growing up in the ghetto essay

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Economic View

Growing Up in a Bad Neighborhood Does More Harm Than We Thought

By Justin Wolfers

• March 25, 2016

The neighborhood in which you grow up is a major determinant of your economic success as an adult. That’s been known for a while, but new research suggests that the effects may be much larger than social scientists previously understood.

These findings could fundamentally reshape national housing policy.

The new insight is that much of our best evidence about the effects of growing up in a bad neighborhood comes from examining children whose parents work particularly hard to protect them from the dangers around them. The negative effects of a bad neighborhood may be much larger for low-income families with less motivated parents.

A recent research paper by Eric Chyn , an economist completing his dissertation at the University of Michigan, explores this idea. Mr. Chyn’s findings have received close attention from economists around the country. (Full disclosure: I am one of Mr. Chyn’s thesis advisers.)

It has long been clear that children from troubled neighborhoods have worse outcomes as adults. But it has been much harder to disentangle whether these neighborhoods cause the later disadvantage, or whether the hardships that lead families to bad neighborhoods are the problem.

The federal government’s Moving to Opportunity experiment has provided the clearest evidence yet on the effects of leaving a bad neighborhood. From 1994 to 1998, this large-scale social experiment invited low-income families living in public housing to enter a lottery that could reshape their lives. Echoing the approach that medical researchers take to clinical trials, the lottery randomly assigned a kind of experimental treatment to winners, while the losers served as a control group. The winners received housing vouchers that helped them pay the rent if they moved out of public housing. The losers stayed in public housing for as long as they remained eligible.

Lottery winners and losers were both tracked over the ensuing years, and an important study last year by the Stanford economist Raj Chetty, with Nathaniel Hendren and Lawrence F. Katz of Harvard — a study I’ve previously written about — found that children who moved when they were young went on to enjoy substantially higher earnings than people of similar ages whose parents lost the lottery. (Another disclosure: Mr. Katz was my Ph.D. adviser.)

The random assignment of slots in this program means that we can be confident that these differences result from moving. But Mr. Chyn argues that this experiment substantially understates the importance of neighborhoods. The problem, he says, isn’t in comparing those who win the lottery with those who lose.

Rather, he argues that both the treatment and control groups had already partly inoculated their children against the effects of bad neighborhoods. Only a quarter of the families that were eligible for the lottery actually applied for it, and Mr. Chyn says the applicants were particularly motivated to protect their children from the negative effects of a bad neighborhood.

Indeed, qualitative and survey evidence from earlier research supports his conjecture. In-depth interviews by Jeffrey R. Kling, now with the Congressional Budget Office, and Jeffrey B. Liebman and Mr. Katz of Harvard revealed that these families “organized their entire lives around protecting their sons and daughters from the genuine dangers of ghetto life.” These mothers were “intensely focused on their children,” and as a result “younger children in particular were seldom allowed outside of the apartment, and never beyond the mother’s watchful gaze.”

The implication is that the housing experiment reveals the effect of moving from a bad neighborhood, for those least affected by the bad neighborhood.

In order to test his theory, Mr. Chyn would need to compare the results of a voluntary housing lottery with an experiment that essentially forces all families to enter the lottery.

Fortunately for Mr. Chyn, the demolition of many public housing projects in Chicago in the late 1990s effectively provides precisely this experiment. From 1995 to 1998, the Chicago Housing Authority demolished many high-rise public housing buildings, including the projects you might recognize from the 1970s sitcom “Good Times.”

These demolitions were effectively a lottery, because they led to the dislocation of some families — those whose buildings were demolished — but not those whose buildings were left standing. Thus those families that left did so for essentially random reasons. And just as in the Moving to Opportunity lottery, those families that “won” the lottery — that is, those families whose building was set for demolition — were offered a housing voucher to help them pay the rent if they moved out of the projects. Those families whose buildings remained standing were effectively a control group, as they continued to live in public housing, undisturbed.

Importantly, this real-world natural experiment differs from the Moving to Opportunity experiment, because all families could be pushed to move, not just those who volunteered for a government relocation program.

Mr. Chyn finds that these demolitions had very large — and very positive — effects on the children who were forced to move out of the projects. The children forced out of public housing went on to have annual earnings that were 16 percent higher than those who remained, and they were 9 percent more likely to be employed. Over all, being kicked out of public housing might add about $45,000 to each child’s lifetime earnings. The effects may be even larger for those who moved while they were young.

Around the same time, the Chicago Housing Authority also ran a small-scale lottery that gave the winners the same housing vouchers. Much like the Moving to Opportunity lottery, this one was optional, so only motivated public housing residents applied. Mr. Chyn’s analysis of this alternative experiment finds that it yielded much less impressive results, and the children whose families won the lottery went on to register roughly similar adult outcomes as those whose families lost.

The contrast is rather striking, suggesting that housing policies that also aim to help those who would not otherwise apply may yield a much larger bang for the buck.

Of course, there remain a number of open questions. Both the demolition study and the Chicago lottery study are hampered by their relatively small sample sizes. And there are many factors — including statistical chance — that might explain why the different experiments yield different effects.

But the underlying logic — that there’s good reason to think that a lottery may understate the true effects of housing programs — strikes me as sound. Moreover, Mr. Chyn has developed an elegant mathematical model to explore his logic, and it suggests that the effect of giving housing vouchers to a typical public housing resident may be many times larger than the effect on a lottery winner.

This important research also contains insights likely to extend beyond housing policy. For conservatives who are suspicious about the government’s ability to enact useful social policy, the study highlights the difficulty in targeting government programs to those who are most likely to benefit, rather than those most likely to seek them out. And for liberals, the logic that Mr. Chyn applies to housing suggests that the experiments used to evaluate other social policy interventions may understate the effectiveness that these programs could have when rolled out to a broader population.

Justin Wolfers is a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan. Follow him on Twitter at @justinwolfers .

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Growing up as a Black male student in White suburbia: What I learned

Subscribe to how we rise, tim herd tim herd phd student - university of california, los angeles, founder - rising black men @timjherd.

