ghetto \'ge-(.)tō\ n 1 : a residential area populated by people with limited access to valuable resources 2 : depending on cultural background, the ghetto may be called “el barrio” or “the hood.” People who don’t live anywhere near the ghetto call it “the wrong neighborhood,” “a bad area,” “the place where those people live.” Regardless of what they call the ghetto, anyone who lives there wants to get out, though if one escapes, the ghetto will likely remain within him 3 : a way of life, motivated by the will to survive at any cost. This is the only rule that governs the ghetto and serves as the foundation of the ghetto mentality, one that develops in early childhood. Born and brought up in the ghetto, one learns that there is never enough, so take what you can, whenever you can get it, then show it off to let everyone else in the ghetto know you came up 4 : the ghetto is a strict teacher, discipline often deadly. Tests are administered daily, failure is put in check immediately. Tempers are quick to click, voices loud, faces serious. Eyes shift, looking for weakness, anyone caught slippin’ becomes a potential victim. Girls learn different lessons than boys in ‘da hood. Primarily, her body is not her own; its value and safety depend on how well she manages “it”, see OBJECT. Boys learn that survival is not expected so many live as if their actions have no consequence. Survivors of the ghetto are glorified like war heroes, though society salutes them like homeless Vietnam veterans. Drugs and alcohol are rampant, vice the easiest means to avoid the process of critically thinking a way out of hopelessness. Apathy and laziness are the children of such despair. Even the streetlights seem dim, like possibility muted. Death becomes an attractive alternative. Still, there is an unseen sense that things could be different “if I could jus’ get me some more…” The sentence usually completed with a temporary fix, money or respect, both transient. In the ghetto, more money means more problems, and you have to hurt somebody to get more respect, which always invites a visit from Ms. Payback, the bitch, see KARMA. In the end, the only “more” earned is emptiness. There are those who know this and have learned to grow beyond the limits of the ghetto. Some leave for good, others return now again to remind themselves how thankful they are to have left. Others still may come back long enough to encourage others that they too can rise up “if only they could just….” Though this sentence may end differently for each person, leaving the ghetto is dependent on just two conditions: what one has, see FAITH, and what she is willing to give up, see ILLUSION 5 : There were periods of time when I lived on the edge of the ghetto. Most recently, I lived in Phoenix, an area so ghetto the city refuses to provide garbage services. I feared mostly for my teenage daughter who had to walk through the streets in the early dawn to catch the bus to school. I had to deny my toddler the pleasure of playing in the yard. Broken glass and dime bags littered the small patch of dying grass in the front of the apartment complex. Trying to contain an active toddler to an upstairs patio is a daily frustration that compounded the general tension I felt while living in the area:
