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Comment by chc | Hacker News Reader

That is the common meaning of the term nowadays. Many people are actually surprised when they first encounter the original usage as the name for a place where Jews were forced to live. I'm sorry if you consider it disrespectful, but I don't think we should blame the editor for using words as they are commonly understood. The modern usage does derive from the traditional meaning, though — the idea is that certain groups are forced there by socioeconomic conditions over which they have very little control.

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I think the parent's underlying point is that, while the title's usage is perfectly comprehensible, the word is unsavory as part of a headline on a news websie. To go through the well-worn analysis: "ghetto" has strong connotations of specifically black poverty and crime, and is often used as somewhat comic shorthand for these issues, which is arguably offensive to people for whom these problems are their lived reality (leave alone its extensions in phrases such as "ghetto fabulous" and "ghetto queen"). I'm not black but I am a racial minority and I've always been attuned to words with valences like these, and I do micro-wince whenever friends or acquaintance use the term flippantly in conversation. So it's usage in this context is worthy of comment and pushing back against it legitimization, especially when its usage adds absolutely zero value above substituting "high crime area."'

I disagree. The respectable "modern" variant of ghetto is still to refer to people or things of a group that are constrained to a limited area. There is the "gourmet ghetto" in North Berkeley, for example.

It seems like you're referring to the slang usage of the term, which is mainly used by upper middle class youth when referring to things outside their economic class and daily reality, is pejorative, and is often tinged with racism.

"From a statistical perspective, ghettos are typically high crime areas relative to other parts of the city." [1]

[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto)

No doubt, but the converse is not necessarily true. There are many high crime areas that are not ghettos, in that they have no particular ethnic make-up. There are even relatively high crime areas that are neither ghettos, nor low-income communities.

The converse doesn't need to be true. If ghetto ⊂ high-crime area, then an algorithm that avoids high crime areas avoids ghettos, regardless of whether high-crime area = or ⊂ ghetto. The converse only affects whether it would be accurate to say that a ghetto-avoiding algorithm avoids high-crime areas.

The respectable "modern" variant

the "gourmet ghetto" in North Berkeley, for example.

I also spent 4 years calling <5 floor dorm buildings "BuildingName Tower". It even caught on with other people, but that didn't change the definition of a tower.

It seems like you're referring to the slang usage of the term

I certainly think so too, seeing as how it is nothing but a slang term.

which is mainly used by upper middle class youth

How rich, the guy who uses North Berkeley as a counter example is calling people out for a limited world view.

Hey man, no need to get personal. For what it's worth, I live in a rural, very low income area. We all have limits on our world views. I simply object to the casual usage of a neutral but racially-sensitive term as a blanket adjective for criminality and wretchedness.

Ghetto, in its appropriate usage, isn't a slang term. It's been a part of standard English for a long time.

"in its appropriate usage"

Word meanings are by nature fuzzy, democratic, fluid, subjective, regional and varied. So you may be fighting a losing battle to want "ghetto" to have a fixed "proper" meaning that people should use.

I don't understand why lansing's being down-voted here. He's absolutely right. It's pejorative when used as a way to reference a place where black people live now, and it's historically inaccurate. The "modern" usage is all since the late '80s; and it came from a term based on enforced ethnic divisions. The fact that a lot of readers here live in parts of the country or the world that don't enforce ethnic divisions along geographical boundaries does nothing to change the fact that those still exist, even in the US, and they are still enforced by white-on-black violence in many cases. The first question that comes to mind is who puts the boundaries of these ghetto into the database? What's Fairfax south of Olympic? What's 120th and Broadway? And the second question is, would stores and businesses within those areas suffer as a result of decreased traffic; what recourse would they have; and what hope would blighted areas have of economic improvement if everyone followed a GPS that steered them around the zone?

This is a disgusting concept and an insult to human dignity. It will turn "ghettos" in the slang sense into more genuine ghettos in the historical sense. And lansing is right to take issue with the term as it's used now, because it's become a light, casual, racist and derogatory way to talk about a certain area, which is definitely used by the white middle class as a stand in for other racist words they don't feel comfortable saying anymore.

[Edit: The fact this was downvoted in less time than it would take a speed reader to finish what I wrote is pretty much proof that either someone's got it in for lansing, or someone's a fuckin racist dipshit. Either way, fuck you.]

[Re-edit: Not only do I stand by my comment, I think the people who downvoted me are cowards. Respond if you have a response, and you speak enough English to communicate it.]

Your comment, even with the edit, takes me about 15 seconds to speed-read (I timed it), and it's short enough to skim-read in about five seconds. And I'm not a particularly good speed-reader. And a lot of people will downvote without reading the whole thing if they feel they've got the gist, though I hope not too many. I think you need to calm down and treat people who disagree with you more respectfully. Your reply is extremely heavy on negative emotion, fairly accusatory and low on solid reason, and that kind of thing does tend to get downvoted here. Hacker News tends to value knowledgeable, factual commentary and reasoning on relevant topics over outrage.

Also, now you're complaining about getting downvoted, which is generally against the rules here and will often lead to further downvotes (because you getting downvoted is always off-topic).

Personally, I think I would find some of what you're saying interesting if you presented it in a way that's more informative and actionable and less angry or defensive. Could this have a negative impact on those neighborhoods? That's an interesting question. I'm not sure if it would (most of the people who travel in the area frequently will already be avoiding them), but it's an interesting question. Unfortunately, rather than exploring this interesting topic, you decided you'd rather hunt racists, which might make you feel all high and mighty but doesn't really advance the conversation.

Perhaps the downvotes are coming from people who find this whole discussion off-topic. Or perhaps you are getting downvoted for your rigid tone or hyperbole.

Man, don't spend your whole life like you just walked out of a re-education camp.

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