Rural Dictionary

the ghetto

Building on the previous entry, in an urban American United States) context, "the ghetto" refers to areas, neighborhoods, wards, or districts of a city where, due to often racist and/or discriminatory municipal planning policy, certain groups have been intentionally confined and isolated because of their race or ethnicity.
The U.S. example of "the ghetto" is compelling because like the Jewish example cited in the previous entry from which the term originates, the racially homogenous African American ghetto neighborhood was created largely by racist land developers and planning policymakers who bowed to the whims of cruel prejudice named under the facade of "market forces."
In layman's terms, here's how it breaks down: African Americans move from the South en mass in the Depression years to Northern cities (Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, NYC, etc); White people don't like having to share their living space with people with more melanin in their skin. So they enact municipal policy to establish racially and ethnically homogenous neighborhoods; when school bussing comes around in the 60's trying to integrate the races, whites simply abandon the central city and move out to the good ol' sprawling suburbia; what you end up with is entire core city neighborhoods that are entirely African American and their tax base is too low to provide decent services, and we sit back in our lawn chairs in suburbia and wonder why they rap about "the ghetto" and about "hustlin" and about "keeping it real..." Keeping this in mind, "the ghetto" to African Americans seems to imply not just a location or domicile, but a racial solidarity unified in place in fierce opposition to the racial injustices that placed them there in the first place

So to those of you who are insensitive to African American culture, hopefully this little lesson on the racist policy behind creating "the ghetto" will inspire you to look upon hip-hop culture with a bit more benevolence and sensitivity.

So when someone says "Yo, we from the ghetto," it implies a separate culture and a separate frame of mind, which ties in nicely to keepin it real

by American Socialist November 17, 2006

95👍 71👎

the ghetto

im tired of ppl thinkn that the ghetto is the same as "the hood" .... because most ppl are uneducated, the have no idea wat the real definition is...a "ghetto"...goes back to times of the holocost, when the jews wer put in2 a secluded section of a city or town. A ghetto consists of 1 race..and only that one race resides there, except for a couple of other ppl..lets put it this way..a majority of this certain area is 1 race....that is a ghetto, not a hardcore hood'...get it right.

Black guy#1 - yeah i live in the ghetto.

Black guy#2 - me too. most of my family lives there. i feel comfortable because most, if not all, of the people in my town are black, and only black.

by -N.y.C- August 5, 2006

24👍 60👎

ghetto

1) A run down area of any town or city, but most often used in terms of the inner city. Any area with low or non-existent property value. May or may not refer to a high-crime area, but often does.

2) Anything that is jury rigged, broken in some way, or otherwise of generally poor quality. Refers to the frequency at which poverty-stricken people must improvise to survive on low income.

1) Pine Manor is a ghetto so full of drug dealers and other criminals, that it is often nicknamed "Crime Manor."

2) The students called their portable classroom "ghetto" because one of the windows is broken, the walls are covered with mold and ancient spitwads, the desks are falling apart, and the whiteboard has a number of inexplicable dents in it.

by King Asshat XVIII of Asshatia June 23, 2005

448👍 64👎

Ghettoing

To lower the class of a situation, person or place. To make something more poor in taste or social status.

Shane keeps ghettoing the country club by bringing his boys on the golf course and smoking weed.

by dbmetter July 30, 2009

46👍 5👎