A ghetto is a part of a city predominantly occupied by a particular ethnic group that may be looked down upon for various reasons, especially because of social or economic issues, or because they have been forced to live there (e.g. the Jewish Ghettos in Europe).
The term was originally used in Venice derived from the word Borghetto, meaning Little Borgo, a cluster of homes and buildings often outside Italian city walls, to describe the area where Jews, tradespeople or agricultural workers were compelled to live. In rural Italy, Borghetto is not necessarily a pejorative term. In modern context, the term ghetto now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated with specific ethnic or racial populations living below the poverty line. Crime rates in ghettoes are typically higher than in other parts of the city.
Read more about Ghetto: Etymology, History, Hyperghettoization, Jewish Ghettos
Famous quotes containing the word ghetto:
“The Twist was a guided missile, launched from the ghetto into the very heart of suburbia. The Twist succeeded, as politics, religion, and law could never do, in writing in the heart and soul what the Supreme Court could only write on the books.”
—Eldridge Cleaver (b. 1935)
“We have got to stop the nervous Nellies and the Toms from going to the Man’s place. I don’t believe in killing, but a good whipping behind the bushes wouldn’t hurt them.... These bourgeoisie Negroes aren’t helping. It’s the ghetto Negroes who are leading the way.”
—Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977)
“We do not need to minimize the poverty of the ghetto or the suffering inflicted by whites on blacks in order to see that the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable conditions of middle- class life have given rise to similar strategies for survival. Indeed the attraction of black culture for disaffected whites suggests that black culture now speaks to a general condition.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)