Gingrich Used The Word “Ghetto” In The proper Context, But The Left Doesn’t Quite Get It
A ghetto is an area where people from a specific racial or ethnic background are united in a given culture or religion live as a group, voluntarily or involuntarily, in milder or stricter seclusion. Obviously Kasie Hunt is not aware of that, or she wouldn’t have written such a pathetic piece.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich yesterday described bilingual education as teaching “the language of living in a ghetto,” and he mocked requirements that ballots be printed in multiple languages.
“The government should quit mandating that various documents be printed in any one of 700 languages depending on who randomly shows up” to vote, Gingrich said. The former Georgia congressman, who is considering seeking the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, made the comments in a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women.
“The American people believe English should be the official language of the government. . . . We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto,” Gingrich said, drawing cheers from the crowd of more than 100.
America, at the turn of the 20th century, was made up of French, German, Irish, Italian, Wasps etc., ghettos. I can go to St. Louis and still pass through Dago Hill, or Boys Town in Chicago. The different ethnic groups did not mix for the most part. People spoke English or their native language in the home, but in public, it was English only. This country recognized them as ghettos.Â
Most of us have discussed this topic, and we have all had ancestors that came to this country and learned English in order to work. Our ancestors were not given special treatment at the voting booths, banks, colleges or in elevators. You assimilated to this countries customs.Â
I’m not a big fan of Gingrich, but he isn’t wrong in his usage of the word. Sad that some don’t understand the actual meaning of words.
April 3, 2007 - 11:13 PM on April 3rd, 2007
Ghetto rather clearly has a perjorative connotation that makes it far more specific than just an ethnic-specific neighborhood. The American Heritage Dictionary confirms that ghetto has a negative valence, defining it as follows:
“A usually poor section of a city inhabited primarily by people of the same race, religion, or social background, often because of discrimination.”
Few people would call D.C.’s Chinatown, for example, a “ghetto” (although it meets your definition neatly). Indeed, nobody in the DC area (I’m a local) would understand you if you tried to make that analogy. Ditto with Boro Park or Kiryas Joel in New York. Or, for that matter, my current residence in Northfield, Minnesota, which is overwhelmingly White and Lutheran but whose residents also would yield confused looks if referred to as living in a “Ghetto.” Most of America lives in relatively ethnically/culturally segregated locations or neighborhoods, but most places are not referred to as “ghettos.” Your definition is wildly over-inclusive and is not in accordance with the common usage of the term.
To be a ghetto implies a) a minority or oppressed group is living there, b) they’re living in sub-standard conditions, and c) they are there at least somewhat involuntarily (not necessarily legal mandates, but perhaps lack of opportunity to get out due to economics, discrimiantion, redlining, etc..). This coheres far better to the historical and contemporary understanding of the term. Denying the clear negative tropes associated with “ghetto” (including its etymological history as where Jews were involuntarily quartered as part of anti-Semetic oppression) is really not linguistically defensible.
April 4, 2007 - 06:01 AM on April 4th, 2007
1- actual definitions of words would yield a confused look by many. Of course Chinatown would meet the definition, as it is a perfect example. My definition is used in the proper context. Common usage has nothing to do with it.
Did you even read the definition that you provided?Â
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April 4, 2007 - 06:31 AM on April 4th, 2007
2. Peejz, lefties don’t reason. If it sounds mean, to them that is the defintion of racism, bigotry, and homophobia.
Newt obviously hit a raw nerve with Mr. Schraub. I wonder what racist, bigoted or homophobic trait Newt awakened Mr. Schraub’s self-awareness of?
April 4, 2007 - 10:46 AM on April 4th, 2007
Chinatown is not one of the poorer neighborhoods in DC, and the people are not generally said to live there due to discrimination. So, no it doesn’t meet the AHD definition. Nor does Kiryas Joel (despite meeting your def), Boro Park (ditto), and, er, Northfield. And more importantly, nobody besides yourself calls Chinatown a “ghetto.” Again, speaking as a local, if ever while walking through China (which is actually a very pleasant area of town–good dining) I remarked, “I’m walking in a ghetto right now,” people would think I’m nuts.
