Ghetto Short Quotes

It is not believed that a people capable of inventing the genre of "oral painting" could have spawned the viaduct killer, and in any case no ghetto resident is permitted access to any other area of the city. ("A Short Guide To The City")

Wind surged across the frozen wastes. Our bodies moved restlessly, we could not feed them enough. Dusk upon us, we crept across the ghetto of boulders, our headlamps sometimes eerie, then like rockets in the fog. Total darkness ambushed us short of our destination. The hours wore on. The moraine wore us down. My eyes were riveted to the rising scythe of a moon. In that instant I figured out what was killing me. It wasn't the quick blow of an ax, but the slow torment of the rack: each day I was weaker, each hour a little more sick. With every night that passed I shuffled a bit nearer to death. I made life-and-death decisions like I was choosing between two brands

Ghetto Good Girl or Triple-G for short. She keeps me out of trouble and typically roots for me to do what’s right. The mischief maker, my Fairy Hoochie Mama, resides on my left shoulder. She generally wants the exact opposite.

In America, it is true, the appearance is perpetually changing, each generation greeting with short-lived exultation yet more dazzling additions to our renowned façade. But the ghetto, anxiety, bitterness, and guilt continue to breed their indescribable complex of tensions. What time will bring Americans is at last their own identity. It is on this dangerous voyage and in the same boat that the American Negro will make peace with himself and with the voiceless many thousands gone before him.

Here were Catholics of all classes engaged in the violent defense of both the Cathedral and the ghetto, using every weapon short of guns – there were the Protestants and police firing bullets at us. What could law mean from now on, when the guardians of it were the breakers of it?

Shortly before his assassination, he envisioned bringing to Washington, D.C., thousands of the nation’s disadvantaged in an interracial alliance that embraced rural and ghetto blacks, Appalachian whites, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans to demand jobs and income—the right to live. In a speech delivered in 1968, King acknowledged there had been some progress for blacks since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but insisted that the current challenges required even greater resolve and that the entire nation must be transformed for economic justice to be more than a dream for poor people of all colors. As historian Gerald McKnight observes, “King was proposing nothing less than a radical transformation of the Civil Rights Movement into a populist crusade calling for redistribution of economic and political power. America’s only civil rights leader was now focusing on class issues and was planning to descend on Washington with an army of poor to shake the foundations of the power structure and force the government to respond to the needs of the ignored underclass.

A True Account Of Talking To The Sun On Fire Island" The Sun woke me this morning loud and clear, saying "Hey! I've been trying to wake you up for fifteen minutes. Don't be so rude, you are only the second poet I've ever chosen to speak to personally so why aren't you more attentive? If I could burn you through the window I would to wake you up. I can't hang around here all day." "Sorry, Sun, I stayed up late last night talking to Hal." "When I woke up Mayakovsky he was a lot more prompt" the Sun said petulantly. "Most people are up already waiting to see if I'm going to put in an appearance." I tried to apologize "I missed you yesterday." "That's better" he said. "I didn't know you'd come out." "You may be wondering why I've come so close?" "Yes" I said beginning to feel hot wondering if maybe he wasn't burning me anyway. "Frankly I wanted to tell you I like your poetry. I see a lot on my rounds and you're okay. You may not be the greatest thing on earth, but you're different. Now, I've heard some say you're crazy, they being excessively calm themselves to my mind, and other crazy poets think that you're a boring reactionary. Not me. Just keep on like I do and pay no attention. You'll find that people always will complain about the atmosphere, either too hot or too cold too bright or too dark, days too short or too long. If you don't appear at all one day they think you're lazy or dead. Just keep right on, I like it. And don't worry about your lineage poetic or natural. The Sun shines on the jungle, you know, on the tundra the sea, the ghetto. Wherever you were I knew it and saw you moving. I was waiting for you to get to work. And now that you are making your own days, so to speak, even if no one reads you but me you won't be depressed. Not everyone can look up, even at me. It hurts their eyes." "Oh Sun, I'm so grateful to you!" "Thanks and remember I'm watching. It's easier for me to speak to you out here. I don't have to slide down between buildings to get your ear. I know you love Manhattan, but you ought to look up more often. And always embrace things, people earth sky stars, as I do, freely and with the appropriate sense of space. That is your inclination, known in the heavens and you should follow it to hell, if necessary, which I doubt. Maybe we'll speak again in Africa, of which I too am specially fond. Go back to sleep now Frank, and I may leave a tiny poem in that brain of yours as my farewell." "Sun, don't go!" I was awake at last. "No, go I must, they're calling me." "Who are they?" Rising he said "Some day you'll know. They're calling to you too." Darkly he rose, and then I slept.