November 24, 2021

Every parent wants their child to receive the best education so that they can become productive members of society. However, for Black students, this hard-prized goal often remains far out of reach. This was my experience growing up as a Black male in a small, wealthy pocket of suburbia close to the Detroit neighborhood and majority Black city in which I had previously lived. Feelings of isolation and exclusion, similar for many other Black students, were all too common. And while living in a quiet and wealthy suburb has been a privilege, it’s silence was deafening as a young 12-year-old Black male entering a predominantly white space – attempting to find a community similar to the one I had just left.

This long-standing gap to reach the premium placed on education: defined as “ the average amount of wages a college-educated person would make in comparison to a non-college educated person ” , looms the widest across racial lines.  Research has well documented the upside that attending college and universities provides to career earnings and financial outcomes and for historically marginalized communities, as seen through a 2018 report by the National Center for Education Statistics , the benefits on college enrollment rates are clear. This is further exemplified by Black American families moving their children from urban school districts to better resourced and higher funded private schools and suburban districts. A 2019 Bloomberg report found that city school districts mainly serving students of color receive significantly less money than those of majority white suburban and rural school districts.  Parents of color who have the means to provide the better opportunities for their children move their families to these majority white suburban schools and neighborhoods.

Culture Shock, Racism and Microaggression

However, while students of color can potentially be afforded better opportunities in these spaces, there are educational and social ramifications that can have an adverse effect on that child’s socio-emotional development and academic progression. And while these students can sometimes thrive in these spaces, there can still be feelings of isolation and culture shock that arise as they adapt to new environments and battle challenges such as microaggressions and racism.

I witnessed this personally when President Obama was elected and throughout middle school, where many of my peers would come to school repeating their parent’s remarks, and that of their own, questioning the president’s birthright and wishing an untimely end not only to his presidency, but to his life. Being within an eardrop of these conversations was not an uncommon situation to be in, along with other conversations involving microaggressions and overt racism. Growing up in Grosse Pointe I felt invisible, and athletics were the only times in which I found myself being seen. I was always the only Black male and usually the only Black person in my classes from fifth to twelfth grade – balancing different thoughts in my head about what people thought about me and attempting to carry myself in a way that made white people feel comfortable. As other kids were focused on going on vacations and having conversations about who liked who, I was focused on the slivers of grey hair that were growing because of how extremely stressed I was as a 12 to 14-year-old attempting to be perfect in the face of racism, culture shock, and feelings of isolation. A report in the Democrat & Chronicle finds similar experiences about Black students navigating suburban schooling.

• Creating Space and Achieving Success

Even so, while such experiences were instrumental in my upbringing, to say that my suburban schooling and neighborhood made me would be giving it far too much credit. However, in a rather caustic manner, I can unequivocally say that my experiences living in Grosse Pointe brought out a layer of resiliency in which I never thought I had. From developing a mentoring organization in my undergraduate education titled Rising Black Men to pursuing my PhD in higher education, it provided the initial spark that led me to the path on which I am currently on. Additionally, I learned the value of affinity groups as they provide students who share identities, particularly marginalized identities, to gather together to engage in conversation, community, and support. As a 2015 report from Learning for Justice remarked, “they allow students who share an identity—usually a marginalized identity—to gather, talk in a safe space about issues related to that identity, and transfer that discussion into action that makes for a more equitable experience at school.” These spaces, along with more equitable practices as described below, are important in creating more inclusive and enriching educational spaces.  

• Addressing Racial & Financial Disparities in K-12 School Districts

While there have been efforts and initiatives to highlight the benefits of diverse school districts, there are still significant financial disparities and racial inequities within many K-12 school districts nationwide .

A 2019 report by Education Week concluded that majority of the nations’ K-12 students within public schools currently attend suburban schools. Furthermore, another recent 2021 report by Education Week stated that of the 25 largest metropolitan areas between 2006-2018, the majority of students within the open zone suburban schools were majority non-white. However, for suburban schools in white suburban areas with closed zone districts such as my own, the diversity rates skewed disproportionately white. What’s more, a recent 2017 report by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) highlighted that of the 7.7 million Black students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools, only 7% of these students attend low poverty schools.

While there needs to be a continued explicit conversation on the important distinctions between open and closed school districts, it should be noted that even closed districts are becoming less homogenous. This is due to factors such as diverse families moving to these closed districts and making school districts such as mine more diverse with regards to race, ethnicity, and gender.

• Creating Equitable and Sustainable Change in the Suburban School Districts

School districts need to place value on hiring teachers that reflect the demographics of the students that they are teaching .

There are not only feelings of increased belonging, but also feelings of stronger identity development for teachers that share one or more identities with the students whom they are teaching as reported in a 2019 report by One Day. For teachers that do not reflect the changing demographics of the students that they teach, it is important to monitor their own applications of empathy, which can be valuable in connecting with students.  A 2015 report from the George Lucas Educational Foundation found that some of the benefits of empathy within education include, “…building positive classroom culture, strengthening community, and preparing students to be leaders in their own communities.”

Suburban school districts need to also be mindful of the disproportionate amount of disciplinary actions that their students of color are subject to in comparison to their white counterparts, as addressed in a previous Brookings report titled, Disproportionality in student discipline: Connecting policy to research . Policies that are more racially conscious and restorative-justice focused in their approach can be beneficial in creating a more inviting academic and social culture for students of color who feel that they are being unfairly targeted by the school administration.

As for administration and even school boards within these districts, there needs to be more representation of people of color that reflect the student makeup just as there needs to be regarding the teaching workforce . In my own district, my father recently became the School Board President, making him the first Black person on the school board and now the first Black president. While this is an important step, these roles should not just be symbolic in gesture but rather have real implications through policy and culture to create more inclusive and equitable spaces. Culture that can be established through after school programs and affinity spaces that affirm the multiple identities of students of color can also serve to battle feelings of isolation, culture, and identity development.

