This is not another "you know you ghetto if" satirical, this is an in-depth look into the thought pattern of Blacks who are referred to as ghetto minded and those Blacks who would unfortunately consider themselves ghetto minded.

Thinking and acting are two different things but often conjoined as one when part of a person's character. To fulfill the theory of being ghetto minded means to think and act the part because if one thinks ghetto, eventually they will act on it also. This is because if ghetto thinking occupies the mind at all, that person has no control over the following actions.

Ghetto thinking comes in varying degrees. One can be project ghetto, as in living in the projects, and one can be uppity ghetto, which means living in the suburbs and possessing ghetto thoughts. There is no in between in ghetto thinking and the reason is that the ghetto mind is a Black thing simply because we were a ghettoized people.

Now, the ghetto mind thinks like this: "It's about me and me only. I gotta get mines and to hell with anyone else." This type thinking comes in part to Blacks because we are the most economically oppressed people in the United States and when an opportunity comes along to change that, not many of us know how to handle it.

Handling opportunity and success does not necessarily mean being financially thrifty or culturally acceptable, it means being able to remain who you are despite what you have. Because not many of us have "had" much as compared to the wealth of white America, and because our businesses do not thrive as prosperously as other foreign-Americans, when some form of increase does come our way, the ability to handle that prosperity and remain who we are is the challenge.

Ghetto minded people are people who gain these opportunities and prosper yet lose touch with themselves and adapt a culture and persona not their own, but one they believe comes with the prosperity. In other words, they try to act the part but their inner self is in conflict with their surroundings. They are confused as to how to see others so ghetto minded people change often.

Ghetto minded people are jealous people even after they succeed. They cannot bare to see others take the same path they have taken and speak discouraging words to others who are trying just so they can "hold their own." Ghetto minded people lie about how they got what they got, where they got it, and who they know.

Ghetto is not driving a hooptie or dressing in designer clothes because the best of them do regardless of the money they make. Ghetto is not sitting on the front porch talking about the neighbors because the best of them do it at the office. Ghetto is not drinking and cursing because the same happens in the suburbs.

Thinking ghetto does not mean baby-mama drama because elitists have stray seeds also. Thinking ghetto does not mean having sex when the chance permits itself because AIDS has no preference. The ghetto mind does not mean having chitterlings for dinner because smothered pork chops is not such a good option.

Lifestyle characteristics does not determine ghettoism, what determines ghettoism is how one thinks toward other people. Being ghetto is a mind-set that stops thinking and allow others to think for them and direct their ways. Ghetto is losing self to the greater society and the trends within it.

Thus, to simplify this analysis, the ghetto mind cannot think for itself because it has no self. The ghetto mind absorbs all it knows from what it sees and never questions the images filtering into the mind. It believes whatever is there and refuses to find the truth. The ghetto mind is a lazy mind and has ceased to exist. Therefore, those who are ghetto minded are those who lack originality.

© 2004 By CR Hamilton