Is the term "ghetto" offensive?

[javadu]

I have heard this used by students recently and I am not sure how to react to it.

[cherokeeprogressive]

1. I'd bet my bottom dollar that it is offensive to somebody, somewhere. n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

4. If no one else steps up, I'll volunteer to be offended by it. n/t

[cherokeeprogressive]

8. There's always one... n/t !

[cliffordu]

10. Thanks for that. I was going to be offended, but I'm really tired after watching

the new Batman movie.....It's nice to have someone to take up the slack.

I thought that Heath Ledger kid was GREAT! My kind of bad guy.

[ColbertWatcher]

11. You can be offended on the week end, I've got some errands. n/t

[cliffordu]

14. Cool. Just let me know when you want me to take all the offense....

Do you think we should manufacture some outrage, too, or just fan the flames of Real Concern??

[ColbertWatcher]

19. Check the handbook. n/t

[yellowdogintexas]

2. depends: if they are talking about the student ghetto, then no

that was what we called the overpriced apartments in Cambridge and Somerville back in the day when my ex was in grad school @ Harvard.

ghetto technically is any place that a particular group is living, to the exclusion of other groups.
It usually also implies poverty.

Ghetto was what the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe were called, the ones where the gates were closed at night. In Spain they were called barrios, and these terms carried over to America as groups emigrated. There were Italian ghettos, Jewish ghettos, Irish ghettos. black ghettos, Asian ghettos, and Latino ghettos. Poor, lots people crammed into small substandard living spaces (tenements) as each group became successful and moved on the next wave of immigrants took over their old area.

These days it would mostly be referring to poor neighborhoods, usually black but also Latino and even occasionally Asian. I guess the poor white ghettos are the shabby trailer parks of the South?

[11cents]

7. Small correction

The original ghettos, walled-off parts of cities that Jews had to live in, were a western European phenomenon, not eastern European. That's indicated by the fact that the word "ghetto" is of Italian derivation. German cities also had ghettos, from the middle ages until mid-19th century. Jewish communities in eastern European tended to be rural towns and villages called "shtetls."

[yellowdogintexas]

23. I stand corrected, shtetls would be the Yiddish term. I was going with what

post Holocaust (western) authors use in their fiction you often hear references to the"Warsaw Ghetto'

and true they were forced into these communities w/gates shut at night, where as the immigrant ghettos regardless of group were not

[SteelPenguin]

36. It comes from Venice

The Venetian Ghetto was the source of the word. Ghetto derives from the Italian word for Foundry which was located in the section of the city where Jews were forced to live.

[EFerrari]

3. Words are generally not offensive so much as their context is. n/t

[javadu]

5. I Need To Add Context --- I Should Not Have Assumed

Here are some samples, "That rusted out car is very ghetto."

"I know I deserve a bad grade for turning in such a ghetto paper."

Actually, as I type the sentences, I am embarrassed that I needed to ask the question. Nevertheless, it is a term that is becoming quite prolific and not in a good context.

[IndependentDem]

9. it depends...

If a rich kid tells a poor kid that he is ghetto or something about him is ghetto than its a bad thing and probably offensive. If it's two friends talking than it probably isn't offensive. It has also worked its way into being a pretty common slang term.

check out http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ghetto

[TexasObserver]

16. " ... you might be a redneck!"

As the entire Jeff Foxworthy library proves, it's all about context. WHO is doing the talking? WHO are they talking to? WHAT is the intent?

When people of like class and with existing linguistic license say something, it is accepted. Let an outsider say the same thing, without the same clear context and license, however, and it is the start of a fight.

[Toucano]

6. As in "That's so Ghetto!"

I bet the Polish Jews are outraged because it brings back painful memories.


:sarcasm:

I wish people would stop thinking they have to have a reaction to everything. Wouldn't you say that maybe since you don't know how to react, that you actually don't have a reaction? Wouldn't that actually be okay, too?

Do we really have to dig around for more to be outraged about with the current state of the world?

Hint on lingo: Context and intent matter.


:rant:



:headbang:

[mduffy31]

13. Not any more

Context and intent don't matter to some anymore.

[1]

12. any word can be offensive. what is your point?

"That rusted out car is very ghetto."

"That rusted out car is very gay."

"That rusted out car sucks."

"That rusted out car is very lame."

"That rusted out car is very dopey."



i can point you to all sorts of people that would find any of the above statements offensive. children say all sorts of shit in the "parlance of their time." you might have too in your time, if you think back on it.


how are you not sure how to react to it?

[TexasObserver]

15. Depends entirely upon context, including the relationship of the conversants.

Kids talking to each other may be ...

