Editing Ghetto (section)

==== Theories on the development of Black ghettos ====
Two dominant theories arise pertaining to the production and development of U.S. ghettos: race-based and class-based; as well as an alternative theory put forward by [[Thomas Sowell]].{{Citation needed|date=November 2021}}

===== Race-based theories =====
First are the race-based theorists, who argue the importance of [[Race (human categorization)|race]] in ghettos. Their analysis consists of the dominant racial group in the U.S. ([[White Anglo-Saxon Protestants]]) and their use of certain racist tactics in order to maintain their [[hegemony]] over black people and lengthen their spatial separation. Race-based theorists offset other arguments that focus on the influence of the [[economy]] on segregation. More contemporary research of race-based theorists is to frame a range of methods conducted by white Americans to "preserve race-based residential inequities" as a function of the dominantly white, state-run government. Involving uneven development, mortgage and business discrimination and disinvestment—U.S. ghettos then, as suggested by race-based theorists, are conserved by distinctly racial reasoning.{{Citation needed|date=November 2021}}

===== Class-based theories =====
The more dominant view, on the other hand, is represented by [[social class|class-based]] theorists. Such theories confirm class to be more important than race in the structuring of U.S. ghettos. Although racial concentration is a key signifier for ghettos, class-based theorists emphasize the role and impact of broader societal structures in the creation of African-American or Black ghettos. Dynamics of low-wage service and unemployment triggered from [[deindustrialization]], and the [[Intergenerationality|intergenerational]] diffusion of status within families and neighborhoods, for instance, prove the rise in socioeconomic polarization between classes to be the creator of American ghetto; not [[racism]].<ref>Shelton, Jason E. "Ghetto." ''Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society''. 2008. SAGE Knowledge. Web. 25 Oct. 2012.</ref> Furthermore, the [[culture of poverty]] theory, first developed by [[Oscar Lewis]], states that a prolonged history of poverty can itself become a cultural obstacle to socioeconomic success, and in turn can continue a pattern of socioeconomic polarization. Ghettos, in short, instill a cultural adaptation to social and class-based inequalities, reducing the ability of future generations to mobilize or [[Human migration|migrate]].<ref name="Fischer, Claude S. 2000" />

===== Alternative theory =====
An alternative theory put forward by [[Thomas Sowell]] in ''[[Black Rednecks and White Liberals]]'' asserts that modern urban black ghetto culture is rooted in the white [[Cracker (term)|Cracker]] culture of the [[North Britain|North Britons]] and [[Scotch-Irish Americans|Scots-Irish]] who migrated from the generally lawless [[Anglo-Scottish border|border]] regions of Britain to the American South, where they formed a [[redneck]] culture common to both black and white people in the [[antebellum South]]. Characteristics of this culture included lively music and dance, violence, unbridled emotions, flamboyant imagery, illegitimacy, religious oratory marked by strident rhetoric, and a lack of emphasis on education and intellectual interests.<ref name="Sowell">{{Cite journal | last = Sowell | first = Thomas | date = May 16, 2015 | title = Black Rednecks and White Liberals | url = http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/2005/05/black-rednecks-and-white-liberals/ | journal = Capitalism Magazine}}</ref> Because redneck culture proved counterproductive, "that culture long ago died out...among both white and black Southerners, while still surviving today in the poorest and worst of the urban black ghettos",<ref name="Nordlinger">{{Cite journal | last = Nordlinger | first = Jay | date = September 9, 2005 | title = "Black Rednecks and White Liberals", by Thomas Sowell | url = http://www.nationalreview.com/article/215370/chewing-nails-jay-nordlinger | journal = National Review}}</ref> which Sowell described as being characterized by "brawling, braggadocio, self-indulgence, [and] disregard of the future",<ref name="Nordlinger" /> and where "belligerence is considered being manly and crudity is considered cool, while being civilized is regarded as 'acting white'."<ref name="Sowell" /> Sowell blames liberal Americans who since the 1960s have embraced black ghetto culture as the only "'authentic' black culture and even glamorize it" while they "denounce any criticism of the ghetto lifestyle or any attempt to change it."<ref name="Sowell" /> Sowell asserts that white liberal Americans have perpetuated this "counterproductive and self-destructive lifestyle" among black Americans living in urban ghettos through "the welfare state, and look-the-other-way policing, and smiling at 'gangsta rap'."<ref name="Nordlinger" />