GHETTO STORY

GHETTO STORY

…Once upon a time in the Ghetto, not very long ago, where the American dream was never achieved, realized, or even understood. This is the Ghetto story: a tale from a Ghetto child, who was Ghetto born, Ghetto raised, Ghetto fed, and Ghetto bred! In other words; one who has been thoroughly Ghettonized, who is going to kick to you Ghettologly in the most spectacular Ghettonese. I am a Ghetto professor who has a doctor’s degree in Ghettoization…

Henceforth, since I’m the teacher I make the rules. In this class there are no rules to go by, and that’s the definition of Ghetto love. You may have a hard time grasping the meaning of that phrase because you don’t understand the Ghetto, its customs, its people, and the unique way of life that has bred a special kind of miracles which is a result of Ghetto love.

Before we go any further, I feel a desperate need to straighten you out on your own personal Ghettologly. The Ghetto has been so stigmatized and ostracized that your first association with the word Ghetto came with negative thought. There has always been Ghetto tales full with extraordinary examples of positive people demonstrating Ghetto love, long before America existed and Ghettoes became the home of blacks. The Ghetto has produced people, concepts, things, and love that cannot be paralleled by any other community where people dwell. That’s Ghetto love because it breaks the rule that says good comes from good. The Ghetto is a very unique place where the unexpected is anticipated and faith literally moved mountains of obstacles that made the over comers realize that life can be mastered because of the simple fact that I’m still alive! I lived and survived the Ghetto; therefore nothing now is impossible to me! The ghetto has taught me through experience that the impossible is possible; hence I’m alive as a living example and witness to this reality!

Please don’t take what I said lightly and don’t think that I’m merely trying to convince you of my opinion. Ghetto love is real indeed and it’s a fact or gospel that the best and greatest have materialized from the Ghetto. Never on the other hand take my word for it, because first of all in your mind my Ghettoization has made me untrustworthy. So I’ll prove it to you, and in the future be wise and learn from this mistake your making of questioning the Ghetto Professor.

Jesus of Nazareth is one of the greatest examples of Ghetto love who was a Ghetto Prophet. That’s gospel indeed, because listen to how the Gospel of John describes the place where Jesus is from through a saying of Nathanael a disciple of a Ghetto Prophet. “And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.” (John 1:46)

Nathanael is not a very popular Apostle and disciple of Jesus. Yet what he said about where Jesus came from and grew up speaks volumes to us about the rules being broken; Ghetto love. GOD designed it for that purpose where just like Nathanael you’ll have to COME and SEE that good thing that the Ghetto Jesus grew up in produced. Nathanael doubted the very existence of the Son of GOD solely because of the nasty, dirty, evil low down Ghetto that Jesus was raised in. So it is today; people automatically associate all the negatives that exist in a place with the individuals and assume that no good thing can materialize out of all the mess. This is your first and most important lesson in Ghettologly. Don’t miss GOD because of where He’s coming from. GOD became dust to help dust. GOD had to live in the Ghetto of all places so He could minister Ghetto love. GOD brought something good out of bad; hence light from darkness…

Are we straight now? Because it’s important to your understanding of the first message in order to proceed further in Ghettologly. Don’t underestimate or associate to me your Ghetto tour guide at this moment things that are not a part of me because I am Ghetto. For I want to impart to you a testimony of Ghetto love to encourage you to receive the love that the Ghetto offers like no other place on earth. There is love in the Ghetto that’s unparalleled anywhere; however because we have been thoroughly commercialized in our thinking patterns concerning the Ghetto, we like Nathanael want to question the reality of love existing from and in a place that’s known remarkably for its hate. Or why do you think the hate is broadcasted to the extent that it is about the Ghetto; or have we lost the ability to think rationally knowing that hateful events are taking place all over the world, and the Ghetto is only reinforced to promote and encourage such behavior; hence perpetuate it? (Did that question answer itself?)

GOD in His wisdom already saw, understood, and answered our predicament before we were contained in it and enthralled by its seemingly supreme power. Remember this scripture that says: “…But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” (Romans 5:20) So if the sources of mainstream information are correct then there is MUCH MORE grace to be found in the Ghetto than in any other place upon the face of the earth. Again, I’m correct and you’re wrong about your refusal to let go of your negative stereotyping of the word Ghetto and those who dwell therein. And the amazing thing about this whole ordeal is that GOD designed it this way for the ultimate purpose of Him to receive all the props (glory). That’s why in your mind you want to fight the very nature of what I’m saying because it doesn’t coexist with the preconceived notions about reality, or what’s really good and bad. Step outside yourself for a moment, allow these words to take root in your soul, relax and take this most rewarding ride with the Professor, grant me this privilege and divine opportunity to give of myself to you and thus fulfill my royal calling to educate the lost and blind. A calling I received not of man and neither his institutions, but as a gift of GOD, given to the most unlikely of them all, a Ghetto child!

