Ghetto Story

Louis Wirth talked about Jewish ghettos and how they were a community that people actually wanted to be apart of, almost an ideal place to live. I pulled from my interpretation of his analysis that these ghettos aren't the ghettos that we know today. He explained that they were not the "arbitrary creation of the authorities, designed to deal with an alien people. The ghetto was not the product of design on the part of anyone, but rather the unwitting crystallization of needs and practices rooted in the customs and heritages, religious and sedcular, of the Jews themselves." WOW, after reading this, I was shocked, how can a place that seemed so well organized and structured to meet the needs of its people turn into the hells that we know and see today? Jewish ghettos were not instruments of control, they were a way for a people related through heritage, religious and secular to bond together and make the best life that they could. Today, blacks, whites, hispanics,etc are forced to live ghettos and the probability of making a better life are very slim. They are under the control of a bigger person, a person that is not looking out for the best interest of the ghetto people. It is even safe to say that today's ghettos serve a purpose. People are forced to be poor, sick and immobile at the expense of others. It is amazing how the social function of a group of people is suffer so that the rest of the world can prosper.

Being one who has been born and brought up in the ghetto, I have to say that I wish my ghetto was like the Jewish ghetto! By the looks of the photos that I have posted, you can get a clear idea of what a child like myself had to walk out of the house and witness day to day, drug dealing and prostetution is done right outside your window; Compare that to the picture of the Jewish ghetto at the top. It is safe to say that Jewish children were probably taught better values and the concept of hard work. The feeling that I recieved while reading Wirth's article was that Jewish ghettos were full of love and support. It seems as though the people understood the element of community. Like Wirth said " Ghetto....for it is not merely a physical fact, byt also a state of mind." A very powerful statement I must say! I say this because from my experience living in the ghetto, people have moved far far away from the idea of family. Parents are killing their young, brothers and sisters are murdering each other, no one is safe in the ghetto. For this reason, the fact that people have a ghetto state of mind,. they will remain in the ghetto. Until that is change and the morals and values are transformed, ghettos will continue to be one the saddest places on earth to live!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5p7Y1cYaCw