The shift in focus served to align the goals of the Civil Rights Movement with key political goals of poor and working-class whites, who were also demanding economic reforms. As the Civil Rights Movement began to evolve into a “Poor People’s Movement,” it promised to address not only black poverty, but white poverty as well—thus raising the specter of a poor and working-class movement that cut across racial lines. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders made it clear that they viewed the eradication of economic inequality as the next front in the “human rights movement” and made great efforts to build multiracial coalitions that sought economic justice for all. Genuine equality for black people, King reasoned, demanded a radical restructuring of society, one that would address the needs of the black and white poor throughout the country. Shortly before his assassination, he envisioned bringing to Washington, D.C., thousands of the nation’s disadvantaged in an interracial alliance that embraced rural and ghetto blacks, Appalachian whites, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans to demand jobs and income—the right to live. In a speech delivered in 1968, King acknowledged there had been some progress for blacks since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but insisted that the current challenges required even greater resolve and that the entire nation must be transformed for economic justice to be more than a dream for poor people of all colors. As historian Gerald McKnight observes, “King was proposing nothing less than a radical transformation of the Civil Rights Movement into a populist crusade calling for redistribution of economic and political power. America’s only civil rights leader was now focusing on class issues and was planning to descend on Washington with an army of poor to shake the foundations of the power structure and force the government to respond to the needs of the ignored underclass.”36

It is, in short, the growing conviction that the Negroes cannot win—a conviction with much grounding in experience—which accounts for the new popularity of black power. So far as the ghetto Negro is concerned, this conviction expresses itself in hostility, first toward the people closest to him who have held out the most promise and failed to deliver (Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, etc.), then toward those who have proclaimed themselves his friends (the liberals and the labor movement), and finally toward the only oppressors he can see (the local storekeeper and the policeman on the corner). On the leadership level, the conviction that the Negroes cannot win takes other forms, principally the adoption of what I have called a "no-win" policy. Why bother with programs when their enactment results only in sham? Why concern ourselves with the image of the movement when nothing significant has been gained for all the sacrifices made by SNCC and CORE? Why compromise with reluctant white allies when nothing of consequence can be achieved anyway? Why indeed have anything to do with whites at all? On this last point, it is extremely important for white liberals to understand what, one gathers from their references to "racism in reverse," the President and the Vice-President of the United States do not: that there is all the difference in the world between saying, "If you don't want me, I don't want you" (which is what some proponents of black power have in effect been saying), and the statement, "Whatever you do, I don't want you" (which is what racism declares). It is, in other words, both absurd and immoral to equate the despairing response of the victim with the contemptuous assertion of the oppressor. It would, moreover, be tragic if white liberals allowed verbal hostility on the part of Negroes to drive them out of the movement or to curtail their support for civil rights. The issue was injustice before black power became popular, and the issue is still injustice.

While the following tragedy may be revolting to read, it must not be forgotten that the existence of it is far more revolting. In Devonshire Place, Lisson Grove, a short while back died an old woman of seventy-five years of age. At the inquest the coroner's officer stated that all he found in the room was a lot of old rags covered with vermin. He had got himself smothered with the vermin. The room was in a shocking condition, and he had never seen anything like it. Everything was absolutely covered with vermin.' The doctor said: 'He found deceased lying across the fender on her back. She had one garment and her stockings on. The body was quite alive with vermin, and all the clothes in the room were absolutely gray with insects. Deceased was very badly nourished and was very emaciated. She had extensive sores on her legs, and her stockings were adherent to those sores. The sores were the result of vermin. Over her bony chest leaped and rolled hundreds, thousands, myriads of vermin.' A man present at the inquest wrote; 'I had the evil fortune to see the body of the unfortunate woman as it lay in the mortuary; and even now the memory of that gruesome sight makes me shudder. There she lay in the mortuary shell, so starved and emaciated that she was a mere bundle of skin and bones. Her hair, which was matted with filth, was simply a nest of vermin. If it is not good for your mother and my mother so to die, then it is not good for this woman, whosoever's mother she might be, so to die. Bishop Wilkinson, who has lived in Zululand, recently said, 'No headman of an African village would allow such a promiscuous mixing of young men and women, boys and girls.' He had reference to the children of the overcrowded folk, who at five have nothing to learn and much to unlearn which they will never unlearn. It is notorious that here in the Ghetto the houses of the poor are greater profit earners than the mansions of the rich. Not only does the poor worker have to live like a beast, but he pays proportionately more for it than does the rich man for his spacious comfort. A class of house-sweaters has been made possible by the competition of the poor for houses. There are more people than there is room, and numbers are in the workhouse because they cannot find shelter elsewhere. Not only are houses let, but they are sublet, and sub-sublet down to the very rooms.

