Ebonics: What Is The Meaning Of The Word Ghetto?

In the article The Construction of the Ghetto by Massey and Denton, there are several policies and practices that still has its effect on racial structure today. Among the several practices and policies are the Government Issue (GI) Bill for veterans and housing loans. At a political view, the GI Bill for veterans helped them buy houses at a lower price due to their contribution in the war. Since White veterans have the GI Bill, they moved out to the suburbs during 1940-1970, which was during the time of suburbanization. Because Black veterans did not receive the GI Bill, they were unable to move out and buy houses. This effect is still present today, considering that in the statistics, Blacks are less likely than Whites to own houses.

The n-word is considered one of the most vicious racial slurs in the English language today. True that the n-word is closely associated with slavery and the oppression of blacks. Even after the abolition of slavery the word still haunted African Americans, especially in more segregated areas; where blacks were viewed as inferior to whites. In recent years the n-word has become less of a malicious slur in parts of our country. Public figures who use the n-word run the risk of losing their jobs. However, since the 1960s African Americans have coined the term “nigga”, when addressing one another. The rise of hip hop culture also enhanced the use of the word-they felt as though they are using the word as a term of endearment. Critics of the

Life in the ghetto was subjected to death. Many took their own lives, and others tried to escape.

Mostly ghettos are places or sections of a city, that are a thickly populated slum area inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic, or other minority groups, as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures or hardships. Ghettos also are places that do not have career oriented jobs but in most cases, they only offer trade jobs like sewing, hairdressing and carpentry. We can tell from

​According to dicitonaity.com, a ghetto is “a section of a city, especially a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships” (“Ghetto”). The five major ghettos were established in Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Lublin, and Lvov (“Holocaust Timeline: The Ghettos”). The Nazi Party used three different types of ghettos to isolate Jews from society. The three types were closed, open, and reconstruction ghettos (“Types of Ghettos”). Closed ghettos were the most common and often had high mortality rates as they were closed off with stone or brick walls, wooden fences, and barbed wire. The largest ghetto, Warsaw, was a closed ghetto and had over 400,000 people in an area of 1.3 squared miles (“Holocaust Timeline: The Ghettos”). Open ghettos had no physical barriers, but restrictions on entering and were often only in small towns used for temporary housing before relocating to a larger, often closed, ghetto. The majority of open ghettos were located in small towns, and in the countries of Poland, the occupied Soviet Union, and Transnistria. Lastly, deconstruction ghettos were tightly sealed off and only

Provided the unofficial definition, majority of the United States could easily guess the word: “The slums outside of Los Angeles. This area is very poor and revolves around gang violence, sex and drug dealing.” That’s correct, you guessed it right! It’s the infamous Compton. The city that everyone has heard in the news or in a song at one point or another. This definition was taken from Urban Dictionary, a site that allows anyone to define specific words and terms. It is easy to see that Compton is often related with drugs, crime and gangs, but the general public fails to realize the truth behind the suburb. The smaller Los Angeles district is filled with hard working people that have been disenfranchised and defined as numbers and statistics.

According to Merriam-Webster a ghetto is, “ a part of a city in which members of a particular group or race live usually in poor conditions (ghetto).” This paper will focus, however, on what daily life was like in the ghettos, what Jews did or didn’t do to prevent their fate, and how Holocaust survivors are doing now. I chose this topic because when Elie and his family were living in the ghetto in the beginning of Night, it seemed as though they had plenty of opportunities to escape that they didn’t take. It also seemed much closer to pleasant than I imagined, and I was curious to see if that was completely true.

The ghettos were streets where Jewish people lived. The three main ghettos were Lodz, Warsaw, and Theresienstadt. It had horrible living conditions. They were non-sanitary, bad electricity, extremely crowded, and there was not enough food. Contagious diseases spread rapidly due to all of these bad conditions. Everyday children became orphaned, and many had to take care of younger

Living in the ghetto has to be as much a physical as a spiritual trauma because a person cannot separate the two.

live in the ghetto (Senghas). It is interesting to note that during an interview conducted in the

Gentrification. More than a word but a statement that there is something new in town. A statement that allows one to see that there would be changes that will tear some families down but build some up. It had originated during times where blacks had been moving up on the ladder and was not wanted. Around the 1960’s there had been powerful upgrowing black businesses that many do not know today due to gentrification. Many things have kept culture alive in the district during the times of gentrification such us the music but things that people love. Teenagers and adults all over the globe, but mainly in the district have felt the empowerment and movements of Muhammad Ali. A man who had been more than a boxer, someone who fought in the ring and his people.

Along with this, it also talks about the increased isolation that ensued as a result and left both groups of people from rarely ever integrating with each other. This hypersegregation thus resulted in huge gap in resources, levels of crime, and price levels between predominantly white and black neighborhoods. The effect of this hypersegregation is constantly seen in Kendrick’s song as he describes growing up in a neighborhood full of crime, and few people working. However, through Kendrick’s verses the listener can see the internal struggles hypersegregation has on a human being living in the ghetto away from any other life different than his surrounding. This is not only seen internally in Kendrick as he deals with the struggle of getting exposed to a whole new environment and shaking away the tendencies of the old one. The effect is also is seen in his friends when he raps “But something' came over you once I took you to the fuckin' BET Awards, You looking' at artists' like the harvests, So many Rollies around you and you want all of them” (Source). His friends are experiencing two effects of hypersegregation, the first being that they are shocked to see a whole new world other than the poverty stricken neighborhood they always are around. The Second is that as a result of only operating in one segregated setting Kendrick’s friends

These areas where a place that was reserved for your kind of person and if overstepped the line and moved in to a street where you were not of the ethnic majority then you would expect a cold, even fierce reception. These ghettos were in virtually every northern city with blacks being mainly in Chicago and New York. Racial tensions were not only present in the northern cities; they were all over the southern states as well as black people sometimes outnumbered the whites.

the city, and the small suburb of Watts turned into a black ghetto inside of a single

Unlike the suburbs yet a suburban mentality was instilled; the idea that how we appear to others and education is the key to social mobility, well, the legal key. Although I was born a child of the ghetto I learned that the ghetto is where I’m teenage mother in Kingston, Jamaica. I currently reside in Seaview Gardens a community that is said to be a ghetto, and don’t get me wrong, it is but it’s my suburb and it’s where I learnt everything I know. “What people think of a ghetto is dependent on how people in the ghetto think” – Shadiomar McPharlene; where I live although there’s distractions all around,