Which is worse east or west Baltimore (Dundalk, Annapolis: house, income)

[bowian]

Originally Posted by westsideboy

They didn't exist 15 years ago. Welcome to the wonderful 21st century where the dregs of society can have their culture glorified, emulated, and spread to new diverse groups!

Of yes, they did. Try 20 or more years ago. Just because they weren't sporting the baggy jeans and emulating thug culture doesn't mean white ghetto people didn't exist well before the mid-90s. There's more to ghetto mentality than thugs and drugs. Baltimore native here, and I first recall seeing ghetto whites in the 80s. Not that they didn't exist sooner. Generally speaking, however, in Baltimore, the drugs brought many a person down there in the 80s and 90s -- black and also white.

On topic -- I've lived on the west and east sides (Edmondson Village and Oliver, respectively). I'd say east side is worse crime-wise and blight-wise. But Edmondson definitely wasn't paradise, lol.

[westsideboy]

To me, you aren't "ghetto" until you start acting "ghetto" and that means culture, clothes, the drug and thug culture etc. White people weren't part of that 15 years ago. Sure, their were poor urban white people, people that weren't great neighbors or people, but there are plenty of other race specific ephithets to call them. Wh---- Trash is the term that comes to mind

I think the new white ghetto people have absorbed this group you mention from the 1980s plus many sons and daughters that would have grown into teens and young adults and been called "blue collar" or "redneck" but are now associating with the ghetto culture.

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

Originally Posted by westsideboy

To me, you aren't "ghetto" until you start acting "ghetto" and that means culture, clothes, the drug and thug culture etc. White people weren't part of that 15 years ago. Sure, their were poor urban white people, people that weren't great neighbors or people, but there are plenty of other race specific ephithets to call them. Wh---- Trash is the term that comes to mind.

So what's the difference? If there has been a change in the cultural institutions patronized by poor whites, the behavior hasn't changed. Poor urban whites got into plenty of trouble 15+ years ago, and they continue to do so today. If it's true that years ago they might listen to country music and now Little Wayne, why split hairs about it? There area number of poor whites here who are three or more generations deep in urban poverty, and I do not think you can blame the plight of the most recent on "ghetto culture."

Rap culture as a whole has become a lot more mainstream, among all socioeconomic and racial groups. Whites have a long history of borrowing elements of black culture for their own. See: Rock and roll.

[westsideboy]

If the ghetto look came with nothing else than it would be no big deal. But the spread of the ghetto culture into white urban areas hasn't been good. There are more drugs, more crime, more bad neighbors. I don't want my neighbor to have a neck tattoo and a pit bull. I would rather him drink Jack than smoke crack. I have seen it happen in my lifetime. It is a lowest common denominator MTV type lifestyle. It isn't just economics, it is society degrading because it is allowed to by the rest of us. If you set poor people up for failure, that is what will happen. It wasn't always this way.

[Zea mays]

Originally Posted by HandsUpThumbsDown

Rap culture as a whole has become a lot more mainstream ...

I presume you are Afro-American. Give a listen to Hank Williams Sr, (d. 1953). He epitomized poor white Southern culture. His songs are classic Americana from that period. In no way do they represent a ghetto culture.

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

Originally Posted by Zea mays

I presume you are Afro-American. Give a listen to Hank Williams Sr, (d. 1953). He epitomized poor white Southern culture. His songs are classic Americana from that period. In no way do they represent a ghetto culture.

I love Hank Williams (and Jr.). I don't get your point.

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

Originally Posted by westsideboy

If the ghetto look came with nothing else than it would be no big deal. But the spread of the ghetto culture into white urban areas hasn't been good. There are more drugs, more crime, more bad neighbors. I don't want my neighbor to have a neck tattoo and a pit bull. I would rather him drink Jack than smoke crack. I have seen it happen in my lifetime. It is a lowest common denominator MTV type lifestyle. It isn't just economics, it is society degrading because it is allowed to by the rest of us. If you set poor people up for failure, that is what will happen. It wasn't always this way.

Boy, MTV sure is awful. I'll give you that. I think the loss of low-skill, decent-paying jobs is 95% to blame for what you might like to blame on moral degradation, influence of ghetto/black culture, etc. I think it's nothing more than a scapegoat.

[westsideboy]

Pride and good manners come from within, not from without. The loss of blue collar jobs has a definite effect, but that has been going on where I live for 60 years, it has only been the last 15 that has seen the youth culture abandon the morals and heroes of their parents and ancestors and embraced the ghetto culture. There is something else going on. I have mentioned what I believe that "other thing" to be many times.

MTV is just a nice place for you guys to go to see the new reality. Did it cause it, or is just reflecting the new "reality on the ground." I argue it is both, part of a type of feedback loop.

White and poor has been reality in Cumberland for much longer than I have been alive. Poor white people being acting like wannabee gangsters is new, and the negative effects are real for everyone in my community. I worked in the business where I saw the effects from the inside. It isn't splitting hairs, the change is real and negative. I see it everyday.

[Hamish Forbes]

Originally Posted by HandsUpThumbsDown

I think the loss of low-skill, decent-paying jobs is 95% to blame for what you might like to blame on moral degradation, influence of ghetto/black culture, etc. I think it's nothing more than a scapegoat.

I agree completely that the loss of jobs is a very important factor (of course, the jobless need to have enough self-discipline to get an education and enough gumption to hold a job should opportunity knock).

But the experience of Baltimore during the Great Depression would suggest that the loss of jobs isn't the whole story. I didn't live thru the depression, but according to my parents, who did, crime was not much of a problem then, even in the less-well-off neighborhoods.

But more generally we have been working on developing a trash culture for about 45 years now, while jobs come and go. Someone mentioned MTV, which I find repulsive too. But the pivot point in television was, in my opinion, "All in the Family" with Mr. Archie Bunker. This was the beginning of networked, prime-time trash with real clout, and sponsors eager to fund more such programs. And then came the great dumbing-down of just about everything in sight across the culture; and voila, here we are today, with just about the dumbest man-on-the-street in the developed world, drowning in his own debt, running-up his credit card balance for tats, pit bulls, doncs, and gold teeth.

[bowian]

Originally Posted by westsideboy

Pride and good manners come from within, not from without. The loss of blue collar jobs has a definite effect, but that has been going on where I live for 60 years, it has only been the last 15 that has seen the youth culture abandon the morals and heroes of their parents and ancestors and embraced the ghetto culture.

It could be that their parents didn't have the morals that you believe they had in the first place. And they can't relate to the heroes of the past because their parents don't value these heroes. It could be that they so, apparently, wholeheartedly and easily adopted this "ghetto culture" because they knew of nothing else to value.

Also, the definition of "ghetto culture" is more than the stereotypical baggy jeans, tats and pit bull, in my opinion. The hip-hop, drug-slinging swag is just the newest variation of it. But I suspect we'll have to agree to disagree. In any case, the deterioration of quality of life is not limited to one race or culture in Baltimore or other inner city settings.