Furthermore, it should be noted that while these strategies do not fully address all the challenges that students of color, especially Black students in suburbia, face, they are of importance and need to be at the forefront of the national conversation as we continue to make K-12 education more equitable.

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• Poetry in the Ghetto: Capturing the Essence of Growing Up

Poetry has long served as a powerful medium for expressing the human experience, shedding light on various aspects of life. In the context of growing up in the ghetto, poets have painted vivid pictures of their personal journeys, highlighting the challenges and triumphs that shape their lives. These poems offer a unique perspective on the resilience, strength, and beauty found within these communities. Let us explore some remarkable examples of poetry that eloquently capture the essence of growing up in the ghetto.

1. "Concrete Dreams" by Jamal Jackson

2. "streets of broken glass" by latoya johnson, 3. "the forgotten melody" by malik wright.

Concrete Dreams portrays the struggles and aspirations of a young individual growing up in the ghetto. Jackson's poignant words depict the harsh reality of living amidst poverty and violence, while also acknowledging the dreams that persist within these challenging circumstances. Here is an excerpt from the poem:

"In the shadows of towering buildings, Where dreams seem to crumble like old bricks, I rise like a sapling through cracked concrete, My dreams, a beacon cutting through thick smoke."

Through rich metaphors and evocative imagery, Jackson encapsulates the resilience and hope that thrives amidst adversity.

Streets of Broken Glass delves into the experience of witnessing violence and loss in the ghetto, providing a raw and emotional account of growing up. Johnson's words paint a vivid picture of shattered lives and the struggle to find solace in a seemingly unforgiving environment. Here is a glimpse of the poem:

"Street corners echo with cries of despair, Broken glass on the pavement, a constant reminder, Of lives shattered like mirrors, never made whole, But through it all, we rise, we endure."

Johnson's powerful verses illustrate the strength and determination that emerges from the depths of adversity, encapsulating the spirit of resilience found in these communities.

In The Forgotten Melody , Wright explores the idea of identity and the search for belonging in the ghetto. The poem reflects on the struggles faced by young individuals trying to navigate a society where opportunities may appear limited. Here is an excerpt from the poem:

"In a symphony of chaos, I search for my tune, Lost in the noise of the streets, my melody fades, But within my heart, beats the rhythm of resilience, A song only I can compose."

Wright's poignant words resonate with those who have felt marginalized, emphasizing the power of self-discovery and the importance of embracing one's unique voice.

Poetry provides a powerful platform for individuals to share their experiences, emotions, and challenges. These poems about growing up in the ghetto serve as a testament to the strength, resilience, and beauty found within these communities. Through their heartfelt verses, poets like Jamal Jackson, LaToya Johnson, and Malik Wright offer powerful insights into the multifaceted nature of life in the ghetto. Their words serve as a reminder that even in the face of adversity, hope, and the pursuit of dreams can flourish.

• Poems about Self-Confidence: Embracing the Power Within
• Poems About Being a Mistress: Exploring the Complexities of Love, Longing, and Secret Desires

Entradas Relacionadas

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Poems Reflecting the Harsh Realities of Hunger and Poverty

Jamaican Poems: Portraying the Harsh Realities of Poverty

Poetry Reflecting on the Divides: Rich and Poor

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Growing up in bad neighborhoods has a ‘devastating’ impact

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The study by sociologists Geoffrey Wodtke and David Harding of the University of Michigan and Felix Elwert of the University of Wisconsin is the first to capture the cumulative impact of growing up in America’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods on a key educational outcome: high school graduation.

“Compared to growing up in affluent neighborhoods, growing up in neighborhoods with high levels of poverty and unemployment reduces the chances of high school graduation from 96 percent to 76 percent for black children,” said Wodtke, a doctoral student who works with Harding at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). “The impact on white children is also harmful, but not as large, reducing their chances of graduating from 95 percent to 87 percent.”

In contrast to earlier research that examined neighborhood effects on children at a single point in time, the new study uses data from the ISR Panel Study of Income Dynamics to follow 2,093 children from age 1 through age 17, assessing the neighborhoods in which they lived every year.

“We found that black and white children had starkly different patterns of exposure to bad neighborhoods over the long term,” Wodtke said. “Black children were about seven times more likely than white children to experience long-term residence in the most disadvantaged 20 percent of neighborhoods.”

For the study, the researchers defined disadvantaged neighborhoods as those characterized by high poverty, unemployment and welfare receipt, many female-headed households, and few well-educated adults.

“Our results indicate that sustained exposure to disadvantaged neighborhoods has a much greater negative impact on the chances a child will graduate from high school than earlier research has suggested,” Wodtke said.

“The current findings demonstrate the importance of neighborhoods throughout childhood, and resonate with evidence from several other studies suggesting that residence in disadvantaged neighborhoods may have a negative effect on the cognitive development of children many years or even generations later,” Harding said.

“And while our study does not speak to the efficacy of specific policy interventions needed to improve communities that have suffered decades of structural neglect, it seems likely that a lasting commitment to neighborhood improvement and income desegregation would be necessary to resolve the problems identified in our study.”

Harding and Wodtke are also affiliated with the U-M Department of Sociology, part of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

Established in 1949, the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR) is the world’s largest academic social science survey and research organization, and a world leader in developing and applying social science methodology, and in educating researchers and students from around the world. ISR conducts some of the most widely-cited studies in the nation, including the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, the American National Election Studies, the Monitoring the Future Study, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Health and Retirement Study, the Columbia County Longitudinal Study and the National Survey of Black Americans. ISR researchers also collaborate with social scientists in more than 60 nations on the World Values Surveys and other projects, and the Institute has established formal ties with universities in Poland, China, and South Africa. ISR is also home to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the world’s largest digital social science data archive. Visit the ISR Web site at http://www.isr.umich.edu for more information.

