Some history to start: many of us don;t know what “ghetto” really means, where the word came from. As with many words, the history is not entirely clear. It’s well established, though, that many cities in Europe established “ghettos” to contain, control, and oppress local Jewish people: “…Venice, Frankfurt, Prague and Rome forcibly segregated their Jewish populations, often walling them off and submitting them to onerous restrictions.” I’m no expert, but I read more than most, and spend much time reading history. I believe the idea started in Venice: authorities wanted to allow Jewish people some participation in their economy, and they also wanted to keep them very much at arm’s length and under their control. A local island previously devoted to foundry slag, ghetto, served as the place for Jews to live as second class citizens while they served the needs of Venice. Since their first use, ghettos have been established in many locations to oppress and abuse various peoples, allowing the powerful to force these same peoples to serve their needs while also serving as scapegoats and pariahs. The word has become a metaphor for rationalized oppression: those in power pretend ghettos are inevitable like gravity, when, of [...]![]()
