“Ghetto”
The roots of the word “ghetto” are pretty ugly. Derived from an Italian word meaning “waste,” ghetto has long referred to the concept of social separation. Jews were forced to live in ghettos during World War 2, and the worst areas of inner city poverty are often referred to as modern ghettos. So while it’s tempting to shrug the label ghetto off as just meaning “poor,” it actually implies so much more. Ghetto isn’t an adjective, but a social concept. It means exclusion, bias and injustice.

We don’t usually call people ghetto to their face. Instead, we talk about how ghetto someone is with our friends. We talk about how their apartment is ghetto, or their car, or their clothes, or their music, or their accent. Pretty soon, everything about them is ghetto, and just like that, we’ve moved from adjective to social concept. Things we don’t say out loud start taking root. Their aspirations are ghetto. Their family is ghetto. Their challenges are ghetto. Their worries are ghetto. Their pain is ghetto. Their life is ghetto. Our whole view of someone is poisoned by an assumption of how we think they live their lives, and how it’s different from the way we live our own.

The word ghetto is insidious because it has history. It has racial overtones. It separates and oversimplifies. It lies. Don’t use it. Don’t accept it.