Ghetto, Ethnoracial Prison

The Prisonization of the Ghetto

The evolution of the Black ghetto can be traced to the Great Migration, in which southern Blacks attempted to escape from the racial injustice of the southern Jim Crow practices. Though other rationales have been cited, this attempted escape is evidenced, statistically, by the greater numbers of migrants coming from southern counties with the highest rates of lynching. With promises of prosperity and freedom, Blacks fled to the industrialized midwestern and northeastern parts of the United States where they were ultimately subjected to less blatant but equally dangerous forms of social containment. The exploitation of Black labor was prevalent in the industrialized North, the economic and social conditions were poor, and discriminatory practices were apparent in housing, education, and public accommodations.

Ostracized by Whites and shut out of the more prosperous areas of the city, Blacks had no alternative but to take refuge in their own communities, which became “Black cities within the White world.” These urban communities, in which African Americans were isolated behind invisible walls, became known as “Black Belts.” Black Belts protected White America from any social contact with the ghetto and its occupants.

Research on the ghetto as ethnoracial prison has suggested that the ghetto, similar to slavery and Jim Crow, failed to completely incapacitate those living in the “Black cities within the White world.” Rather, during the 1960s in the midst of urban riots and the civil rights movement, African Americans, both inside and outside of the ghetto, [Page 319]fought for and were legislatively granted the voting and civil rights already legally afforded to them by the U.S. Constitution. This inclusion resulted in more opportunities and alternatives to life in the ghetto. The response to this potential inclusion of northern Blacks was a combination of White flight, White opposition to social welfare programs, and White support for the use of law and order methods to control urban unrest. From this perspective, the ghetto began to function as a preparatory school for the prison system.

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