Look past my Ghettoness for a moment in the same form and fashion as if I were to ask you to look past my blackness. My fault, I forgot I’m asking you to be Ghetto and break a rule and do the impossible. Look beyond my physical appearance is just as impossible of looking past my Ghettoness. Am I confusing you? Well, let me teach for a second and prove to you that when I said the blind and lost I wasn’t talking about some one else. You have been fooled into believing this writing is about the Ghetto. (Remember it’s not wise to disagree with the professor).

Let me state the statement in a better sentence structure by adding one word. Hopefully if you’re not lost and blind like you think you are not, maybe you can discern exactly what I am talking about without me explaining it to you in simple Ghettonese. Like most people who are lost you’re afraid to admit that you’re lost. That’s why I had to trick you; just to prove to you that you don’t know where you’re going or neither where you’re at. Ready? Open your mind real wide because a test with one sentence that I previously wrote is about to be rewritten with one word added and from that sentence you are suppose to understand everything about what’s been written and what’s going to be said afterwards without even going further or me explaining it to you. Now remember, if you get it after I explain then that means you are lost and blind, and you need the Ghetto Professor to help you. Also you are not as smart as you think you are, plus you failed to learn from your first lesson because you thought it wise to disagree with me again.

Now here it goes! To look beyond my physical appearance is just as impossible of looking past my Ghettoness. Why? Why? Why? If you can answer the question of why that sentence was used and why it’s impossible for you to look past both my physical appearance and my Ghettoness, then you need not to read no further. EXPLAINATION! My physical appearance is dark brown, known and accepted as black. My blackness is my Ghettoness they are one and the same thing; not because in reality it is so yet your mind has associated the two as one. Therefore, whether it’s true or not doesn’t make any difference, because reality is a matter of perception to the individual no matter if it is supported, mandated, or true. Some lost people must be told they are lost, or in simple terminology told of their true reality. Because it is not possible to look past my blackness (my physical appearance), it’s also impossible to look past my Ghettoness.

Now here is reality! It’s not that it’s literally impossible to be accomplished, yet to separate the two or look at me as just a human being is impossible for you because in your mind Ghetto and black mean the same thing. (I thought I told you it’s not wise to disagree with the Professor) Yes there is such a thing as a black person who is not Ghetto in the negative sense of the word, and there are Ghetto people who are not black. Nevertheless, if you were not blind you could see the rationality in this logic.

Further explanation is needed and since every lesson has value plus it’s my duty, desire, pleasure and responsibility to do so I will. But before we precede it’s imperative that the previous lessons were well taught, received, and understood. Please take time to review or listen closely to my summation. This Ghetto Story isn’t about the Ghetto or its people who have been Ghettonized. Remember I said the Ghetto has been so stigmatized and ostracized that your first association with the word Ghetto came with a negative thought. I was not talking about what happened to a place or certain location in the inner city or urbanized dwelling places. NO! NO! NO! I am talking about me, and the reason why “I” have been associated with negative thoughts, places, and things. I said you were blind and proved it, and then I gave you some hope by stating that it is possible to separate me from my Ghettoness or blackness, and you went ahead and thought you could do it. For your benefit assume the worse about yourself because if you plan on growing you must be willing to accept the seed and stop arguing with the Teacher. I gave you the explanation to this parable and you still do not see because in your mind this is not a parable but more like a rhetorical oxymoron.

This is the Ghetto Story of me, the Ghetto Professor. The Ghetto is not a place it’s a concept that lives and abides within those who have been negatively Ghettonized to such an extent that all the negative character attributes that have been ascribed to the Ghetto has been likewise ascribed to the people of the Ghetto who are predominately black therefore producing a self perpetuating cycle of death where Ghetto and black are ONE, and both are negative. That’s why the separation is impossible. It’s only possible to the person who is Ghettonized anew in a positive fashion where one has understood the struggle of life in the Ghetto. That struggle is not there because it is the Ghetto, but because the people who are inside are non-white, therefore the struggle is not a Ghetto struggle but a black (color) struggle. Only Ghetto Love can teach this lesson, because the rules of normal or so called ration thinking must be broken.