You had an older sister that died of SIDS when she was an infant. Your mother took her death extremely hard and instead of embracing her short life and sudden death, she wanted to pretend as if she never existed.

If you want to get your outcasts out of sight, first you need a ghetto and then you need a prison to take pressure off the ghetto. . . . Short-term terror and revulsion are more powerful than long-term wisdom or self-interest.

SpottieOttieDopaliscious [Hook] Damn damn damn James [Verse 1: Sleepy Brown] Dickie shorts and Lincoln's clean Leanin', checking out the scene Gangsta boys, blizzes lit Ridin' out, talkin' shit Nigga where you wanna go? You know the club don't close 'til four Let's party 'til we can't no more Watch out here come the folks (Damn - oh lord) [Verse 2: André 3000] As the plot thickens it gives me the dickens Reminiscent of Charles a lil' discotheque Nestled in the ghettos of Niggaville, USA Via Atlanta, Georgia a lil' spot where Young men and young women go to experience They first li'l taste of the night life Me? Well I've never been there; well perhaps once But I was so engulfed in the Olde E I never made it to the door you speak of, hardcore While the DJ sweatin' out all the problems And the troubles of the day While this fine bow-legged girl fine as all outdoors Lulls lukewarm lullabies in your left ear Competing with "Set it Off," in the right But it all blends perfectly let the liquor tell it "Hey hey look baby they playin' our song" And the crowd goes wild as if Holyfield has just won the fight But in actuality it's only about 3 A.M And three niggas just don' got hauled Off in the ambulance (sliced up) Two niggas don' start bustin' (wham wham) And one nigga don' took his shirt off talkin' 'bout "Now who else wanna fuck with Hollywood Courts?" It's just my interpretation of the situation [Hook] [Verse 3: Big Boi] Yes, when I first met my SpottieOttieDopalicious Angel I can remember that damn thing like yesterday The way she moved reminded me of a Brown Stallion Horse with skates on, ya know Smooth like a hot comb on nappy ass hair I walked up on her and was almost paralyzed Her neck was smelling sweeter Than a plate of yams with extra syrup Eyes beaming like four karats apiece just blindin' a nigga Felt like I chiefed a whole O of that Presidential My heart was beating so damn fast Never knowing this moment would bring another Life into this world Funny how shit come together sometimes (ya dig) One moment you frequent the booty clubs and The next four years you & somebody's daughter Raisin' y'all own young'n now that's a beautiful thang That's if you're on top of your game And man enough to handle real life situations (that is) Can't gamble feeding baby on that dope money Might not always be sufficient but the United Parcel Service & the people at the Post Office Didn't call you back because you had cloudy piss So now you back in the trap just that, trapped Go on and marinate on that for a minute

Most of them [the soldiers—Warriors in New Pentagon Speak—of the all-volunteer military] come from small towns in the South or the rustbelt of the Midwest or the big city ghettoes. Many are following a family heritage of military service that has made veterans of past wars a relatively privileged class, enjoying special access to higher education, jobs, and a nationwide system of socialized medicine. But so many of them are so very young, enticed or strong-armed by smartly uniformed recruiters who work the corridors and classrooms of America's most impoverished and thoroughly militarized high schools. So many are badly educated, knowing nothing of the world and how it operates. So many are immigrants, risking their lives for a fast track to citizenship. So many are poor and short on promise. So many have such a slim chance of another job, another line of work [like the one who tells the author "where else can I get a job doing the stuff I love? . . . Shootin' people. Blowin' shit up. It's fuckin' fun. I fuckin' love it."], let alone a decent wage or a promotion. And because the Pentagon lowered standards to fill the ranks of the volunteer army, so many are high school dropouts, or gangbangers, or neo-Nazi white supremacists, or drug addicts, or convicted felons with violent crimes on their record. In just three years following the invasion of Iraq, the military issued free passes—so called "moral waivers"—to one of every five recruits, including more than 58,000 convicted drug users and 1,605 with "serious" felony convictions for offenses including rape, kidnapping, and murder. When the number of free passes rose in the fourth year, the Pentagon changed the label to "conduct waiver.