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• ISR Panel Study of Income Dynamics
• David Harding
• Felix Elwert

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The Effects of Living in Ghetto on Youth

Updated 13 November 2023

Subject Experience

Downloads 49

Category Crime ,  Law ,  Life

Topic Criminal Justice

The Effects of Living in a Disadvantaged Neighborhood on Youth

The youth growing up in a poor neighborhood often have a significantly reduced chance of proper development in life. The essence of this is associated with hardships experienced due to the negative impacts such as increased rate of crime, and poor living conditions. The evidence which supports this aspect indicates that the comparison to growing up in affluent neighborhoods, the youths in these ghetto often have high levels of unemployment rates and poverty which limits many chances to succeed in life (Schaefer, 2012). Further, their life often begins affected by reduced opportunities to graduate from high school in most regions.

The Effects of Disadvantaged Neighborhoods on Cognitive Development in Childhood

The research question entails the effects of living in ghetto or disadvantaged regions on youth population. Additionally, the importance of this study assists in demonstrating the significance of neighborhoods to the childhood which resonates with impacts on cognitive development in a later generation. The ghetto is also referred to as disadvantaged neighborhoods which are characterized by a high level of poverty, welfare receipt, unemployment few educated adults and female-headed households (Shroder " Orr, 2012). Besides, there is a correlation between the poor neighborhood and is associated with impaired cognitive skills among the youths which have reduced chances to advanced beyond their parent’s capabilities. Therefore the outcome of such condition reflects on that bad environment often worsen the life chances of the youth in their future.

Literature Review

The are various research conducted about the effects on ghetto on youth pointing multiple aspects in the topic. The evidence regarding the impact of neighborhood environment on youth has been categorized as the central way to design a broader range of public policies. The essence of this is addressed through the long-term survey data from the moving to opportunity. The primary objective is to demonstrate the evaluation of opportunity to understand whether neighborhood poverty with their related characteristics has an independent causal effect on the life chances of the youth within these societies (Gennetian, Sanbonmatsu, Katz, Kling, Sciandra, Ludwig, " Kessler, 2012). Further, it worth noticing that there is an empirical correlation in regards to the impact of neighborhood environments given the outcomes ranging from the characteristics of the youth and their families. The essence of this factor is attributed with the list choice and means of survival due to the hardships experienced among these people in the society.

The Impact of Growing Up in High Crime Neighborhoods on Youth Criminal Behavior

There is also research describing whether growing up in high crime neighborhood have an impact on youth criminal behavior. Moreover, the investigation in this study explores more on neighborhood crime as a subsequent criminal behavior of youth where they exploit a unique environment. There is also evidence linking the possibility of this association whereby convicted youth for crime are exposed to neighborhoods with a high rate of criminal activities(Damm, " Dustmann, 2014). The question of whether a lifelong disadvantage neighborhood has a relation to the impact on youth is the concern for public policy debate for many research conducted. However, there is a given the fact that crime is often reflected to be an outcome of particular interest. The existing studies of neighborhood characteristics on the behavior of delinquent youth often illustrate overall mixed findings.

Comparing and Contrasting Article Reviews

In the article, The Long-Term Effects of Moving to Opportunity on Youth Outcomes describes the evidence regarding the effects of neighborhood environment of children and youths as a central way to design public policies. The essence of this article is to indicate the life chances among the youth which varies with the neighborhoods. The youth growing up in regions which have a concentration of poverty often tends to have elevated rates in the adverse outcomes. These outcomes entail lower tests scores, school dropouts, and involvement of criminal activities (Gennetian, Sanbonmatsu, Katz, Kling, Sciandra, Ludwig, " Kessler, 2012). Further, the article indicates that the government of U.S has developed a program referred to as moving to the opportunity to overcome the challenge of bias selection associated with the ghettos. The importance of such project was programmed to reduce the level of poverty to ensure an increased lifelong chance among the youth in their future.

The article Does Growing Up in a High Crime Neighborhood Affect Youth Criminal Behavior, describes the effects of early exposure to the neighborhood crimes as being a subsequential behavior of the youth. The overall neighborhood characteristics expose various elements which have an impact on the lifelong development of the youth (Damm, " Dustmann, 2014). Further, there is a response to youth criminal behavior given the establishment of an association or in the presence of illegal activities. The differentiation between the shared neighborhood effects and criminal context is determined by the local economic conditions of the region.

The similarity on these articles indicates that one of the significant impacts of the ghetto on youth is the assimilation of criminal activity. The involvement of the youth in these activities is based on both the hardships of economic and social conditions such as poverty, high rate of unemployment and school dropouts. However, the difference is that in the article Does Growing Up in a High Crime Neighborhood Affect Youth Criminal Behavior; the overall findings indicate that the measure of criminal context as an impact of youths in the ghetto has an empirical identification on the behavior of the youth (Damm, " Dustmann, 2014). The essence of this is that the neighborhood characteristics have a systematic effect on criminal convictions that are affected by the hardship experienced during the early age in life. In the article, The Long-Term Effects of Moving to Opportunity on Youth Outcomes, the outcome evaluate the primary disruptive effects associated with moving to opportunity program as a likelihood to benefit the influences of the youths in the ghetto. The importance of this platform is targeting permanent change over a long time as a child begins to grow until their future age of being responsible for their actions (Gennetian, Sanbonmatsu, Katz, Kling, Sciandra, Ludwig, " Kessler, 2012). Besides, the program helps to create the livelihood to eradicate unemployment. Primarily this can also contribute to change the desire for the youth to finish their study as well as also changing their mental and physical behaviors within these regions.

These studies are relevant to the public because they investigate and expose the effects of the disadvantaged neighborhood on youth. Further, the evidence and the causes of these impacts are also addressed to disclose the necessary public policies to change the situations. One of the designed programs identified is moving to the opportunity which assists in creating excellent housing developments in these areas. Moreover, the essence of these initiatives is to eliminate poverty and improve the economic conditions of the people living in the ghetto to positively impact the lives of the youth.

Damm, A. P., " Dustmann, C. (2014). Does growing up in a high crime neighborhood affect youth criminal behavior?. American Economic Review, 104(6), 1806-32.

