Do we simply turn our heads

And look the other way?

Welcome to new subscribers and regular readers! Thank you for joining me for today’s song, “In the Ghetto” by Mac Davis (1969), sung by Elvis Presley. If you’d like to hear the song before you read about it, I’ve included a YouTube video below the article. ✳️ Note: The level of this article is for students with a TOEIC of 550+, Eiken Pre-1, CEFR B2. For Japanese students, vocabulary words in bold are provided in Japanese below.

I am deeply grateful to Mmerikani for the invaluable feedback and helpful suggestions she provided for this article. Please consider subscribing to her Substack at https://mmerikani.substack.com/

(814 words)
The song for today is called In the Ghetto, a famous song in the U.S. To begin with, let’s look at the use of the word ghetto. Using this word can be used to label a group or stigmatize people in a certain way. If the word is used to insult someone, it is offensive. We need to keep in mind the historical and social situation that helped to create neighborhoods like these.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a ghetto is:

"a district in a city or town in which members of a minority group live especially because of social, legal, or economic pressures."

In other words, “a neighborhood or area where many people from a similar background or culture live together”.

In the late 1960s in the United States, ghettos became known as lower-income urban areas. Often these areas were home to African Americans or other racial minorities. This song, written in 1969, is making us aware of the social, legal, or economic pressures that cause such areas.

The Great Migration 1910-1970. U.S. Census bureau. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)*

Why were they living in these areas?

From 1916 to around 1970, a time called the Great Migration, millions of African Americans left the rural South to find better job opportunities in the urban North, Midwest, and West. They also left to escape lynching, sharecropping debt, and being frightened away from voting, among other reasons.

However, when they arrived in other places, they often faced discrimination in where they could live. Most children in the U.S. go to schools in their own neighborhoods. Schools receive money based on local taxes. Schools in low-income neighborhoods didn’t get a lot of money for quality education. Whites had preference when companies hired workers, so it was also difficult to find good-paying jobs. As a result, these areas had high rates of poverty, unemployment, crime, and bad housing conditions. These conditions created a vicious cycle, and it was difficult for people to get out of it.

The song tells the story of a young family in an underserved area of Chicago. It begins on a winter morning.

As the snow flies
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin'
A poor little baby child is born
In the ghetto

We learn from the lyrics that this mother has other children. It is hard to feed all of your family if you don’t have a good-paying job.

And his mama cries
'Cause if there's one thing that she don't need
It's another hungry mouth to feed
In the ghetto

The lyrics warn about this situation. No one wants their child to go hungry. No one wants to raise a child in these conditions. But many white people at the time, and perhaps today as well, blamed the families. News coverage of African Americans was often negative, so for White Americans who didn’t personally know African Americans, the negative media stories were all they knew.

People, don't you understand
The child needs a helping hand
Or he'll grow to be an angry young man someday
Take a look at you and me
Are we too blind to see
Do we simply turn our heads
And look the other way?

Time goes by, and the little boy is growing up. He is hungry, so he goes out in his neighborhood and must learn how to survive.

Well, the world turns
And a hungry little boy with a runny nose
Plays in the street as the cold wind blows
In the ghetto

And his hunger burns
So he starts to roam the streets at night
And he learns how to steal and he learns how to fight
In the ghetto

Now the boy is probably a teenager. He is desperate. That means that he feels he is living in a hopeless situation.
Then one night in desperation
The young man breaks away
He buys a gun, he steals a car
Tries to run, but he don't get far

And his mama cries
As a crowd gathers 'round an angry young man
Face down on the street with a gun in his hand
In the ghetto

And as her young man dies
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin'
Another little baby child is born
In the ghetto

And his mama cries
In the ghetto

The young man dies, and another child is born into the same set of conditions.

Many people have a hard time understanding that not everyone in the U.S. had, or has, access to same opportunities as they did. It is often hard to see the structural influences on a person’s life chances: access to medical care, affordable housing, safe neighborhoods, jobs, good schools, or an ability to get a loan to start a business.

Ghettos happened because of historical racial discrimination, segregationist policies, housing limitations, and employment inequalities. This song shows a personal side to the discrimination that so many people faced and are still facing in the U.S. today.

Photo created with Canva

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Vocabulary

stigmatize 汚名を着せる
neighborhood 近隣地域
urban 都市部
racial minorities 人種的マイノリティ
rural 農村部
sharecropping debt 小作債務
discrimination 差別
unemployment 失業
housing 住宅
vicious cycle 悪循環
underserved: people or groups of people who don't get all the help, resources, or opportunities that most other people get. 一部の人々または集団が、他のほとんどの人々が得ているような支援、リソース、または機会を十分に得られていないことを意味します。
blind 目の不自由
runny nose 鼻水
roam 歩き回る
desperation 絶望
segregationist policies 人種隔離政策

Sources

Christensen, S. (2007, December 7). The Great Migration (1915-1960). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/great-migration-1915-1960/ . Accessed May 23, 2025.

National Archives and Records Administration. The Great Migration (1910-1970). National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/migrations/great-migration . Accessed May 23, 2025.

Merriam-Webster. Ghetto definition & meaning. Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ghetto . Accessed May 23, 2025.

Notes

(The following information was found at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GreatMigration1910to1970-UrbanPopulation.png)

The Great Migration generally refers to the massive internal migration of Blacks from the South to urban centers in other parts of the country. Between 1910 and 1970, an estimated 6 million Blacks left the South. This graphic compares the early migration (1910-1940), sometimes referred to as the First Great Migration, and the later (1940-1970) also known as the Second Great Migration.

In the early 20th century, strict legislation limited immigration into the U.S. and brought about a shortage of labor in many industrial and manufacturing centers in the Northeast and Midwest. These cities became common destinations for Black migrants from the South. Cities that experienced substantial changes in racial composition between 1910 and 1940 include Chicago, Detroit, New York City, and Philadelphia. During and after WWII, Black migrants flooded into many of the cities that were destinations before the war, following friends and relatives that had made the journey earlier. Poor economic conditions in the Jim Crow South spurred a larger migration flow than was the case in the 1910-to-1940 period and resulted in the creation of large Black population centers in many cities across the Northeast, Midwest, and West.

NOTE: Data are from decennial censuses, 1910 through 1970. Population counts are based on unrevised numbers. Data for the Black population for cities in Alaska and Hawaii were not available in 1940 or earlier decades. Cities shown are those that were either in the top 100 cities in the country or top 3 of a state and had a Black population of at least 100 people. These criteria were placed on 1940 data for the First Great Migration and 1970 data for the Second Great Migration.

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