Ghetto Hood Quotes

The hood was strangely comforting, but comfort can be dangerous. Comfort provides a floor but also a ceiling.

The tricky thing about the hood is that you’re always working, working, working, and you feel like something’s happening, but really nothing’s happening at all.

The hood is also a low-stress, comfortable life. All your mental energy goes into getting by, so you don’t have to ask yourself any of the big questions. Who am I? Who am I supposed to be? Am I doing enough? In the hood you can be a forty-year-old man living in your mom’s house asking people for money and it’s not looked down on. You never feel like a failure in the hood, because someone’s always worse off than you, and you don’t feel like you need to do more, because the biggest success isn’t that much higher than you, either. It allows you to exist in a state of suspended animation.

Williamson Starr doesn't use slang - if a rapper would say it, she doesn't say it, even if her white friends do. Slang makes them cool. Slang makes her "hood". Williamson Starr holds her tongue when people piss her off so nobody will think she's the "angry black girl". Williamson Starr is approachable. No stank-eyes, none of that. Williamson Starr is no confrontational. Basically, Williamson Starr doesn't give anyone a reason to call her ghetto. I can't stand myself for doing it, but I do it anyway.

forget about it; if today never becomes a yesterday, at least you can make peace with today. What already happened we can't change, but we can change what happens next!

He was a drug dealer.” It hurts to say that. “And possibly a gang member.” “Why was he a drug dealer? Why are so many people in our neighborhood drug dealers?” I remember what Khalil said—he got tired of choosing between lights and food. “They need money,” I say. “And they don’t have a lot of other ways to get it." "Right. Lack of opportunities," Daddy says. "Corporate America don't bring jobs to our communities, and they damn sure ain't quick to hire us. Then, shit, even if you do have a high school diploma, so many of the schools in our neighborhoods don't prepare us well enough.

Women need to recognize their worth. Stop blaming themselves, and take it as a lesson learned, and move

I just have to be normal Starr at normal Williamson and have a normal day. That means flipping the switch in my brain so I’m Williamson Starr. Williamson Starr doesn’t use slang—if a rapper would say it, she doesn’t say it, even if her white friends do. Slang makes them cool. Slang makes her “hood.” Williamson Starr holds her tongue when people piss her off so nobody will think she’s the “angry black girl.” Williamson Starr is approachable. No stank-eyes, side-eyes, none of that. Williamson Starr is nonconfrontational. Basically, Williamson Starr doesn’t give anyone a reason to call her ghetto. I can’t stand myself for doing it, but I do it anyway.

I was a down bitch and don’t you ever forget that. It took for you to get with a hood bitch that didn’t have shit, for your ass to get a steady job only to take care of her dirty ass. I guess I was too much woman for you,

I refuse to give Calvin and Trina anymore of me. Like Jazz said, I will love them from a distance.

I guess it’s true what they say, people can be so smart their actions prove their really stupid.

Stacy said, “Baby, remember that you must love yourself first. It hurt me like crazy to know that I would never see Pam or my daughter again; so bad that I fell into a state of depression, and I wanted to give up on life.” Stacy wiped the tears from her eyes.  “I almost did… but God.” Stacy paused; she had to take a breather to get herself together. Jazz was on the other end drying her tears also.  Stacy continued, “When I gave up on me, he kept me. When I did not know which way to turn, he guided me. When I was at my lowest point he was there to show me that I am strong and I can get through all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me!!! That setback not only showed me that God loves me, but it showed me that others love and care about me also.” She looked at Pastor G and whispered, “Thank you for being a friend.” 

If you want to uplift and change your community. If you want to uplift and change your hood, ghetto or township. Change their stereotype. Our society is held back , not to progress or developing , because of type of stereotypes we have within our community. If we break those stereotypes. We would find our freedom, happiness , progress and success.