1. Friendly ... one friend to another, with false outrage "are you gonna get ghetto on me?"

2. Informative ... as in saying "I live in a ghetto."

3. Insulting ... as when one girl on Real World tells another, in anger, "you're acting ghetto!"

It's a word adult white people should think twice before using, as it tends to be coarse in such circumstances. Teenagers talking to each other, however, it may be perfectly fine, or the start of a fight. All depends on the relations and intent of the players.

[cliffordu]

26. Or, if you're Elvis trying for a comeback and sing "In the Ghetto..."

[TexasObserver]

29. written by Mac Davis!

and his momma cried ....

[cliffordu]

30. lol...

[tomg]

39. Great song.

Check out the Reverend James Cleveland version on youtube. The video with the Cranberries version is chilling ( not wild about the version, but the video does it). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToIjbdQhd_c

[treestar]

38. What is the adult white person to call the area in question?

The area of the city in which the poor reside? Is it racist to contemplate that they may be disproportionately black? Because one would think we would be racistly denying white privilege by refusing to recognize that.

[pnorman]

17. Surprisingly, many people are unaware that it originally applied to Jewish "restricted areas"

Etymology

The term 'Ghetto' was originally used to refer to the Venetian Ghetto in Venice, Italy where Jews were forced to live. The word "ghetto" actually means "foundry" in Italian, a reference to a foundry located on the same island as the area of Jewish confinement.<2>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto

pnorman
On edit: I see where other posters had already posted essentially the same as mine. As for being "offensive"? It's very EXISTENCE should be offensive, rather than the use of such a descriptive word, with deep historical roots!

[pepperbear]

18. "That shirt is, like, SO gated community." doesn't have quite the same ring to it. n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

20. But ti doesn't have to stay that way. n/t

[Thothmes]

21. Probably not in Warsaw Poland.

[mitchum]

22. It is when it is used as an adjective meaning "cheap", "shoddy" "inferior"

[Liberal In Texas]

24. Not in itself. It would depend on context. n/t

[kwassa]

25. "Ghetto" is used to mean low-class, ignorant, flashy, cheap, etc.

in the context you are talking about.

Not offensive, but descriptive.

[Bluenorthwest]

27. Don't you know that it's true

That for me and for you.
The world is a Ghetto.

[Obamanaut]

28. If it is written/typed as "gh***o", then no, otherwise yes. nt

[rucky]

34. L*L!

[snooper2]

31. I don't live in the ghetto, I live in the hood beeyatch!

:evilgrin:




GOBAMA!

[Terran]

32. It's not offensive, but...

it's embarrassing how many clueless white kids have adopted it, having no sense whatsoever what it actually denotes.

[cally]

33. It's a common term in our local high schools

I haven't heard it used in an offensive way, yet.

[rucky]

35. Not if it's used in conjunction with "hoopty" "boujie" or "fab"

[theboss]

37. Elvis can never be offensive

On a cold and gray Chicago mornin'
A poor little baby child is born
In the ghetto
And his mama cries
'cause if there's one thing that she don't need
it's another hungry mouth to feed
In the ghetto

[exothermic]

40. Only to illiterate morons.

:eyes:

[tomg]

41. About 10 years ago, I tended to hear it fairly often,

although I hear it less so of late. Normally, one upper-middle class white student would be speaking to another upper-middle class white student and they would be discussing issues of clothing, music, or behaviour. In most instances, they would be speaking about a third party, or one would be goofing on the other. I honestly don't think I ever heard one black student use it to refer to another black student, or one white student use it to refer to a black student.I could be wrong. As I said, not hearing it so much recently.

I teach at a college once described by a colleague as "a school for the intellectually challenged offspring of the economically gifted." Not entirely fair ( pretty smart kids and generally really solid) but diversity tends to mean you aren't from the Northeast. These are not kids who are consciously - or even unconsciously - racist or class-biased ( economics is really the divide where I teach, race seems less so), but in that statement would be a host of assumptions, normally unconscious, regarding race and class and behaviour. A similar type of usage is "gay" when used as a general putdown.

Once in a conference one of my students said to me so and so was "acting so ghetto." So I asked the student what they meant. The individual was really embarrassed and just kept saying "you know what I mean." Of course I knew what the individual meant: not Jewish in the 15th through mid-20th centuries. Not black and middle class. Not white and poor (they are poor white trash - a term equal in its class bias). They were not talking de facto segregation in the 1950s and 60s and the Civil Rights movement ( I wish). They meant black and poor. The student didn't want to admit it and wanted it to be a working assumption, but to articulate it - to say it - that was a real problem.

I have no problem with the term when it is used in some ways. When it is a code for assumptions that the speakers want to be "working assumptions" about the world that are not examined and that they are embarrassed to give voice to, I have concerns with it.