Gennetian, L. A., Sanbonmatsu, L., Katz, L. F., Kling, J. R., Sciandra, M., Ludwig, J., ... " Kessler, R. C. (2012). The long-term effects of Moving to Opportunity on youth outcomes. Cityscape, 137-167.

Schaefer, D. R. (2012). Youth co-offending networks: An investigation of social and spatial effects. Social networks, 34(1), 141-149.

Shroder, M. D., " Orr, L. L. (2012). Moving to Opportunity: Why, How, and What Next?. Cityscape, 31-56.

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5 Benefits To Growing Up In The Ghetto

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Whenever you hear the word ghetto immediately you associate it with sadness, negative stereotypes and death. A dark shadow is cast on anything identified as being ghetto and anyone from that environment is also deemed to have the same characteristics. I’m not here to defend everything that happens in the ghetto. Yes, much of it can be unnecessary, destructive nonsense. Indeed there are many negative situations that are oversaturated in the ghetto. However, just as there are harsh consequences to having grown up in this environment there are also some benefits as well. There are many life coping character traits that are implanted in you from growing up in the hood. Many of these character traits are what make you stand strong among the weak and feeble. This is needed in today’s world where people are experiencing life situations that they thought they would never have to face. Which is why I stand by the belief that the ghetto does have its problems but you can find glimmers of happiness there well. The following are a few benefits that I feel I have inherited by growing up in the hood.

1. Pressure

Growing up in a not so pleasant environment gives you the ability to handle stressful life situations without losing your mind. In the past you may have had situations where you and your family were with little food, bills were due with no way to pay them. These situations mold you into having the strength necessary to cope with future situations which may be less life threatening yet equally stressful. This give you the ability to handle anxiety and pressure without cracking under it and keeping a clear mind on your quest to find the best solution to that problem. This is what is needed when you are facing these situations. You need a clear mind that will not become foggy and cause you to lose touch with reality. Nope, you won’t catch me shooting up my job and co-workers if I lose it. Sure I would be upset, but I would simply pick myself up dust myself off and keep it moving with a new plan.

Easy Tips To Becoming A Successful Parent

2. Chameleon Ability

Time in the ghetto gives you the ability to blend in no matter where you are. Of course an important note to this is that the person must have spent some time outside of the ghetto in order to be able to master this chameleon affect. For instance, I grew up in the hood but graduated from DePaul University. DePaul was a mostly White, privileged, private Catholic university. A much different environment from my neighborhood on Chicago’s west side. However, both of these experiences aided in molding me into being a multifaceted person. I can go to the most urban areas in any inner city to the suburbs to Wall Street and feel the exact amount of comfort level in all places. Without ever once doubting who I am or feeling as if I am being phony or masquerading in any way. The truth is that the world is big and there is much more to it than your stoop, or your block. You have to be a master of yourself first and then you can master any environment you encounter.

Although I no longer live in the hood, I can still empathize with what is happening there and can connect on a deeper level with the people there and their lifestyles and experiences. It also is what gives me the skills to have….To Read The Rest Go To YeahSheSaidIt

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Growing up in the Ghetto

By: regina   •  Essay  •  841 Words  •  December 28, 2009  •  1,418 Views

Join now to read essay Growing up in the Ghetto

Change, shit

I guess change is good for any of us

Whatever it take for any of y'all niggaz to get up out the hood

Shit, I'm wit cha, I ain't mad at cha

Got nuttin but love for ya, do your thing boy

Yeah, all the homies that I ain't talk to in a while

I'ma send this one out for y'all, knahmean?

Cause I ain't mad at cha

Heard y'all tearin up shit out there, kickin up dust

[Danny Boy] I ain't...

Givin a motherfucker, heheheheheh

Yeah, niggaz

[Danny Boy] ...mad at cha

[Verse One: 2Pac]

Now we was once two niggaz of the same kind

Quick to holla at a hoochie with the same line

You was just a little smaller but you still roller

Got stretched to Y.A. and hit the hood swoll

Member when you had a jheri curl didn't quite learn

On the block, witcha glock, trippin off sherm

Collect calls to the till, sayin how ya changed

Oh you a Muslim now, no more dope game

Heard you might be comin home, just got bail

Wanna go to the Mosque, don't want to

I seems I lost my little homie he's a changed man

Hit the pen and now no sinnin is the game plan

When I talk about money all you see is the struggle

When I tell you I'm livin large you tell me it's trouble

Congratulation on the weddin, I hope your wife know

She got a playa for life, and that's no bullshitin

I know we grew apart, you probably don't remember

I used to fiend for your sister, but never went up in her

And I can see us after school, we'd BOMB

on the first motherfucker with the wrong shit on

Now the whole shit's changed, and we don't even kick it

Got a big money scheme, and you ain't even with it

Hmm, knew in my heart you was the same motherfucker bad

Go toe to toe when it's time for roll you got a brother's back

And I can't even trip, cause I'm just laughin at cha

You tryin hard to maintain, then go head

cause I ain't mad at cha

(Hmm, I ain't mad at cha)

[Chorus: Danny Boy]

I ain't, mad, at cha [2Pac:] (I ain't mad at cha)

I ain't, mad, at cha

[Verse Two: 2Pac]

We used to be like distant cousins, fightin, playin dozens

Whole neighborhood buzzin, knowin, that we wasn't

Used to catch us on the roof or behind the stairs

I'm gettin blitzed and I reminsce on all the times we shared

Besides bumpin n grindin wasn't nothin on our mind

In time we learned to live a life of crime

Rewind us back, to a time was much too young to know

I caught a felony lovin the way the guns blow

And even though we seperated, you said that you'd wait

Don't give nobody no coochie while I be locked up state

I kiss my Mama goodbye, and wipe the tears from her lonely eyes

What we want to do — and be — in the world

By establishing what i didn’t want to be, i created my own power structure of sorts, one that made me feel safe and allowed me to pursue the things i did want to be..