Jesus is our ultimate example of Ghetto Love which is the breaking of regular rules. Can any thing good come from the Ghetto? Jesus came forth as that good thing that the Ghetto was never supposed to produce. You still do not understand the deepness of this message. The Ghetto Jesus lived in was named after a people who were called Nazarenes. The word just like the people of Nazareth have been so stigmatized and ostracized that what Nathanael was really saying; ‘is there such a thing as a good person who is a Nazarite?’ Is there such a thing as a good black person? In your mind the only way this is possible is if that black person is not Ghetto or did not grow up in the Ghetto, then and only then can one be labeled a good black person. Yet Jesus came forth already disadvantaged because of the stigmatization of where he came from.

The deepness is not yet revealed because I must explain it further. This situation with Jesus is a perfect example of how the devil operates, and the same tactics are being employed today. The word Nazarite actually means one who is separated to GOD, consecrated, and one who makes a special vow of abstention. In other words a Nazarite is a holy person who is dedicated to GOD for pureness. Yet how did it obtain such a notable negative label where one asked can there be any good from Nazareth. The understanding of what it meant to be a Nazareth became distorted and now it’s associated with a negative profile, and thus many Nazarites were psychologically programmed to take on this negative image. The word Nazarite was so negative that even after Jesus represented a super exception to the negative image and did the best cleaning up of the reputation of a Nazarite that anyone could possibly do, years later Apostle Paul was called a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. (Acts 24:5) Now isn’t that amazing, that Jesus couldn’t even change people’s perception of a Nazarite. And if Jesus couldn’t do it then what does that mean for the person who was born and raised a Nazarite? What do you think that person thought about in reference to being a Nazarite? I bet something negative! And do you think that negative thought pattern about self had any influence in that individual’s choice to do negative? And don’t you think that made a self perpetuating cycle of death and violence?

If Jesus came back today and revealed himself as a black man in America who came from one of the hardest Ghettoes; blacks would still be the number one suspect for crime and their wallets would still magically appear to be a gun. If Jesus the Son of GOD in the flesh cannot change blackness into a positive image then what hope does a young black person really have? Also if blackness is associated with negativity then doesn’t that reinforce all those negative stereotypes to such an extent that in many minds including black minds the stereotypes are more so factual than fiction? Imagine what its like for a person who was born and raised a Nazarite and or black and Ghetto. That individual would grow realizing what it means to be black from a negative perspective and ultimately that would reinforce and perpetuate negative character traits, some would even take pride in their negative ness thinking of it as a part of their heritage. Thus we have today; blacks taking pride in the fact that they are N-I-G-G-A-Z. Taking pride in being negative and ignorant, thinking that it’s cool and alright and this is what it really means to be black.

All these things I understand today from what my blackness really means. Why did I have such a hard time separating my reality from the truth? My reality is this: I’m young, black, and in prison, I was born and raised in the Ghetto. I know what my reality is, but who can explain to me what is my truth? Is truth in accordance with my blackness or my Ghettoness? Who can answer that? Okay here is a better question. Is my reality a result of my Ghettoness or blackness? Remember I explained already the importance of not attributing to me the automatic stereotypes or the negative perceptions that accompany both Ghettoness and blackness. But, you went ahead and did exactly what I warned you ahead of time not to do. First you are again disagreeing with me that it is possible for you to separate Ghettoness and blackness, when I told you they are ONE not because they are but because our Americanized perception of reality has made it so. America has done a terrorist attack against me and it still goes on to this day. MY PROFILE IS NEGATIVE, NOT BECAUSE I AM NEGATIVE, BUT BECAUSE I AM BLACK! I have been trained ever so cleverly to think negatively about my blackness, that’s why I’m Ghetto or in better terminology that’s why I’m a nigga. Now do you get the essence of this lesson, Ghetto is just another way for calling me a nigga.

This class has been wonderful and I know you want to hear more but I want you to ponder the revelations that went forth today. Truly I am the Professor of the next generation. I am the Ghetto Professor because modern caucasionized educational institutions could not have taught me what I learned and neither do I need another man to declare to me what I am already, plus I do not walk in fear and the lessons will continue…Ghetto Professor!