Have you ever felt like you were useless like you were constantly being put down

and
being restricted from living your life? A bully was probably the cause of this intolerable
pain. Well now imagine that a government structure did this to you. They placed you in a
subpar neighborhood that was overcrowded with copious amounts of other people who
didnt want to be in the situation that you were all placed in. Well sadly this does happen
and its known as ghettoization or in a more general term, its known as bullying. To
bully is to persecute, oppress, physically or morally, by (threat of) superior force;
frighten into or out of. (J.B. Sykes, 1976). Ghettoization is undoubtedly a form of
bullying.
A prime example of ghettoization occurring in history is the notoriously known case of
the Warsaw ghetto in Poland, which was set up under the Nazi regime for the Jewish
population. The largest ghetto in Poland was the Warsaw ghetto, where more than
400,000 Jews were crowded into an area of 1.3 square miles. (N/A, 2012). The
conditions of the Warsaw ghetto were particularly hard. So many people were crammed
together into such a small area; on average over 7 people shared one room. (N/A, 2012).
Almost everyone was dying of starvation because the food was so limited. Surely no one
wanted to live under these conditions but what choice did they have? The people of the
Warsaw ghetto were surrounded by a 10-foot wall covered with barbed wire to ensure no
one left. There is without a doubt bullying being done when the Nazis are physically
oppressing Jewish public into an area they did not wish to be with the threat of violence
to be handed out if they did not do what they were commanded to do.
Sadly this has occurred in our own society as well. After the Japanese bombed Pearl
Harbor on December 7th 1941 feeling of hate towards the Japanese was quickly on the
rise. To deal with the Japanese the Canadian government forced them to live in shanty
towns called Internment Camps with less than adequate living conditions akin to the
Warsaw ghetto. One of the lucky survivors of the Internment Camps recalls the horror
that he was forced to live through:
The walls of our shack were one layer of thin wooden board covered with twoply paper sandwiching a flimsy layer of tar. There was no ceiling below the roof.
In the winter, moisture condensed on the inside of the cold walls and turned to
ice. (Yukiharu Misuyabu, 2002)
In the overcrowded and disease-ridden Internment Camps, the Japanese were left to fend
for themselves in conditions that already put them a step behind. They were placed in
these awful ghettos against their wills and were not allowed to leave. The Japanese
people in the Internment Camps were being persecuted only of the fact that they were
Japanese, which directly correlates with what bullying is.
This act of senseless bullying, unfortunately, isnt too unpopular with our neighbors to
the South, The United States of America. When World War two started it created an

abundance of jobs for African Americans. As a result, millions of African-Americans

migrated from the South where the large majority of African Americans lived, to more
urban centers like Los Angeles. Tragically, however, Los Angeles implemented housing
codes that kept African Americans segregated from the white population in
neighborhoods that had such poor housing. They were crammed together in poorly
constructed houses to accommodate for the large amounts of people that werent as
valuable to society. There was a clear barrier for African Americans, Alameda Boulevard.
They were not allowed to cross Alameda Boulevard and if they did they were arrested by
cops and thrown back in their neighborhoods. This caused terrible feelings of
hopelessness for the African American population. And so you feel this sense of
alienation, youre culturally disoriented you dont have a sense of identity of who you
really are. (Ron Wilkins, 2010). Bullying was clearly being done here by Los Angeles to
African Americans because they were constantly being harassed and persecuted by police
and physically being dealt with.
Pathetically that was not the only time ghettoization has been implemented in Los
Angeles. Much like the African-American people of Los Angeles, the Latinos of Los
Angeles were only given certain neighborhoods, poor crowded ones mind you, that they
were allowed to live in. They were not allowed to live with Los Angeles white
population. Latinos in Los Angeles were designated the less privileged ghetto
neighborhoods of South Central, East Los Angeles and lastly Chavez Ravine (Luis
Rodriguez, 2010). Chavez Ravine was a dusty old ravine where Mexican Americans had
been appointed to reside for generations. That was until Walter OMalley decided to
move the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1959. Mr. OMalley bought the land from
the city with no say from the residents of Chavez Ravine. Suddenly everyone in Chavez
Ravine was homeless because the city did not make any effort to give the residents
somewhere else to live. Police forcefully removed the ones that did try to stay behind in
Chavez Ravine in protest to their mistreatment (Dolores Huerta, 2010). It is clear that the
Latinos that resided in Chavez Ravine were being bullied by Los Angeles by firstly
having to live in an impoverished ravine and secondly by being kicked out with no where
to go because they were of South American descent. Not recognizing ones value and
discriminating against them is unquestionably a harsh form of bullying that goes hand in
hand with the oppression that was being handed down to innocent Latinos based on their
racial background.
In contrast, some people will argue that ghettoization is nothing like bullying but yet a
push to keep communities of like people together. It was the famous Malcolm Xs
ideology to have blacks and white be separate but equal to have black-owned
businesses and black communities where blacks could thrive. With that mindset of
separate but equal ghettoization in not like bullying because it is working towards
strong communities with strong values and connectedness.
To bully someone is to make them feel like they are less than what they actually are, to

harass them, to force them to be in situations they dont want to and to carry out these
actions with consequences of violence if they are not followed. This is what government
systems enforced when they took up the despicable practice of ghettoization. Without
hesitation, ghettoization can be identified as a disgusting form of bullying.