My fourth-grade teacher once asked our class to list something “good” that each of our parents had given us. The question was simple enough, but as she wound along the rows of desks collecting answers like flowers for a bouquet, I tapped my foot and felt sweat bead upon my forehead. My mom was easy. She worked day and night to care for her brood of 12 and magically managed to make everything — every meal, every sewn garment, every holiday — special. Despite our growing up in the projects on food stamps, most of my siblings will tell you they didn’t realize we were poor. My dad, however, had me stumped. What could I say about the man whose single “good” gift was to give me the dregs of beer, which he called his “drops,” left in the bottoms of his beer cans?

“The greatest thing my mother has given me is that she’s always there to help me,” I said when my turn came. “And the greatest thing my father has given me,” I stopped and cleared my throat, “is an example of what I don’t want to be.” My teacher looked at me as though I’d just handed her a stem of thorns without a rose on it. But that moment marked the beginning of a different kind of life for me; it got me thinking about what kind of person I wanted — and didn’t want — to be.

Though asking children what they want to be when they grow up has begun to fall out of favor, by fourth grade I’d already narrowed down what I wanted to be: the heavyweight champion of the world like Muhammad Ali, the richest man in the world, or president of the United States. Unlike my siblings, I was at times aware of our poverty, but more than that, I was aware that I was powerless to stop my father from stealing my paper route money from my sock drawer or from filling our home with rage. Perhaps then it’s no surprise that all three things I wanted to be were centered on wielding extraordinary power. And given that children of alcoholics have a “ higher rate of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem compared with children of nonalcoholics ,” aligning myself with those aspirations from an early age may have helped me shoulder the weight of my father.

But the real power came when I put my fourth-grade pronouncement to the test: The next time my father offered me his “drops,” instead of dutifully cringe-swallowing them, I said no. I’d drawn a line between us, and through the lens of that one tiny word — no — I began to draw other boundaries in my life. I promised myself I’d never take a drink of alcohol; I wouldn’t waste time doing frivolous things; I wouldn’t have sex until I was married (yes, I was raised Catholic, and yes, this was the one rule I broke).

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By establishing what I didn’t want to be, I created my own power structure of sorts, one that made me feel safe and allowed me to pursue the things I did want to be. I worked hard; I studied hard; I questioned everything all the time. I determined that a good education was paramount and worked as a janitor in order to afford private school, which ultimately helped me get to Yale and then Harvard. And while I didn’t become the heavyweight champion or the richest man in the world or the president of the United States, I did become successful enough to eventually buy my hardworking mom a house of her own.

But there was more to it than that. One night when I was coming home late from the library, where I regularly studied after high school until I caught the last bus out of the city, I found my father passed out in the snow outside our house during a frigid Toledo snowstorm. There in that motionless lump, facing hypothermia and possible death, was the man who’d terrified us countless times. I remember how light he felt when I scooped him into my arms — like a baby, I thought.

And though his “drops” were one of the last “good” things he’d ever offered me, as I carried him into our house, I realized I had compassion for him still and always would. That’s what refusing to be like my father gave me, above all else: a heart that would always open and the strength to carry him home.

Tom Seeman is a businessperson and author of “ Animals I Want To See: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Projects and Defying the Odds .”

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Anitta Reflects on Dreaming Big in Brazil and Breaking the ‘Rules’ of Being a Woman: ‘I Wanted to Shake My Ass. I Wanted to Be Free’

Anitta reflected on growing up in the Brazilian favelas and breaking the “rules” to achieve her dreams at Variety’s Power of Women Presented by Lifetime event on Thursday, held at New York’s Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

The Brazilian superstar accepted her award from Bruna Marquezine, who celebrated Anitta’s “authenticity and fiery passion for music.”

In her speech, Anitta reflected on dreaming big while growing up in the favelas, where she said the people are “treated as the trash” of Brazil.

“We are born believing these things are not possible for us, because we don’t have it. There’s no structure. There’s no opportunities,” Anitta said in her speech. “Being born and raised in the ghetto of this country … we don’t have the tools that we should have to be everywhere that we dream about.”

Anitta is representing the charity CUFA (Central Única das Favelas), which is based in Anitta’s hometown in Rio De Janeiro. CUFA aims to promote a more just and poverty-free society by providing impoverished residents with non-profit educational programs and government-assisted aid.

CUFA’s programs range from teaching computer and technical skills to teenagers, while others provide cultural activities – from participation across internationally recognized sports leagues and music workshops – to all ages. Much of the music seminars and programs focus on the funk and hip-hop culture that inspired Anitta’s latest LP, “Funk Generation.” 

Elsewhere in her speech, Anitta talked about breaking the “rules” she was taught growing up as a woman in Brazil.

“There were so many rules. So many rules on how to be a woman, how to behave, how to find the best husband, how to look good for the audience, to be the cute girl everybody wants to marry,” Anitta said. “And I was just not this person. I wanted to shake my ass, I wanted to be free, I wanted to make my own money.”

In her Variety cover story , Anitta opened up about her career reset, which led her to recording the Brazilian funk-imbued “Funk Generation.” The album, released April 26, includes features from Sam Smith, Bad Gyal and more, and comes after Anitta overcame a series of health issues.

“Now I appreciate death so much,” Anitta told Variety . “I thought I was going to die. And if I did, I wanted to be sure I left behind a body of work that I felt truly represented me and the sounds I love. I’d already had the hits; I already did it by the numbers. Death, and the fact that we don’t know what tomorrow holds, make me feel the most alive. Now I want to try something that makes me feel like an artist again.”

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This Holocaust Remembrance Day, survivors have a message: Don't let history 'repeat itself'

It took Fred Kurz five decades before he could talk about his experiences during the Holocaust.

He didn't think his story was important, he said, and it was painful to relive it. He couldn't even talk with his sister, Doriane , who died in 2005 , about what they had both endured, other than give a knowing glance or nod when something reminded them of their lives during World War II ‒ and they were so close, "we were one person."

"It was too hard," he said. "It was terrible to think about it. We tried to put it out of our heads."

