What is a ghetto today?

"A ghetto is an area where people from a specific racial or ethnic backgroundare united in a given culture or religion live as a group, voluntarily or involuntarily, in milder or stricter seclusion. The word historically referred specifically to the Venetian Ghetto in Venice, Italy, where Jews were required to live. It was later applied to neighborhoods in other cities where Jews were required to live. The corresponding German term was Judengasse; in Moroccan Arabic ghettos were called mellah. The term came into popular, world-wide use during World War 2, in reference to Nazi ghettos. The term now commonly labels any poverty-stricken urban area." 
 
In 1972 I wrote about Harlem for an urban anthropology class. I described the visible and subliminal impressions that remained within ones total body of experiences. I described these experiences as being both real and personal as well as vicarious and impersonal. Thus these experiences seemed to cloud ones objectivity as a barrage of responses were triggered through various word clues. i.e. June 19, 1964: Riverton Apartments, and the Lincoln playground, bongo lullabies, and helmeted police responding to a riot on 125th Street.
 
We can read a lot while we are in Harlem (I wrote). There are murals to read. They have been executed by the captives in the ghetto who remain on this reservation of timelessness. They remain plastered against the muted browns and grays of old tenements in a collage that could be entitled "Despair." The painting depicts all of the manifestations of poverty, alienation and racism in our society. It personifies the endurance of racial bias in the country as well. The invisible impressions, created by a stagnancy that grew out of abandoned buildings, uncollected garbage and the purposeful neglect of an entire race. These conditions provide messages as well. This stagnancy prevails throughout the confines of Harlem as refuse seems to bury the ladder of economic mobility which lies somewhere horizontally at the base of its ghetto walls. And the stench from this smoldering decay permeates the air ... stifling young hopes and dreams. Such a stagnancy is allowed to exist in a nation where such basic rights as "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are theorized for all. Yet, whether these principles, upon which our country stands become a reality for "all" depends on our nation's ability to allow black Americans to make the transition from alien to full citizen.
 
Ghettos exist today as positive and viable forces in society but they are ghettos of economic and intellectual sameness. But a ghetto-slum can only serve as a permanent blight on the America conscience.