So, while I appreciate your Nietzchean post-modern instincts trying to liberate words from being captives of the herd, I still have no idea what language is aside from sounds being given a “common usage” and meaning (honestly, what a spectacularly innane statement on your part–there is no such thing as language aside from how it is used by the populace. That’s what makes it language, and not mutually unintelligible grunting). The fact that your definition clashes with what most people consider “ghetto” to mean, the current connotation of the term, the original meaning of the term, and the original connotation of the term (would that I could get conservatives to concede the irrelevance of original intent/plain meaning in constitutional interpretation so easily!), as well as the fact that your definition would lead to nearly every neighborhood in the country being termed a ghetto, is a pretty powerful indictment that you give absolutely no response to.
Or perhaps you didn’t read my post.
April 4, 2007 - 12:05 PM on April 4th, 2007
4- Being poor and discrimination have nothing to do with the meaning of the word David. The proper way to use a word and the way words are used are 2 very different things. AHD?!?! Who cares?
April 4, 2007 - 08:24 PM on April 4th, 2007
Screw the dictionary, you’re an ubermensch! You don’t need to resort to such things as dictionaries to determine what words mean. Clearly, your power is without bounds, knocking untermenschen like the editors of the American Heritage Dictionary off the verbal tightrope as you stride towards linguistic nirvana.
I recant, I concede–clearly your personal definition is superior from that of the lexicographic profession (not to mention the people as a whole).
April 4, 2007 - 08:55 PM on April 4th, 2007
6- No screw your dictionary..I have referred to the dictionary. It is sad that you aren’t capable of looking up what words mean…
April 6, 2007 - 02:28 AM on April 6th, 2007
Peejz, you referred to Wikipedia, which is an online encyclopedia. It is not a dictionary. Yet even Wikipedia says, “A ghetto is an area where people from a specific racial or ethnic background are united in a given culture or religion live as a group, voluntarily or involuntarily, in milder or stricter seclusion … The term now commonly labels any poverty-stricken urban area.”
I find it incomprehensible that in your attempt to defend Gingrich, you are saying that both the history and the common usage of the word “ghetto” are irrelevant. If there is a particular usage of the word “ghetto” that means merely “ethnically or culturally segregated community,” with no connotations of discrimination or poverty, kindly refer us to that dictionary. So far, you have linked Wikipedia, which as I note above, clearly says that ghetto is associated with being forced to live in a place, and with poverty. If you can find a dictionary that supports your broad, negative-connotation-free meaning for “ghetto,” please share.
April 6, 2007 - 08:20 AM on April 6th, 2007
8- The term now commonly labels any poverty-stricken urban area
Labels is the key word…and that is part of the problem with the dumbing down of America. The definition of the word didn’t change, the usage did because people, I guess like you, are too ignorant to use words properly.
2 words that come to mind
Gay and Faggot. One means happy or carefree and the other is a cigarette, but through slang, they both are words that when used in certain sentences can be offensive.
April 7, 2007 - 08:46 AM on April 7th, 2007
Peejz,
I am not sure where you studied English language and literature, but where I did, we learned that dictionaries will change the definitions of words over time to accommodate changing usage. A dictionary that refuses to reflect the current usage of a word, it having changed from what it was in 1789, is useful only if you need to know what the Founders meant when they used a particular word in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. It does not tell me what Newt Gingrich would mean by his use of the word. I find it very strange that you think using words only as they were used originally, and refusing to recognize that their meanings change over time, is a sign of your intelligence.
For example, you are wrong to use “faggot” to mean either cigarette or a slur on homosexuals; a “faggot” has meant “a bundle of twigs” since the Middle Ages, long before there were cigarettes. Those who use it to denote a cigarette are “too ignorant to use words properly,” if “properly” means the way they were used when first written down.
The strangest thing about your post and comments is that you are using Wikipedia, the *ultimate* in user-generated, changing-with-the-times sources, rather than an actual dictionary. Let me guess: anonymous Wikipedians are paragons of linguistic knowledge, but the people who write dictionaries just aren’t up to your standards? You scoff at the American Heritage Dictionary. You ignore the Oxford English Dictionary, which defines ghetto as: 1. The quarter in a city, chiefly in Italy, to which the Jews were restricted [a meaning documented in 1611 that clearly can't apply to Gingrich's comment, as he's not talking about Italy nor is he talking about people being restricted to an area]; 2. A quarter in a city, esp. a thickly populated slum area, inhabited by a minority group or groups, usu. as a result of economic or social pressures; an area, etc., occupied by an isolated group; an isolated or segregated group, community, or area [a meaning documented in 1892 that continues to be used].
Definitions change with usage. If you think that’s not true, then stop using “faggot” either to mean cigarette or to slur homosexuals, and use it only for “bundle of twigs.”