Genuine equality for black people, King reasoned, demanded a radical restructuring of society, one that would address the needs of the black and white poor throughout the country. Shortly before his assassination, he envisioned bringing to Washington, D.C., thousands of the nation’s disadvantaged in an interracial alliance that embraced rural and ghetto blacks, Appalachian whites, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans to demand jobs and income—the right to live. In

Sometimes advancing the broader cause of justice means compromising with particular injustices. Sacrifices of self-respect are unpleasant, even painful, for those who must make them, but they are sometimes necessary in the short term to make progress in the long run. Threatening the self-respect of the current generation of the ghetto poor may simply be the price of the social reform needed to ensure that future generations do not grow up in ghetto conditions. What I’m opposing is the idea that others are permitted to decide when you should make such sacrifices. It is one thing to ask or even implore the ghetto poor to sacrifice some self-respect to achieve needed social reforms. It is quite another to demand that they make these sacrifices on pain of penalty or to take measures that effectively force them to accommodate themselves to injustice. Moral paternalism robs the ghetto poor of a choice that should be theirs alone—namely, whether the improved prospects for ending or ameliorating ghetto poverty are worth the loss of moral pride they would incur by conceding the offensive view that they have not shown themselves to be deserving of better treatment. Whether such sacrifices of self-respect are, all things considered, worth it should be left to those who bear the heaviest burdens of the unjust social system liberals seek to reform.

Yet from the standpoint of justice, this approach has serious limitations and pitfalls. Just as physicians take basic human anatomy as given when treating patients, policymakers working within the medical model treat the background structure of society as given and focus only on alleviating the burdens of the disadvantaged. When it comes to the ghetto poor, this generally means attempting to integrate them into an existing social system rather than viewing their unwillingness to fully cooperate as a sign that the system itself needs fundamental reform. In short, features of society that could and should be altered often get little scrutiny. This is the prob lem of status quo bias. In addition, the technocratic reasoning of the medical model marginalizes the po liti cal agency of those it aims to help. The ghetto poor are regarded as passive victims in need of assistance rather than as potential allies in what should be a collective effort to secure justice for all.

The Lower East Side was always an artist neighborhood. You had hippies there in the sixties. Artists and punks move into places that are kinda like the ghetto. They move in there and then it becomes an “artistic community” and after that is when gentrification happens, y’know? Punks move into the cheapest place and then the artists see, “Oh, look, punks are here already!” so they stay there. Then eventually musicians move in, and then it becomes this “hip place to be.” Shortly after that gentrification starts, no punk or artist can ever afford to live there ever again.

According to Herzl’s account, he harangued the baron about the inadequacy of his programs that settled Jews in the New World by the thousands, when millions were in danger. At first, Herzl raised themes from The New Ghetto about restoring Jewish honor and self-esteem. “Whether the Jews stay put or whether they emigrate, the race must first be improved on the spot. It must be made strong for war, eager to work, and virtuous. Afterwards, let them emigrate, if necessary.”35 Herzl suggested that the baron fund handsome prizes in antisemitic countries for Jews who perform “deeds of great moral beauty, for courage, self-sacrifice, ethical conduct, great achievements in arts and science … in short, for anything great.” When Hirsch insisted that emigration was the only solution, Herzl “almost shouted”: “‘Well, who told you that I don’t want to emigrate?’” Herzl said he would lay his plan before the German emperor and raise from Europe’s wealthiest Jews a loan of ten million marks—a staggering sum, equivalent to twice the German imperial navy’s annual budget. Immediately after he got home from the meeting, Herzl saw to his dismay that he had only gotten through six of the twenty-two pages of notes. So he wrote Hirsch a long letter that, more clearly, yet with an even higher emotional charge than their

A typhoid epidemic in the ghetto killed more than a hundred people a day. The same wagons that delivered the mildewed bread were used to cart away the corpses. Coffins were in such short supply that the dead were wrapped in shrouds and stacked in corridors, and the crematorium had to cope with a thousand corpses a month.

In 1949, the African American scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois visited Warsaw, where he saw the ruins of the ghetto the Nazis had established there and then completely destroyed after suppressing the uprising. Three years later, Du Bois wrote a short article a recounting his trip called “The Negro and the Warsaw Ghetto”: “In the first place, the problem of slavery, emancipation, and caste in the United States was no longer in my mind as a separate and unique thing, as I had so long conceived it. It was not even solely a matter of color and physical and racial characteristics, which was particularly hard thing for me to learn, since for a lifetime the color line had been a real and efficient cause of misery…. The race problem in which I was interested cut across lines of color and physique and belief and status, and was a matter of cultural patterns, teaching and human hate and prejudice, which reached all sorts of people and caused endless evil to all men.» [...] Moving beyond a conception of his own experience as “a separate and unique thing”, Du Bois comes to an understanding of race that is instead multidirectional. […] Du Bois’s post-Warsaw vision brings black and Jewish histories into relation without erasing their differences or fetishizing their uniqueness. Proximate pasts are neither “separate and unique” nor “equal”; rather, a form of modified “double consciousness” arises capable of conjoining them in an open-ended assemblage.