But in 1993, his Southern New Jersey synagogue planned a Holocaust remembrance event, and a rabbi asked Kurz to share his story, one the rabbi hadn't even really heard himself. He asked Kurz to tell it, just to him, so Kurz did.

After Kurz finished, the astonished rabbi told him, "You have a story that really needs telling," and so, "with great trepidation," Kurz began speaking about his past: to synagogues, schools, churches and other organizations. He's been doing it ever since.

Kurz is one of several Holocaust survivors now telling their stories in short videos as part of an international effort to tackle Holocaust denialism and hate speech. The effort coincides with Yom Hashoah , on Sunday and Monday, the Holocaust observance that lines up with the Hebrew calendar.

Amid concerns over rising antisemitism in the U.S. and tensions over the Israel-Hamas war, Kurz says the message couldn't be more timely: "As long as I am able to speak, I want the world to understand how close we are getting to the same conditions, the prejudices, and how to avoid that."

'The world should never forget'

"My story specifically isn't important," the now-87-year-old told USA TODAY. "What is important is to know what the conditions were, that the world should never forget how it happened. ... Those conditions, what happened to my family, should never happen again."

But Kurz's story is compelling, one of a successful extended family with a thriving business, a resourceful and selfless mother and two resilient children who were just 9 and 10 when the war ended: The family lived in Holland while his father was working for his family's multinational optical company. His father was arrested on the street, then sent by the Nazis to a succession of camps before he was killed in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

His mother tried to protect Fred and Doriane, entrusting their safety to the Dutch Underground which hid the children when she was arrested. The siblings were briefly reunited with their mother − but all three ended up at Bergen-Belsen, another notorious camp, where they endured horrifying conditions. Even their liberation was bittersweet, Kurz said, because they had no food or water for two weeks and their mother was ill with typhus. Soon, they lost her, too .

Kurz and his sister were eventually brought to live with an aunt, uncle and two young cousins in Brooklyn. He attended Columbia University − now the site of clashes between police and pro-Palestinian protesters − and became an engineer, working for RCA and General Electric, raising his three daughters with his wife, Rachel, in their Cherry Hill, New Jersey, home.

When the Claims Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany , a New York-based nonprofit that advocates for Holocaust survivors all over the world, asked him to be part of its #CancelHate campaign to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day, Kurz said he immediately agreed.

"Hate speech is a primary cause of increasing antisemitism, which has recently found its way back into our American society," Kurz says in his video. He recalls how Hitler used Jews as scapegoats, and how Jews were rounded up, brutalized and systematically murdered.

"My concern that I am addressing today is a similarity of unchecked hate speech against many minorities in our society, but particularly Jews, which could lead to tragic events as it did in Nazi Germany. Everyone who understands the dangers that hate speech is doing to our great country needs to speak up, to be the voice of reason, so that history will not repeat itself as it did decades ago.

"Your words matter."

'A tsunami of antisemitism' makes campaign 'more timely'

#CancelHate gives Holocaust survivors an opportunity to confront those who deny, distort or try to minimize their experiences, said Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference.

In the wake of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and the ensuing war in Gaza, there has been "a tsunami of antisemitism, Jew hate and Holocaust denial," said Schneider, making the campaign, planned before the events of Oct. 7, "more urgent, more timely and more needed than ever."

"There are people out there calling these survivors liars," he said. It's "like their loved ones are being murdered a second time. It's not easy for them to go through this, but we've asked them to because it's one of our last opportunities. It's important for us to record their voices while we still have them."

A 2020 Claims Conference survey found "a worrying lack of basic Holocaust knowledge" among millennials and Generation Z, something the nonprofit called "a growing problem as fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors – eyewitnesses to a state-sponsored genocide – are alive to share the lessons of the Holocaust." About 1 in 10 (11%) of that generational cohort thought Jews caused the Holocaust, the survey found, and nearly half (49%) reported they had seen Holocaust denials or distortions on social media.

"We ask survivors to do this, but we know it's painful and triggering, and it brings up the most painful memories of their lives," Schneider said. "Yet everyone we asked said yes. They feel it is their responsibility to their families who were murdered and for their children and grandchildren, and all of our children and grandchildren."

Social media, where so much of the antisemitism and hate proliferates, "is a tool that can be used for good or bad," Schneider said. But it can also amplify fringe voices, drive outrage and anger, and turn into an echo chamber of harmful, hateful ideas, he said. "We have to break that cycle."

'The obligation to bear witness'

Abe Foxman is known as an activist, lawyer and longtime national director of the Anti-Defamation League. But his story began in hiding: The only child of Polish Jews who fled to Lithuania, he was given to his nanny, a Catholic, as an infant to protect him as the Nazis took over and his parents were forced into the Vilna ghetto. His nanny had him baptized and began raising him, keeping him from other children lest his true identity be revealed.

Foxman, who is among the survivors participating in the #CancelHate campaign, was reunited with his parents, who had miraculously survived, four years later. But he lost his grandparents and 13 aunts and uncles in the Holocaust, and though he remembers his nanny as his protector and savior, his parents had to engage in a custody battle to get him back.

Survivors were initially reluctant to tell their stories, he said. Not just because it was painful for them, but because many didn't want their children to know their parents' suffering. But as they aged, they began to realize how important it was to speak up, to preserve their stories and to ensure that horrible chapter in history was never repeated.

The conversation around the Holocaust has changed, and Foxman believes the emphasis is now where it belongs: "It used to be about the perpetrators. Now it's much more about those who perished: how they lived, the art they created, who they were. Before, we were too preoccupied with those who destroyed our culture."

Denialism "is very personal, like an assault on who you are," said the 84-year-old, who didn't know the extent of his own story until he was in college and did a report on the ghetto where his parents were confined. "Words matter, and if we can cancel this hate by bearing witness to it, we will do it."

Jewish tradition reveres the power of words, he said. " Words have the power of life and death ," and words were so precious to Jews during the Holocaust that some even bartered what little food they had for paper on which to keep diaries "because they feared no one would know that they'd lived or how they died."

