things as well. For us it means an entire culture and quite often some childhood hip hop related nostalgia. But it's a lot like saying 'gay' or even the N word; it's meaning is completely dependent on the person saying it, their tone and the context, regardless though it's usually immediately clear if someone is saying it with disdain or not.

JustErin said:

..add no manners(talking loud/saying nothing) to tacky style. You're right, anyone can be 'ghetto', even folks from the suburbs.

ghetto means you have nothing. no money, no education, no frills.

Oh boy...

ThreadBare said:

I've actually stated this before when I saw that on 'Hot Ghetto Mess''s website that they had a section for "white hot ghetto mess". What struck me is that if you have a distinction for 'white' then regular 'ghetto' mess must mean black. Ergo, black must thus be inferred to be synonymous with ghetto.

Same as "white trash". If you need to say "white" in addition to "trash", doesn't that sort of denote regular trash is 'other than white' to say the least?

I use 'ghetto' all the time, but it's not race specific. I don't use white hot ghetto, because ghetto is ghetto.


But yeah, I agree with your post.

TheVoid said:

maybe the styles started as more predominantly racial, like nerds & geeks might be a white-spawned style, but any race can be ghetto, hick, trashy, nerdy, etc

We are all equally make-fun-able in whatever style we choose!

vivid said:

Well actually as Lafleurdove and myself have mentioned, its not an English word, but an Italian one derived from Venice (It may even be mentioned in "The Merchant of Venice" (1608) by William Shakespeare to describe Shylock's background).
I would like to know when it was highjacked by Black Americans to describe the urban working and vagrant class of inner cities. Interestingly some of the brownstones in New York date as far back as the 1840s, most of them are from the 1870-1900 period

1967
Integration Without Preparation Is Frustration”: Community Reactions to the Kerner Report: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6469/

President Lyndon Johnson formed an 11-member National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders in July 1967 to explain the riots that plagued cities each summer since 1964 and to provide recommendations for the future. The Commission’s 1968 report, informally known as the Kerner Report, concluded that the nation was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” Unless conditions were remedied, the Commission warned, the country faced a “system of ’apartheid’” in its major cities. The Kerner report delivered an indictment of “white society” for isolating and neglecting African Americans and urged legislation to promote racial integration and to enrich slums—primarily through the creation of jobs, job training programs, and decent housing. President Johnson, however, rejected the recommendations. In April 1968, one month after the release of the Kerner report, rioting broke out in more than 100 cities following the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. In the following statements to a joint Congressional committee hearing on urban employment problems, two directors of community-based job training programs in Philadelphia and New York City described their efforts. Both emphasized the need for increased federal funding to support practical ways to implement the Commission’s recommendations.



at that meeting:

STATEMENT OF REV. LEON H. SULLIVAN, CHAIRMAN OF THE OPPORTUNITY INDUSTRIAL CENTER, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

Mr. SULLIVAN. . . . The program I make reference to is OIC, the Opportunity Industrial Center program, a program created out of the black community, led largely by the black community, a program that was not begun by the Government, is not an agency program, is not a bureaucratic program, but is a program in the true American tradition—of the people, by the people, and for the people. It was initiated in an old abandoned jailhouse in Philadelphia in January of 1964. This program was begun with nickels and dimes from people in the black community, in the concentrated communities rather than the ghetto, for we abhor ghetto, we abhor it. And my people do not think they live in ghettos.

Situations may indicate to those who live outside that it takes on the proportion of a ghetto. We prefer not to be called ghetto-livers. We live in concentrated communities of America. . . .

Playwright August Wilson was an American playwright. His literary legacy is the ten play series, used the term "ghetto" in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1984) and Fences (1987), both of which draw upon the author’s experience growing up in the Hill district of Pittsburgh, a black ghetto.

i'm in the mindset (at this time) that this play influenced usage of the term ghetto, and caused a trekkle down effect, thus a term of acceptance by those living in urban black communities.

(with all due respect, the term was never hijacked. the word ghetto has always been used by the supremist to catagorize various minority groups according to the area where they live.)

Maybe it's just me but i used to get annoyed with the 90's r&b
artists that came around and started pronouncing yea we're from
the ghetto as though it's some kind of validation of who you are.
Yes you can grow up in the projects,but it's about where you going
and not where you came from and being an inspiration and uplifting
people out of the situation.

phunkdaddy said:

Its a case of "you can take the man outta the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto outta the man".

I feel you completely, though.

Back in the day, the ghetto was dire and people wanted to get out, the people who got out of it either explained how hard it was LIVING there, nowadays people broadcast it as if it's something to be "proud" of in terms of attitude like they were actually proud to act as if they were hard as the people they feared in the same neighborhoods. The same ones talking about "yes I'm ghetto" were the ones who were running from drug dealers and gangsters who wanted to either shoot them, beat them up or kill them.

Timmy84 said:

Ya know it

Its always those LOUD mice who shit diarrhea when pushing comes to shoving.

phunkdaddy said:

agreed

Funny... when I call someone "ghetto" I do so because they lack class and are not worldy. A ghetto person is a small-minded person to me. A person who can only associate their entire world within a limited scope of a specific urban setting.
*Someone who can own an expensive car but have to sleep in it because they have no home.
*A tacky homeowner that is shady enough to have all their utilities in the names of their children, because they are greedy and lack moral.
*Someone who will not speak to different types of people for fear that they aren't good enough to speak to them.
*Someone who knocks another when the other person has a different POV and wants to expand their horizons culturally/educationally/spiritually/etc.

I know people who live in the ghetto and are black/white/yellow and are full of class and hardworking. They just live in the ghetto/projects/brick because they simply can't afford to live anywhere else. But they can blend with rich people and no one will know they are from the projects unless that person tells them. They are refined and sport a cosmopolitan mentality.

I don't define a person as "ghetto" simply because of their socio-economic status, but more of their personality. Because I have met property owners and middle class people that are extremely "ghetto".

So the term has changed, but not towards a racial, or economic term, its more of a term of moral/personality/mindset.

Ghetto - (adjective) - Definiton - 2 women beating up a man for not holding the elevator door.

HonestMan13 said:

!!!!

From April 2009 - December 2009, my friend and her husband stayed in a tent on my top balcony porch.
They didn't like my roomate at the time, so didn't want to stay IN the house.
THAT shit was GHETTO.









... But I'm serious. They really did.

paintedlady said:

nuff sed!

uPtoWnNY said:

that would be....bourghetto!

BklynBabe said:

We need a pasta tossing emote!

what gets me is how trendy 'urban culture' can be where as to speak with slang u would only hear in the inner city, in the work place it seems to be a badge of fun and coolness but to show ur urban ness in the interview might cost u the job, it strikes as funny to see the working class constantly exploited and it is a joke among the 'civilized'

JustErin said:

I've also used it to refer to tacky behavior (not income or race specific).

Anybody can be ghetto nowadays.

New word for tacky or ill-mannered. Its not tied to race or color by any means.