Much of what it takes to succeed in school, at work, and in one’s community consists of cultural habits acquired by adaptation to the social environment. Such cultural adaptations are known as “cultural capital.” Segregation leads social groups to form different codes of conduct and communication. Some habits that help individuals in intensely segregated, disadvantaged environments undermine their ability to succeed in integrated, more advantaged environments. At Strive, a job training organization, Gyasi Headen teaches young black and Latino men how to drop their “game face” at work. The “game face” is the angry, menacing demeanor these men adopt to ward off attacks in their crime-ridden, segregated neighborhoods. As one trainee described it, it is the face you wear “at 12 o’clock at night, you’re in the ‘hood and they’re going to try to get you.”102 But the habit may freeze it into place, frightening people from outside the ghetto, who mistake the defensive posture for an aggressive one. It may be so entrenched that black men may be unaware that they are glowering at others. This reduces their chance of getting hired. The “game face” is a form of cultural capital that circulates in segregated underclass communities, helping its members survive. Outside these communities, it burdens its possessors with severe disadvantages. Urban ethnographer Elijah Anderson highlights the cruel dilemma this poses for ghetto residents who aspire to mainstream values and seek responsible positions in mainstream society.103 If they manifest their “decent” values in their neighborhoods, they become targets for merciless harassment by those committed to “street” values, who win esteem from their peers by demonstrating their ability and willingness to insult and physically intimidate others with impunity. To protect themselves against their tormentors, and to gain esteem among their peers, they adopt the game face, wear “gangster” clothing, and engage in the posturing style that signals that they are “bad.” This survival strategy makes them pariahs in the wider community. Police target them for questioning, searches, and arrests.104 Store owners refuse to serve them, or serve them brusquely, while shadowing them to make sure they are not shoplifting. Employers refuse to employ them.105 Or they employ them in inferior, segregated jobs. A restaurant owner may hire blacks as dishwashers, but not as wait staff, where they could earn tips.

Respectability politics have become de facto rules for marginalized people to follow in order to be respected in main stream culture but they reflect antiquated ideals set up by white supremacy. The depiction of the cultures that black Americans create in low-income areas like the hood as ghetto or ratchet has very little to do with any real interest in their success, and everything to do with creating a series of hoops and obstacles to arbitrarily impede the progress of those with the fewest resources.

I get out the car. For at least seven hours I don’t have to talk about One-Fifteen. I don’t have to think about Khalil. I just have to be normal Starr at normal Williamson and have a normal day. That means flipping the switch in my brain so I’m Williamson Starr. Williamson Starr doesn’t use slang—if a rapper would say it, she doesn’t say it, even if her white friends do. Slang makes them cool. Slang makes her “hood.” Williamson Starr holds her tongue when people piss her off so nobody will think she’s the “angry black girl.” Williamson Starr is approachable. No stank-eyes, side-eyes, none of that. Williamson Starr is nonconfrontational. Basically, Williamson Starr doesn’t give anyone a reason to call her ghetto.

Performative blackness has allowed non-black women to succeed while women from the ghetto are vilified for our existence.”~@WannasWorld is giving realness in this piece: Black Girls From The Hood Are The Real Trendsetters

It's the freaking American way--you start out in a dangerous craphole and work hard so you can someday move up to a somewhat less dangerous craphole. And finally maybe you get a mansion.

We have to remember that respectability is the poisoned soil white supremacy gave us, not the hood, not being ghetto or ratchet.

She kept her thoughts about Peter and Yay to herself. She hated to admit that Yay was like her mother.

It’s never cool to disrespect a woman. I don't care what her status is. Rich, poor, a ho; it’s not cool. Even if she disrespects herself, a man shouldn't help her.

It’s true that you can read the depth of a person’s soul just by looking into their eyes.

Gave... Diesel... My... Virginity... Your girl Jazz is no longer a virgin.

Why else would she be with a man that is the cause of her having HIV?

He straight tried to clown her in front of her enemy and then had the nerve to tell her to take that ghetto shit to her momma’s house.

That was the truth; he didn’t remember what happened that night and would probably never remember that White-Girl had spiked his drink, and fucked him to get herself pregnant.

Love could make you blind, stupid, and make you feel like you’d rather die without

Sometimes you have to love people from a distance. And this is one of those times.

we all have a reservation at someone’s cemetery or morgue, with death without the privilege of cancellation.

When you don’t know how to let go of the past, you not only give that person control over your today, but your yesterday.

You must carry yourself how you want to be viewed. If you respect yourself, so will others.” But sometimes you gotta throw that lady shit out the window, and show assholes that you are not the one.

Except for one thing: a home outside of the dangerous streets of East Harlem. He refused to move away from the ghetto because he said he was a product of the hood and raised in the streets.

See, Shay was a ghetto and nosey bitch. She stayed out in Dade County and she knew everybody and their mama’s business.

If you want to uplift and change your community. If you want to uplift and change your hood, projects , ghetto or township. Change the stereotype believes. Our society is held back , not to progress or develop , because of the type of stereotypes we have within our community. If we break those stereotypes. We would find our freedom, happiness , progress and success.