A frequent refrain from survivors, especially in the #CancelHate campaign, is how insidiously hatred creeps into a society.

"It didn't happen in one fell swoop," said Kurz, but in increments, in escalating acts of degradation and violence, in words said and not said. "The mobs were motivated by lies, and all of this began with words."

Contact Phaedra Trethan by email at [email protected], on X (formerly Twitter) @wordsbyphaedra, or on Threads @by_phaedra .

A Holocaust Survivor Will Mark That History Differently After the Horrors of Oct. 7

Israel will start marking Holocaust Remembrance Day on Sunday evening

Maya Alleruzzo

Judith Tzamir, a Holocaust survivor from Germany, poses for a portrait in her family home in Kibbutz Meflasim, southern Israel, Friday, May 3, 2024. On Monday, Tzamir will join 55 other Holocaust survivors from Israel and around the world for a memorial march in Poland, called March of the Living. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

KIBBUTZ MEFALSIM, Israel (AP) — When Hamas fighters invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, the militant group that rules the Gaza Strip perpetrated the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

So this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins on Sunday evening in Israel, carries a heavier weight than usual for many Jews around the world.

For Judith Tzamir, a Holocaust survivor from Germany who moved to Israel in 1964, the horrors of Oct. 7 prompted her to mark the somber holiday by making a pilgrimage she has long avoided: She will visit Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp in Poland.

Tzamir, whose kibbutz fended off Hamas attackers on Oct. 7, will join 55 other Holocaust survivors from around the world and about 10,000 others participating in the March of the Living . The event recreates the 2-mile (3-kilometer) march from Auschwitz to Birkenau, where approximately 1 million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany.

The event, now in its 36th year, usually draws thousands of participants, including Holocaust survivors and Jewish students, leaders and politicians. This year, Israeli hostages released from captivity in Gaza and families whose relatives are still being held captive will also join the march.

“I don’t know if the world will listen, but even for myself, it’s important,” said Tzamir, who had turned down past invitations to visit Auschwitz. “To remember that there’s still antisemitism around, and there are still people who will kill just for religious reasons.”

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Holocaust Remembrance Day, marked on the anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, has traditionally been a time for Israelis to gather and listen to testimony from survivors.

It is one of the most somber days of the year — highlighted by a two-minute siren when traffic halts and people stand at attention in memory of the victims. Memorial ceremonies are held throughout the day, and names of victims are recited. While Israel’s national Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, tries to steer clear of politics, its ceremony this year includes an empty yellow chair in solidarity with the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.

In 1948, when Tzamir was 4 1/2 years old, the people she knew as her parents dressed her in a light blue dress, with black shoes and white socks, and took her to a plaza in Berlin. She remembers clutching her doll, Yula, when they revealed that they were not her parents and that the woman standing before them was her biological mother.

Tzamir’s mother had hidden her Jewish identity during World War II by serving in the German army. She gave birth to Judith in 1943 in a hospital run by nuns, and left Judith behind to save her life. Tzamir, called Donata at the time, was placed in a foster family. She had no idea she was Jewish until she met her mother.

Sixteen years later, while she was in college, Tzamir went to Mefalsim, a kibbutz in southern Israel on the border with Gaza, through a student-exchange program. After her studies, she returned to Mefalsim, fell in love with a new immigrant from Argentina who was also living on the kibbutz, and stayed, raising four children.

On Oct. 7, Tzamir was faced with the possibility of losing her home once again. Hamas militants poured over the border from Gaza and attacked towns, army bases and a music festival in southern Israel. Mefalsim was luckier than many other kibbutzim in the area, where militants burned homes and left wide swaths of destruction.

The militants killed around 1,200 people that day, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 250 others. The attack sparked the Israeli invasion in Gaza, where the death toll has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials , and driven around 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes. The high death toll and humanitarian crisis have prompted genocide accusations against Israel in the International Court of Justice — a charge that Israel angrily rejects.

Hamas has said its attack was aimed against Israeli occupation and its blockade of Gaza, and pro-Palestinian activists deny any antisemitic motives in their opposition to Israel’s military offensive. For most Jewish Israelis, global protests calling for boycotts of Israel and questioning the country’s right to exist often veer into antisemitism.

On the day of the attack, Mefalsim’s emergency preparedness squad was able to hold most of the Hamas militants outside the kibbutz perimeter. Many residents stayed in safe rooms for nearly 24 hours, until the Israeli army was able to evacuate them the next day.

Although there were no fatalities at Mefalsim, its roughly 800 residents were told to leave, along with more than 120,000 Israelis who lived within a few kilometers of the borders with Gaza and Lebanon. Mefalsim, Tzamir's steady anchor after a childhood filled with upheaval and uncertainty, was no longer a safe haven.

Many Mefalsim residents have been living in a hotel north of Tel Aviv the past seven months, uncertain of next steps, though Tzamir and some others hope to return to the kibbutz in June.

Tzamir said the Oct. 7 attack brought up all kinds of memories from her childhood trauma. She could function during the day, but when she went to sleep her dreams were filled with blood and death and fires, visions that reminded her of the bombings she witnessed as a child in Germany.

Tzamir is one of approximately 2,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel who were forced to evacuate from their homes due to the war in Gaza, according to Israel’s Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs. The ministry estimates that 132,000 Holocaust survivors live in Israel.

Tzamir served as a director of her kibbutz for 13 years, so she knows every resident. She said some families may never return to Mefalsim, just a mile (1.4 kilometers) from the Gaza border. Explosions from Gaza reverberate over the buildings, and the sense of security is difficult to reclaim.

But it was never a question for her, she said.

“I’m 80 years old, I don’t want to lose my home again,” Tzamir said as her husband Ran, busied himself tending to a garden bursting with succulents and flowers, just before their flight to Poland. “We are coming back.”

This story has been corrected to show that the spelling of the kibbutz is Mefalsim.

Copyright 2024 The  Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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