I'm trying not to think the kitty is cute. Really I am. Not allowed at my apartment so he can't possibly be cute .

Ghetto is a socioeconomic term that refers to people living in the slums or the bad side of town mostly because of their income level. It was started in Italy to refer to where the Jews live and has nothing to do with African Americans innately. I guess if you live in the Jim Crow south they use it mostly to describe where there is a large population of poor black people but we don't specifically use it for race specifically in this part of WI that is mostly northern European. We have few black people to use racial slurs on where I live. In fact, there were none in any of my classes from kindergarten through high school. There's like 5 families now. I really just used it to refer to the fact that this kid is from a background of alcoholism, drugs and all that sort of stuff.